英文自修122：重新认识世界

本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站，朋友们也可以下载节目录音收听。

译者：Young

审读：武太白

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Thought for the Day 20140621 Brian Draper

I didn’t quite make it to Stonehenge, but I did rise early enough to watch the sun come up from a Hampshire hill, on this the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. The solstice used to feel like the domain of druids 德鲁伊教人士 and pagans 异教徒alone, but I think more of us, now, sense there’s something worth marking or celebrating, even if we can’t quite put our finger on why.

在北半球一年之中白昼最长的夏至这一天，我没能赶到巨石阵，不过我早早起床去汉普顿的山顶看了日出。过去，夏至日似乎是德鲁伊和异教徒的专属节日。不过，在我看来，现在有更多的人意识到夏至日值得庆祝，即使我们不清楚个中缘由。

Perhaps it’s a nostalgic yearning to reconnect with the rhythms, seasons and cycles of the natural world. Or to find our place in this universe which stretches all the way back to “in the beginning” - and which, if you take a theological point from the Biblical creation story, is a universe that was harmonious and good.

或许对重新感受四季更替的旋律和自然周而复始的变化的渴望具有怀旧的意味。又或是发现我们的世界一直延伸回归到最初那个从圣经创世纪的神学角度来看和谐而又美好的世界。

Whatever the reason, the light is an evocative spiritual theme. It’s often over-looked that in that story at the start of Genesis, God says “Let there be light!” well before he creates the sun, moon and stars. As the prologue to John’s Gospel elaborates: “What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.” Enlightenment, if you like, from the start. Illumination. Radiance.

无论如何，光是具有呼唤性的精神力量。世界起源之初，早在还没有创造出太阳、月亮和群星之前上帝就说：“要有光。”这一点常常被忽视。《新约·约翰福音》的序言有详细的描述：诞生的是生命，但生命离不开光。如果你愿意，也可以说是从一开始就受到启蒙。照耀，发光。

There is so much darkness in our world - this week is no exception, of course - that it’s easy to focus all of our anxious attention upon it, and to find ourselves constantly fearful and out of kilter, as a result. The darkness can feel so much more powerful. But it doesn’t mean the light, that original radiance, is not there, if we train ourselves to see it...

世界上有太多的黑暗，当然，本周也不例外。我们很容易把自己的焦虑情绪锁定其上，念念不忘，结果常常使自己陷入担忧和错乱的境地，因而更觉得黑暗的强大。但这并不意味着光这一原始的光芒并不存在，只要我们训练自己去发现它。

As the priest and author Richard Rohr suggests, “We have spent centuries of philosophy trying to solve ‘the problem of evil’, yet the more ... confounding issue is how we account for so much goodness in this world.”

正如身为牧师和作家的理查德·罗尔所说，“哲学花了千百年的时间试图说明邪恶是怎么一回事，但是更令人困惑的问题是，我们该怎样解释世界中如此之多的善良。”

And there is always goodness breaking out around us, if we stop to take account. The kindness of strangers, the selflessness of aid workers, the heroism of rescue teams, and all sorts of ordinary people, shining their light.

如果我们停下来想一想，就会发现周围总是不断出现善良。陌生人的友好，救援人员的无私，救援队的英勇，所有这些普通人的身上都闪耀着光芒。

Put it another way, and we might wonder, what if the universe wasn’t a battle-ground to conquer, or a problem to be solved, as we so often see it, but a place of original goodness and blessing for us to rediscover instead?

换言之，我们常常以为世界是个有待征服的战场，有问题需要解决，如果世界并非如此，而是一个本来就充满善意和祝福，需要人们重新认识的世界呢？

That would surely be something to celebrate - it would change the way we lived! - and maybe that’s in part why the party’s in full swing down at Stonehenge. The ancients may have known something we've forgotten, as they gathered for the dawning of their solstice. But it shouldn’t stop us looking positively to the light, today - and from being thankful, at the very least, for all the goodness that comes our way.

那就确实值得庆贺，它将改变我们的生活方式。这也就部分解释了人们为何会情绪高涨地聚集在巨石阵。古人或许知道我们已经遗忘的东西，因而他们聚集起来迎接夏至日的来临。但今天，这不应该阻碍我们满怀感恩之心坚定地去依靠光。最起码是为了我们收到的一切善意。