小时候听格里格的培尔金特，最喜欢的就是《索尔维格之歌》这一段。但是从来没有试图去明白歌词和故事的背景。大约知道培尔金特是个浪子。白桦有人贴了几个《索尔维格之歌》的版本，重新听来仍然感动。于是去了维基，把培尔金特的故事看了一遍。在最后一幕，培尔金特垂垂老矣，回到故乡，面对自己的过往--未竟之业，未唱之歌，未擦之泪，未问之问题，他无法回答神的审判。这时他只有找到他年轻时的恋人索尔维格，询问他自己的过犯。但是索尔维格回答说，“你没有过犯，我最亲爱的孩子。”培尔大惑，他坚信自己确实沉沦了，于是他问她，“自我们最后相会之后，培尔金特流浪到何方？那个真实而完全的我，前额有神的印记的我，那本该是我的我在哪里？” 她回答说，“在我的信，望，爱里。”
Perchance both winter and spring will pass,
and next summer, and the entire year: —
but at last you will come, that I know for sure;
and I'll still be waiting, for I once promised I would.
God give you strength, wherever in the world you go!
God give you joy, when you stand before his judgement seat!
Here I'll wait until you come again;
and if you are waiting up above, there we'll meet, my love!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Reactions to a tragedy
Opened my email inbox this morning, there were many emails from parents of T's class about the tragic accident yesterday. Room parents suggested to have kids writing cards and sending little gifts to Kyla and her little sister; some suggested to have a food basket sent to the hospital where they stay. By the end of the day, LKE sent out email to the community notifying a fund was set up for the family. T and I went to the store after he swimming class bought some gifts too.
I was touched again by how people here express their grieves and sympathy when dealing with difficulty situations. It reminds me the first sympathy card I got when I came back to US after mourning for my mother's pass. The gesture of showing sympathy not only made me feel a connection with others, which I desperately needed at the moment, it actually helped me move on.
I was touched again by how people here express their grieves and sympathy when dealing with difficulty situations. It reminds me the first sympathy card I got when I came back to US after mourning for my mother's pass. The gesture of showing sympathy not only made me feel a connection with others, which I desperately needed at the moment, it actually helped me move on.
Monday, November 14, 2011
"Bad News and Good News" Day
Got a phone call this morning from T's school that there was a student in her class got involved in a traffic accident, at which her mom and older sister (a third grader at the same school) got killed. I was shocked to say the least. Checked the local news website, the images were horrific. The SUV top was almost flattened. The lady over the phone reassured me that they have teachers and counselors talk to kids, parents are welcome to come to school to talk to their kids too.
I debated if I should go to T's school, but decided not to. It makes more sense to see kid's reaction before taking any actions. At 3:30pm as usual, I waited outside the school anxiously. T came out with her normal demeanor. I hold her hand and said "tell me about your day." She said, "I have bad news and good news."
"Tell me about the bad news first."
"Kyla's sister got killed in a car accident." She said in a matter of fact voice. "But Kyla was OK."
"I heard that too. It's very sad." I commented. She nodded.
"What's the good news then?"
"I had a wonderful day!" T said cheerfully. It made me LOL. Kids are a lot more resilient than we have thought.
On the way home, we talked more about Kyle and reactions of her teacher and fellow students She said "we should pray for Kyla and her family." "Most definitely!" I said.
I debated if I should go to T's school, but decided not to. It makes more sense to see kid's reaction before taking any actions. At 3:30pm as usual, I waited outside the school anxiously. T came out with her normal demeanor. I hold her hand and said "tell me about your day." She said, "I have bad news and good news."
"Tell me about the bad news first."
"Kyla's sister got killed in a car accident." She said in a matter of fact voice. "But Kyla was OK."
"I heard that too. It's very sad." I commented. She nodded.
"What's the good news then?"
"I had a wonderful day!" T said cheerfully. It made me LOL. Kids are a lot more resilient than we have thought.
On the way home, we talked more about Kyle and reactions of her teacher and fellow students She said "we should pray for Kyla and her family." "Most definitely!" I said.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
换地板
10月上旬开始这个换起居室木地板的项目，整整拖了快一个月！前后返工两次，最后给K下了最后通牒，必须在感恩节前完工。昨天自己跑到油漆店挑了油漆，今天下午上过色之后，和想象的差不多，终于松了一口气。原来的sand mark也有很大的改善。关键是老的白橡木和新的红橡木上色后差别不大，整体感出来了。最后再坚持两天上了topcoat就大功告成了。这中间学到的经验教训是，对任何许诺都应该持怀疑态度，自动把原定的工程时间加2倍。下次他再提任何工程的建议，首先给出一个详细的日程进度来。
Saturday, November 12, 2011
教育与就业
周五单位里的几个女孩一起吃饭，说起孩子的教育问题，大家都有很多感悟。WW的儿子9岁自己要求学钢琴，并且很喜欢，他只有两个课外活动，两个他都很喜欢；她的女儿也非常独立。QJ的女儿今年进了哈佛，她的女儿是个独特的孩子，从中学起就选修了很多社区学院的才艺课程，这些才艺在学校中用上了，参加校报，辩论队，后来又参加了很多全国性团体的活动，在州一级得了不少奖。虽然她的理科不是很强，标准考试也不是最突出，但是她在她的强项上脱颖而出，如意进入自己的理想大学。
下午送T去芭蕾排练的路上，听到NPR一个关于教育和就业的报道，在当前的经济状况下，大学毕业生面临暗淡的就业前景，很多非实用专业的毕业生很难找到工作。看来让孩子在自己的爱好特长和专业前景上找到一个平衡点非常重要。这个报道是根据乔治城大学的教育与就业中心最新的报告。
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/stem-complete.pdf
这个报告中的抓住我眼球的几点：
下午送T去芭蕾排练的路上，听到NPR一个关于教育和就业的报道，在当前的经济状况下，大学毕业生面临暗淡的就业前景，很多非实用专业的毕业生很难找到工作。看来让孩子在自己的爱好特长和专业前景上找到一个平衡点非常重要。这个报道是根据乔治城大学的教育与就业中心最新的报告。
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/stem-complete.pdf
这个报告中的抓住我眼球的几点：
- Our STEM analysis also includes state-bystate data. By state, we find that Washington, D.C., has the highest proportion of STEM jobs nationwide, while California has the highest number of STEM jobs. The states with the fastest rates of STEM growth are Virginia, Nevada, and Utah。
- STEM earnings advantages are high and growing faster than wages for similarly-educated workers—except workers in Healthcare Professional and Managerial and Professional occupations （还是医生和管理人员挣得多）
- 行业工资的数据
- 老外占STEM workers巨大百分比。
- 2018年的成长趋势 （婴儿潮一代的退休）
Friday, November 11, 2011
Lucretius：On the Nature of Things
今天读纽约客上的The Answer Man by Stephen Greenblatt, 关于Titus Lucretius's On the Nature of Things. 其中有几段有意思的。
原子--
“On the Nature of Things” is clearly the work of a disciple who is transmitting ideas that had been developed in Greece centuries earlier. Epicurus was Lucretius’ philosophical messiah, and his vision may be traced to a single incandescent idea: that everything that has ever existed and everything that will ever exist is put together out of what the Roman poet called “the seeds of things,” indestructible building blocks, irreducibly small in size, unimaginably vast in number. The Greeks had a word for these invisible building blocks, things that, as they conceived them, could not be divided any further: atoms.
世界--
The stuff of the universe, Lucretius proposed, is an infinite number of atoms moving randomly through space, like dust motes in a sunbeam, colliding, hooking together, forming complex structures, breaking apart again, in a ceaseless process of creation and destruction. There is no escape from this process. When we look up at the night sky and marvel at the numberless stars, we are not seeing the handiwork of the gods or a crystalline sphere. We are seeing the same material world of which we are a part and from whose elements we are made. There is no master plan, no divine architect, no intelligent design. Nature restlessly experiments, and we are simply one among the innumerable results: “We are all sprung from celestial seed; all have that same father, from whom our fostering mother earth receives liquid drops of water, and then teeming brings forth bright corn and luxuriant trees and the race of mankind, brings forth all the generations of wild beasts, providing food with which all nourish their bodies and lead a sweet life and beget their offspring.”
All things, including the species to which we belong, have evolved over vast stretches of time. The evolution is random, though in the case of living organisms it involves a principle of natural selection. That is, species that are suited to survive and to reproduce successfully endure, at least for a time; those which are not so well suited die off quickly. Other species existed and vanished before we came onto the scene; our kind, too, will vanish one day. Nothing—from our own species to the sun—lasts forever. Only the atoms are immortal.
In a universe so constituted, Lucretius argued, it is absurd to think that the earth and its inhabitants occupy a central place, or that the world was purpose-built to accommodate human beings: “The child, like a sailor cast forth by the cruel waves, lies naked upon the ground, speechless, in need of every kind of vital support, as soon as nature has spilt him forth with throes from his mother’s womb into the regions of light.” There is no reason to set humans apart from other animals, no hope of bribing or appeasing the gods, no place for religious fanaticism, no call for ascetic self-denial, no justification for dreams of limitless power or perfect security, no rationale for wars of conquest or self-aggrandizement, no possibility of triumphing over nature. Instead, he wrote, human beings should conquer their fears, accept the fact that they themselves and all the things they encounter are transitory, and embrace the beauty and the pleasure of the world.
死亡--
So, when our mortal frame shall be disjoin’d,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not be.
Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were lost,
We should not move, we only should be toss’d.
Nay, e’en suppose when we have suffer’d fate
The soul should feel in her divided state,
What’s that to us? for we are only we,
While souls and bodies in one frame agree.
Nay, though our atoms should revolve by chance,
And matter leap into the former dance;
Though time our life and motion could restore,
And make our bodies what they were before,
What gain to us would all this bustle bring?
The new-made man would be another thing.
最后一段作者个人的回应--
All the same, in the great Laurentian Library, surrounded by the achievements of Renaissance Florence, I felt the full force of what this ancient Roman poet had bequeathed to the world, a tortuous trail that led from the celebration of Venus, past broken columns, high-domed churches, and inquisitorial fires, toward Jefferson, Darwin, and Einstein. And I registered, too, what Lucretius had given to me personally: the means to elude the suffocating grasp of my mother’s fears and the encouragement to take deep pleasure in my brief time on the shores of light.
一个注脚--
The brilliant French astronomer, philosopher, and priest Pierre Gassendi devoted himself to an ambitious attempt to reconcile Epicureanism and Christianity
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_greenblatt?currentPage=all
原子--
“On the Nature of Things” is clearly the work of a disciple who is transmitting ideas that had been developed in Greece centuries earlier. Epicurus was Lucretius’ philosophical messiah, and his vision may be traced to a single incandescent idea: that everything that has ever existed and everything that will ever exist is put together out of what the Roman poet called “the seeds of things,” indestructible building blocks, irreducibly small in size, unimaginably vast in number. The Greeks had a word for these invisible building blocks, things that, as they conceived them, could not be divided any further: atoms.
世界--
The stuff of the universe, Lucretius proposed, is an infinite number of atoms moving randomly through space, like dust motes in a sunbeam, colliding, hooking together, forming complex structures, breaking apart again, in a ceaseless process of creation and destruction. There is no escape from this process. When we look up at the night sky and marvel at the numberless stars, we are not seeing the handiwork of the gods or a crystalline sphere. We are seeing the same material world of which we are a part and from whose elements we are made. There is no master plan, no divine architect, no intelligent design. Nature restlessly experiments, and we are simply one among the innumerable results: “We are all sprung from celestial seed; all have that same father, from whom our fostering mother earth receives liquid drops of water, and then teeming brings forth bright corn and luxuriant trees and the race of mankind, brings forth all the generations of wild beasts, providing food with which all nourish their bodies and lead a sweet life and beget their offspring.”
All things, including the species to which we belong, have evolved over vast stretches of time. The evolution is random, though in the case of living organisms it involves a principle of natural selection. That is, species that are suited to survive and to reproduce successfully endure, at least for a time; those which are not so well suited die off quickly. Other species existed and vanished before we came onto the scene; our kind, too, will vanish one day. Nothing—from our own species to the sun—lasts forever. Only the atoms are immortal.
In a universe so constituted, Lucretius argued, it is absurd to think that the earth and its inhabitants occupy a central place, or that the world was purpose-built to accommodate human beings: “The child, like a sailor cast forth by the cruel waves, lies naked upon the ground, speechless, in need of every kind of vital support, as soon as nature has spilt him forth with throes from his mother’s womb into the regions of light.” There is no reason to set humans apart from other animals, no hope of bribing or appeasing the gods, no place for religious fanaticism, no call for ascetic self-denial, no justification for dreams of limitless power or perfect security, no rationale for wars of conquest or self-aggrandizement, no possibility of triumphing over nature. Instead, he wrote, human beings should conquer their fears, accept the fact that they themselves and all the things they encounter are transitory, and embrace the beauty and the pleasure of the world.
死亡--
So, when our mortal frame shall be disjoin’d,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not be.
Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were lost,
We should not move, we only should be toss’d.
Nay, e’en suppose when we have suffer’d fate
The soul should feel in her divided state,
What’s that to us? for we are only we,
While souls and bodies in one frame agree.
Nay, though our atoms should revolve by chance,
And matter leap into the former dance;
Though time our life and motion could restore,
And make our bodies what they were before,
What gain to us would all this bustle bring?
The new-made man would be another thing.
最后一段作者个人的回应--
All the same, in the great Laurentian Library, surrounded by the achievements of Renaissance Florence, I felt the full force of what this ancient Roman poet had bequeathed to the world, a tortuous trail that led from the celebration of Venus, past broken columns, high-domed churches, and inquisitorial fires, toward Jefferson, Darwin, and Einstein. And I registered, too, what Lucretius had given to me personally: the means to elude the suffocating grasp of my mother’s fears and the encouragement to take deep pleasure in my brief time on the shores of light.
一个注脚--
The brilliant French astronomer, philosopher, and priest Pierre Gassendi devoted himself to an ambitious attempt to reconcile Epicureanism and Christianity
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_greenblatt?currentPage=all
Thursday, November 10, 2011
史华慈，卢梭和文革
最近白桦在讨论毛泽东和文化大革命的思想源流，有人搬出史华慈（Benjamin I. Schwartz）1968和1978年的著作，试图梳理“毛泽东发动“文革”运动的直接动因，虽不能排除政治上层权力再分配的因素，但在深层理论的角度上，更应当被看作是自法国启蒙运动以来，以卢梭为代表的“道德主义取向”和以百科全书派为代表的“工程主义取向”之间理论冲突的持续反映。同时，在比较思想史的框架下，史华慈又认为，卢梭思想的某一方面与中国孟子思想的某一方面，也发生了普遍的共鸣。” （萧延中）。
有人说卢梭是开启一个时代的伟人，我对他的思想源头比较感兴趣。早上有空，看了维基上关于他的条目，真的很复杂。他是日内瓦新教出身，却因人生际遇在青春期改信天主教。他游学意大利，法国，最终回到日内瓦，回归新教。私德方面，可以说惨不忍睹，竟然可以名正言顺地抛弃自己的儿子。著述却流行于王公贵胄，贩夫走卒之中。他的社会契约论不光影响了后来的法国启蒙运动，更是为后来的雅各宾派，黑格尔，和马克思提供了理论的框架。王元化提到霍布斯对卢梭的影响。维基里则提到他受Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michel De Montaigne, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Barbeyrac, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, Denis Diderot影响；且影响了Kant, The French Revolution, Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, The Counter-Enlightenment, Fichte, Hegel, Goethe, Alexis de Tocqueville, Friedrich Nietzsche, Romanticism, Paine, Comte, Bolívar, Marx, Engels, Derrida, Paul de Man, Benedetto Croce, Galvano Della Volpe, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Leo Strauss, Mary Shelley, Émile Durkheim, Mikhail Bakunin, Maria Montessori, Leo Tolstoy, John Rawls, Juan José Castelli, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk。
史华慈的论述以前没有接触过，这是他的主要著作，以后有时间慢慢来读。
Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (1951)
In search of wealth and power: Yen Fu and the West (1964)
Communism and China; ideology in flux (1968)
The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985)
The secret speeches of Chairman Mao : from the hundred flowers to the great leap forward by Zedong Mao (1989)
Reflections on the May Fourth movement: a symposium (1972)
China's Cultural Values (1985)
China and other matters (1996)
有人说卢梭是开启一个时代的伟人，我对他的思想源头比较感兴趣。早上有空，看了维基上关于他的条目，真的很复杂。他是日内瓦新教出身，却因人生际遇在青春期改信天主教。他游学意大利，法国，最终回到日内瓦，回归新教。私德方面，可以说惨不忍睹，竟然可以名正言顺地抛弃自己的儿子。著述却流行于王公贵胄，贩夫走卒之中。他的社会契约论不光影响了后来的法国启蒙运动，更是为后来的雅各宾派，黑格尔，和马克思提供了理论的框架。王元化提到霍布斯对卢梭的影响。维基里则提到他受Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michel De Montaigne, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Barbeyrac, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, Denis Diderot影响；且影响了Kant, The French Revolution, Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, The Counter-Enlightenment, Fichte, Hegel, Goethe, Alexis de Tocqueville, Friedrich Nietzsche, Romanticism, Paine, Comte, Bolívar, Marx, Engels, Derrida, Paul de Man, Benedetto Croce, Galvano Della Volpe, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Leo Strauss, Mary Shelley, Émile Durkheim, Mikhail Bakunin, Maria Montessori, Leo Tolstoy, John Rawls, Juan José Castelli, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk。
史华慈的论述以前没有接触过，这是他的主要著作，以后有时间慢慢来读。
Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (1951)
In search of wealth and power: Yen Fu and the West (1964)
Communism and China; ideology in flux (1968)
The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985)
The secret speeches of Chairman Mao : from the hundred flowers to the great leap forward by Zedong Mao (1989)
Reflections on the May Fourth movement: a symposium (1972)
China's Cultural Values (1985)
China and other matters (1996)
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
忧愁河之桥
高中的时候，他坐在我后面，虽然男女生不说话，但我脑后的眼睛知道他在关注我的一举一动。毕业的时候，他送我的礼物是他画的低头沉思的我，背景是忧愁河之桥的乐谱。他身上有我喜欢的敏锐和诗意的气息。他去了武汉读哲学，我在上海读文学，我们常常通信，他是我珍惜的知己。很快我爱上了别人，虽然很清楚他一直在等我。每次寒暑假回家，我们总是马上去看对方，交流各自的经历，但是我总是小心避免与他谈感情。毕业之后，我们重回故乡，一群死党仍然常常在一起，很多时候他沉静地看我高谈阔论，只是目光不再热切，添了一些深沉。唯一一次在我情感的空白之中，一度想做他的女朋友，但是立刻发现他只能是我的好朋友。之后我出国读书，成家，做母亲；他结婚，离婚，再婚，做父亲。我们像两个轨道上的行星，再无交集。
周末收到姐姐的E,"告诉你一个不好的消息”，是她的标题。我在不安中打开邮件，结果看到他出差车祸去世的消息。我在网上徒劳地搜索，想知道车祸的详情，在好几条关于他的新闻中，看到一张他和同事的照片，日期就是他车祸的头一天。他的样子，仍是我熟悉的。
熬到早上，拨通中国的电话，那头是他的同桌，死党之一，他诧异不已。我开口提到他的名字，多少年来小心关上的记忆闸门一下子被眼泪冲开。只能重复一句话，“为什么会这样？！”
他曾送给我一句泰戈尔的诗：“使生如夏花之绚烂，死如秋叶之静美”。我们相识在青春的盛夏，如今他真的如秋叶般飘离，让我真切体味生命的四季。
When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all
I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I'll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
周末收到姐姐的E,"告诉你一个不好的消息”，是她的标题。我在不安中打开邮件，结果看到他出差车祸去世的消息。我在网上徒劳地搜索，想知道车祸的详情，在好几条关于他的新闻中，看到一张他和同事的照片，日期就是他车祸的头一天。他的样子，仍是我熟悉的。
熬到早上，拨通中国的电话，那头是他的同桌，死党之一，他诧异不已。我开口提到他的名字，多少年来小心关上的记忆闸门一下子被眼泪冲开。只能重复一句话，“为什么会这样？！”
他曾送给我一句泰戈尔的诗：“使生如夏花之绚烂，死如秋叶之静美”。我们相识在青春的盛夏，如今他真的如秋叶般飘离，让我真切体味生命的四季。
When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all
I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I'll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
再提笔
很久没有写东西了。今天得闲去XYW的博克，看到她几年如一日的勤恳耕耘。她的窍门也就是我原来所用的小段时间管理法，还有奇妙的笔记本，对我有很大的触动。前几天CL也来E谈到重返书桌，让我觉得当是重新提笔的时候了。
今早在给孩子们记录progress的时候，想到这应当成为每月做的事情。不单是把他们的成长点滴保存下来，更可以检查目标与计划的实效。在这样内省与回顾的时候，更发现这些孩子们是多么的可爱与可贵。
下班和T一起复习中文，她更喜欢这样两人亲密学习的方式。也许该改变光依靠教科书的方式了。她的中文学习与我订的目标还是有很大的差距，需要更多的投入和灵活的方式。
晚饭终于吃上了成功的翠花排骨，这是我们第四次的实验。原来窍门是密封。对我来说，湿料还可以减一点。
晚上和孩子们读故事书，美国的儿童读物真是不同，把小孩子的成长经历都编在故事里了。也许我也应该开始写儿童读物。
今早在给孩子们记录progress的时候，想到这应当成为每月做的事情。不单是把他们的成长点滴保存下来，更可以检查目标与计划的实效。在这样内省与回顾的时候，更发现这些孩子们是多么的可爱与可贵。
下班和T一起复习中文，她更喜欢这样两人亲密学习的方式。也许该改变光依靠教科书的方式了。她的中文学习与我订的目标还是有很大的差距，需要更多的投入和灵活的方式。
晚饭终于吃上了成功的翠花排骨，这是我们第四次的实验。原来窍门是密封。对我来说，湿料还可以减一点。
晚上和孩子们读故事书，美国的儿童读物真是不同，把小孩子的成长经历都编在故事里了。也许我也应该开始写儿童读物。
Monday, August 01, 2011
Last Words
在面对死亡的时候，我们会对世界说什么？我们最后的遗言是什么？这是一个本笃教会的修士在死亡临近的时候的遗言。
The testament of Christian de Chergé
When an “A-DIEU” takes on a face.
If it should happen one day—and it could be today—
that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf
all the foreigners living in Algeria,
I would like my community, my Church, my family,
to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.
I ask them to accept that the Sole Master of all life
was not a stranger to this brutal departure.
I ask them to pray for me—
for how could I be found worthy of such an offering?
I ask them to be able to link this death with the many other deaths which
were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity.
My life has no more value than any other.
Nor any less value.
In any case it has not the innocence of childhood.
I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil
which seems, alas, to prevail in the world,
even in that which would strike me blindly.
I should like, when the time comes, to have the moment of lucidity
which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God
and of my fellow human beings,
and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me
down.
I could not desire such a death.
It seems important to state this.
I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice
if the people I love were to be accused indiscriminately of my murder.
To owe it to an Algerian, whoever he may be,
would be too high a price to pay for what will, perhaps, be called, the “grace of martyrdom,”
especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.
I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on Algerians indiscriminately.
I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism encourages.
It is too easy to salve one’s conscience
By identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideologies of the extremists.
For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: they are a body and a soul.
I have proclaimed this often enough, I believe, in the sure knowledge of what I have received from it,
finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel,
learnt at my mother’s knee, my very first Church,
already in Algeria itself, in the respect of believing Muslims.
My death, clearly, will appear to justify
those who hastily judged me naïve, or idealistic:
“Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!”
But these people must realize that my avid curiosity will then be satisfied.
This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills—
immerse my gaze in that of the Father,
and contemplate with him his children of Islam just as he sees them,
all shining with the glory of Christ,
the fruit of His Passion, and filled with the Gift of the Spirit,
whose secret joy will always be to establish communion
and to refashion the likeness, playfully delighting in the differences.
For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs,
I thank God who seems to have willed it entirely
for the sake of that joy in everything and in spite of everything.
In this THANK YOU, which sums up my whole life to this moment,
I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today,
and you, my friends of this place,
along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families,
the hundredfold granted as was promised!
And also you, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing.
Yes, I also say this THANK YOU and this A-DIEU to you, in whom I see the face of God.
And may we find each other, happy good thieves, in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen. In sha ‘Allah.
Algiers, December 1, 1993 – Tibhirine, January 1, 1994
The testament of Christian de Chergé
When an “A-DIEU” takes on a face.
If it should happen one day—and it could be today—
that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf
all the foreigners living in Algeria,
I would like my community, my Church, my family,
to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.
I ask them to accept that the Sole Master of all life
was not a stranger to this brutal departure.
I ask them to pray for me—
for how could I be found worthy of such an offering?
I ask them to be able to link this death with the many other deaths which
were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity.
My life has no more value than any other.
Nor any less value.
In any case it has not the innocence of childhood.
I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil
which seems, alas, to prevail in the world,
even in that which would strike me blindly.
I should like, when the time comes, to have the moment of lucidity
which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God
and of my fellow human beings,
and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me
down.
I could not desire such a death.
It seems important to state this.
I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice
if the people I love were to be accused indiscriminately of my murder.
To owe it to an Algerian, whoever he may be,
would be too high a price to pay for what will, perhaps, be called, the “grace of martyrdom,”
especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.
I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on Algerians indiscriminately.
I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism encourages.
It is too easy to salve one’s conscience
By identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideologies of the extremists.
For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: they are a body and a soul.
I have proclaimed this often enough, I believe, in the sure knowledge of what I have received from it,
finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel,
learnt at my mother’s knee, my very first Church,
already in Algeria itself, in the respect of believing Muslims.
My death, clearly, will appear to justify
those who hastily judged me naïve, or idealistic:
“Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!”
But these people must realize that my avid curiosity will then be satisfied.
This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills—
immerse my gaze in that of the Father,
and contemplate with him his children of Islam just as he sees them,
all shining with the glory of Christ,
the fruit of His Passion, and filled with the Gift of the Spirit,
whose secret joy will always be to establish communion
and to refashion the likeness, playfully delighting in the differences.
For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs,
I thank God who seems to have willed it entirely
for the sake of that joy in everything and in spite of everything.
In this THANK YOU, which sums up my whole life to this moment,
I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today,
and you, my friends of this place,
along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families,
the hundredfold granted as was promised!
And also you, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing.
Yes, I also say this THANK YOU and this A-DIEU to you, in whom I see the face of God.
And may we find each other, happy good thieves, in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen. In sha ‘Allah.
Algiers, December 1, 1993 – Tibhirine, January 1, 1994
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Mother's Day
My Mother's Day experience actually started on Friday.
T brought home some special posters she made at school but didn't want me to see. She also told me she has something special for me on Mother's day. At evening I started cleaning the room for Bible study, so I emptied her school bag before I put it in closet. From one of her folder I took out a picture she drew, in which there are two girls, one is me and the other is T, it has Happy Mother's Day on it. I knew this must be the secret she wants to keep from me.
Before dinner T started looking for her school bag. She got very upset when I told her what I did. Obviously Mother's Day gift meant a lot to her. I have never felt so bad in my life. She came around only after I apologized.
Saturday night, she told me not to wake up too early next morning since she and Dad will make me some breakfast. Sunday morning she came to my bed with a box of things, two school posters special for Mother's day, the card she made for me and some hearts and flower drawings she had done in the morning. We then had pancake and strawberries as breakfast. This is my most pampered Mother’s Day so far :)
T brought home some special posters she made at school but didn't want me to see. She also told me she has something special for me on Mother's day. At evening I started cleaning the room for Bible study, so I emptied her school bag before I put it in closet. From one of her folder I took out a picture she drew, in which there are two girls, one is me and the other is T, it has Happy Mother's Day on it. I knew this must be the secret she wants to keep from me.
Before dinner T started looking for her school bag. She got very upset when I told her what I did. Obviously Mother's Day gift meant a lot to her. I have never felt so bad in my life. She came around only after I apologized.
Saturday night, she told me not to wake up too early next morning since she and Dad will make me some breakfast. Sunday morning she came to my bed with a box of things, two school posters special for Mother's day, the card she made for me and some hearts and flower drawings she had done in the morning. We then had pancake and strawberries as breakfast. This is my most pampered Mother’s Day so far :)
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
学中文
期末在即，上周给恬复习中文，这个学期所学的竟然只记住了5，6个字。除了检讨自己的督促不力之外，更深感中文学校的无用。看来还是靠人不如靠己，这个暑假正好是一个可以做实验的时候，到时候看看自己教是不是会效果好一点。在网上搜了一通，发现国内的教材和网站都很齐全，只要自己制定一个教学的纲要，找一些资料，应该不是很难。自己过去也编过教中文的软件，有的东西真的还可以再拾起来，用在自己的孩子身上。 昨晚也给恬做了一次K班的数学技能测试，她除了认钱和10以内的减法差一点以外，其他还好。
管理自己孩子的学习其实真的可以作为一项事业来做的。
纪姊妹送来一则邮件，其中有BAD(Bossy, Angry, Distant)和FAT(Faithful, Available, Transparent)的父母风格，可以引以为戒。
管理自己孩子的学习其实真的可以作为一项事业来做的。
纪姊妹送来一则邮件，其中有BAD(Bossy, Angry, Distant)和FAT(Faithful, Available, Transparent)的父母风格，可以引以为戒。
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
读书
昨晚吃完晚饭时间还早，就带了小朋友去了社区图书馆。T找到两本书， Mouse Shapes, The Giving Tree, 坐在小桌子旁边就开始旁若无人大声朗读起来。让我吃惊的是她基本没有几个不会读的字。看来最近半年的进步很大。回想起自己6岁的时候刚刚开始接触读书，直接从小人书过渡到字书，放假的时候，妈妈带我去上班，我就在图书馆的书库里消磨一整天。希望T也能和我一样在读书中发现一个更有趣的世界。
暑假还没有开始，我为T做暑假计划也好一阵了。昨天决定让她每天读一本书。
暑假还没有开始，我为T做暑假计划也好一阵了。昨天决定让她每天读一本书。
Thursday, April 21, 2011
生与死
Wrote these today in response to Moo's email about Death.
----------------------------
14 years ago I experienced my first “death touch” after lost my mom to an accident. I spent months in vein trying to make sense the meaning of it. Life to me, at that moment, was meaningless and irredeemable if death is the ultimate purpose. I remembered one evening I was sitting on a hill overlooking the port city Debuque, watching the sun setting on Mississippi River; it dawned on me that in the grand scheme of things life never ceases to exist. As sun will rise again in tomorrow, life will rise again from death and transcend it.
Some years later, my mom came to my dream soon after my baptism, we had a vivid conversation that I still remember today. She told me exactly the same thing I read in the scripture - “It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-57)
Looking back, I can say my spiritual awakening was born from her death.
----------------------------
14 years ago I experienced my first “death touch” after lost my mom to an accident. I spent months in vein trying to make sense the meaning of it. Life to me, at that moment, was meaningless and irredeemable if death is the ultimate purpose. I remembered one evening I was sitting on a hill overlooking the port city Debuque, watching the sun setting on Mississippi River; it dawned on me that in the grand scheme of things life never ceases to exist. As sun will rise again in tomorrow, life will rise again from death and transcend it.
Some years later, my mom came to my dream soon after my baptism, we had a vivid conversation that I still remember today. She told me exactly the same thing I read in the scripture - “It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-57)
Looking back, I can say my spiritual awakening was born from her death.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
10分钟！
在我6岁以前的记忆中，我不记得自己认字读书。 在那个时代的幼儿园里，我们有的是强迫的午睡，无尽的玩耍时间。到我女儿的时代，她在学前班就开始认字了，家里更是成架的儿童图书。尽管如此，做父母的恐惧还是怕她落在人后，恨不得她能学每一样才艺，读书写字都比人强。 看看周围的孩子，确实是有这样超强的孩子，我们团契有6岁就能读圣经的孩子，她班上的韩国女孩，写的句子都没有一点拼写问题。想了一段时间，似乎我唯一能做的就是每天每个主题抽10分钟的时间帮她练习， 因为我相信熟能生巧，勤能补拙，铁杵磨针。
10分钟！
10分钟！
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
和女儿吃午餐
和女儿吃午餐
2010-10-02 15:15:52
女儿央求了好几次，“妈咪，你什么时候来学校和我一起吃午餐。”这个周五，终于挤出时间11点多赶到学校。门口签到的时候，注意到签到本上已经有10多个家长的签名，果然，走廊里还有提着外卖便当的家长，也有爷爷奶奶样子的。看来，和小朋友一起吃午饭的家长还不少。
女儿的班级已经在食堂里来吃了，她和四个女孩坐在靠窗的条桌上，看见我来，高兴地飞跑过来给我一个熊抱。我东张西望，发现女儿班的S老师不在食堂，有2，3个不认识的老师在。原来班主任有自己的午餐时间。看看女儿的盘子，里面有一个玉米狗，一个小苹果和一小盒桔子汁。自己拿了盘子去柜台一看，东西还很多，除了玉米狗，主食还有小鸡快，皮萨包，副食有青豆，土豆泥，水果还有草莓，香蕉，饮料还有牛奶，苹果汁等。柜台后的服务员告诉我还有金枪鱼三文治，估计是给我这样的家长预备的。拿了吃的去结账，服务员找到女儿的卡刷上，一共3块钱。
坐在女儿边上，她的小朋友都围过来，七嘴八舌跟我打招呼，我看到有的孩子盘子里放了不少东西，女儿吃的实在太少了！再看他们吃饭的样子，和聚餐会上的大人们一样，连吃带聊的，嘴不带闲着的。10分钟后，老师打铃，女儿说午休时间到了，胡乱啃了几口玉米狗，就跟小朋友跑了，剩在盘子里的还有大半个苹果和小半截玉米狗。旁边还有几个孩子的盘子里也还有好多食物。
真是不吃不知道，一吃吓一跳，原来女儿的午餐有这么多的问题。下午去接她的时候，我赶紧嘱咐她，除了主食，果汁，水果以外，每天还要拿一个蔬菜和一盒牛奶；吃饭的时候不要光顾着和小朋友玩。同时自己心想，看来光靠食堂是不行的，还是得给她带午餐，至少一周2次。
2010-10-02 15:15:52
女儿央求了好几次，“妈咪，你什么时候来学校和我一起吃午餐。”这个周五，终于挤出时间11点多赶到学校。门口签到的时候，注意到签到本上已经有10多个家长的签名，果然，走廊里还有提着外卖便当的家长，也有爷爷奶奶样子的。看来，和小朋友一起吃午饭的家长还不少。
女儿的班级已经在食堂里来吃了，她和四个女孩坐在靠窗的条桌上，看见我来，高兴地飞跑过来给我一个熊抱。我东张西望，发现女儿班的S老师不在食堂，有2，3个不认识的老师在。原来班主任有自己的午餐时间。看看女儿的盘子，里面有一个玉米狗，一个小苹果和一小盒桔子汁。自己拿了盘子去柜台一看，东西还很多，除了玉米狗，主食还有小鸡快，皮萨包，副食有青豆，土豆泥，水果还有草莓，香蕉，饮料还有牛奶，苹果汁等。柜台后的服务员告诉我还有金枪鱼三文治，估计是给我这样的家长预备的。拿了吃的去结账，服务员找到女儿的卡刷上，一共3块钱。
坐在女儿边上，她的小朋友都围过来，七嘴八舌跟我打招呼，我看到有的孩子盘子里放了不少东西，女儿吃的实在太少了！再看他们吃饭的样子，和聚餐会上的大人们一样，连吃带聊的，嘴不带闲着的。10分钟后，老师打铃，女儿说午休时间到了，胡乱啃了几口玉米狗，就跟小朋友跑了，剩在盘子里的还有大半个苹果和小半截玉米狗。旁边还有几个孩子的盘子里也还有好多食物。
真是不吃不知道，一吃吓一跳，原来女儿的午餐有这么多的问题。下午去接她的时候，我赶紧嘱咐她，除了主食，果汁，水果以外，每天还要拿一个蔬菜和一盒牛奶；吃饭的时候不要光顾着和小朋友玩。同时自己心想，看来光靠食堂是不行的，还是得给她带午餐，至少一周2次。
班妈的第一次
班妈的第一次
2010-09-25 01:59:56
第一次做班妈，一头雾水，幸好有做过好几次的伊琳带路，就高高兴兴给她打下手了。
上周四晚上她打电话来说，刚发现S老师的生日就是下个礼拜，我们得赶快动起来给她操办一个意外祝生会。她想好了给老师的礼物，明天S老师刚好不在，我们可以把她的礼物准备好。
第二天去学校和她碰头，她带来了几包色彩鲜亮的法兰绒布料，她的点子是给老师做一条可以放在摇椅上的毯子。我们两人在学校食堂铺开布料，胶布，剪刀上阵，一会儿工夫，两块布料就合成了一条带流苏的毯子。趁着午后教室的安静时间，我们来到教室，让孩子们给毯子的流苏打结，孩子们轮流上阵，有的不知如何下手，有的一下就结了好几个，有的把结打错了地方。。。最后伊琳给全班照了合影，说可以用在生日蛋糕上，临走时告诉大家：“嘘，记住这是个秘密，千万别跟S老师说。”
今天下午意外祝生会如期举行，我们挑了S老师带孩子们课间休息的时间来到教室。好几个妈妈也来了，有的带了气球，盘子，咸零食和水果。我们的大蛋糕上是全班级的照片。S老师带孩子们进来的时候果然有点吃惊，大概没想到这么多家长都来了。伊琳心思慎密，除了蛋糕，还把全班级的照片装在了镜框里给对S老师，看得出来她很开心。等到打开班级礼物的时候，S老师对流苏毯子也爱不释手，好几个妈妈来询问是怎么做的。更开心的是孩子们，拉着自己的妈妈，吃着美味的蛋糕，一个美好的下午。我这个新手也从这个意外祝生会上学到了很多东西。
2010-09-25 01:59:56
第一次做班妈，一头雾水，幸好有做过好几次的伊琳带路，就高高兴兴给她打下手了。
上周四晚上她打电话来说，刚发现S老师的生日就是下个礼拜，我们得赶快动起来给她操办一个意外祝生会。她想好了给老师的礼物，明天S老师刚好不在，我们可以把她的礼物准备好。
第二天去学校和她碰头，她带来了几包色彩鲜亮的法兰绒布料，她的点子是给老师做一条可以放在摇椅上的毯子。我们两人在学校食堂铺开布料，胶布，剪刀上阵，一会儿工夫，两块布料就合成了一条带流苏的毯子。趁着午后教室的安静时间，我们来到教室，让孩子们给毯子的流苏打结，孩子们轮流上阵，有的不知如何下手，有的一下就结了好几个，有的把结打错了地方。。。最后伊琳给全班照了合影，说可以用在生日蛋糕上，临走时告诉大家：“嘘，记住这是个秘密，千万别跟S老师说。”
今天下午意外祝生会如期举行，我们挑了S老师带孩子们课间休息的时间来到教室。好几个妈妈也来了，有的带了气球，盘子，咸零食和水果。我们的大蛋糕上是全班级的照片。S老师带孩子们进来的时候果然有点吃惊，大概没想到这么多家长都来了。伊琳心思慎密，除了蛋糕，还把全班级的照片装在了镜框里给对S老师，看得出来她很开心。等到打开班级礼物的时候，S老师对流苏毯子也爱不释手，好几个妈妈来询问是怎么做的。更开心的是孩子们，拉着自己的妈妈，吃着美味的蛋糕，一个美好的下午。我这个新手也从这个意外祝生会上学到了很多东西。
My Mentoring Group
My Mentoring Group
2010-09-03 13:26:25
Finally got to meet with my mentoring group first time today. Ben is a young guy with a baby face. He must have spent some time thinking what to wear today, a navy blue strip suit without a tie, not too stuck-up, not too casual. Russ doesn't look like a corporate big wig but some nerd. His life experience is quite fascinating, somehow resembles the last episode of season 3 MAD Men. I can tell he is a devout Christian from his homeschooling 14 year old son. He used to riding the waves of internet revolution but now sitting at a corner office of this company with inspiration of becoming a SVP.
2010-09-03 13:26:25
Finally got to meet with my mentoring group first time today. Ben is a young guy with a baby face. He must have spent some time thinking what to wear today, a navy blue strip suit without a tie, not too stuck-up, not too casual. Russ doesn't look like a corporate big wig but some nerd. His life experience is quite fascinating, somehow resembles the last episode of season 3 MAD Men. I can tell he is a devout Christian from his homeschooling 14 year old son. He used to riding the waves of internet revolution but now sitting at a corner office of this company with inspiration of becoming a SVP.
“黑暗年代”杂想
中国人说，“天不生仲尼，亘古如长夜”。每次碰到言必称希腊，罗马的人，我就知道亘古长夜要出现了。自启蒙运动以来，我们所知道的中世纪欧洲就是在这样的亘古长夜中，这样的认识在中国的知识界是真理无疑。 我周围的很多人，特别是有反宗教倾向的，更把天主教会归结为黑暗的源头。这样的论断，在我看来至少有以下的几个问题，
1. 希腊，罗马的衰亡，对应的是穆斯林黄金时代的开始，还有中国的汉唐盛世，就好像此番唱毕我登场，人类文明并没有在亘古长夜中停滞或后退。中世纪的欧洲“黑暗”了，别的地方又亮起来了。
2. 希腊，罗马的古典文化或政治，社会体制如果有强大的生命力，远比他落后的蛮族的入侵如何能让这个巨大的帝国毁于一旦？ 熟悉罗马历史的，都知道尼禄皇帝的骄奢淫逸和当时败坏的社会风俗，这难道不是“但以理书”中所说泥足的金铜巨人。 一个文化如不进化更新，最终的结局不外腐朽衰败。基督教的兴起不过是一块犀利的飞石，击打在这巨人的泥足上，让他跌倒粉碎，就如大卫击打歌利亚一般。
3. 中世纪天主教会的沉疴，不在它断绝了希腊，罗马的传统，而在于它不能隔断这样的传统与风俗，当神权与世俗掺杂，就使芥菜种子长成了参天大树。 天主教会不是吼叫的狮子，而是被吞噬的。
不论是文艺复兴或是后来的启蒙运动，不过是不同时代的文化对于自己所面临的挑战的回应。远古的火种被用来重新点燃人类的文明，这重生的光彩照亮了后来的世纪。 但是就如这之前的所有的世代一样，这样的光彩必不能持久，它必衰微，最终新的文明会从它的灰烬中重生。
这就是“传道书”中所说的
凡 事 都 有 定 期 ， 天 下 万 务 都 有 定 时 。
生 有 时 ， 死 有 时 ； 栽 种 有 时 ， 拔 出 所 栽 种 的 也 有 时 ；
杀 戮 有 时 ， 医 治 有 时 ； 拆 毁 有 时 ， 建 造 有 时 ；
哭 有 时 ， 笑 有 时 ； 哀 恸 有 时 ， 跳 舞 有 时 ；
抛 掷 石 头 有 时 ， 堆 聚 石 头 有 时 ； 怀 抱 有 时 ， 不 怀 抱 有 时 ；
寻 找 有 时 ， 失 落 有 时 ； 保 守 有 时 ， 舍 弃 有 时 ；
撕 裂 有 时 ， 缝 补 有 时 ； 静 默 有 时 ， 言 语 有 时 ；
喜 爱 有 时 ， 恨 恶 有 时 ； 争 战 有 时 ， 和 好 有 时 。
这 样 看 来 ， 做 事 的 人 在 他 的 劳 碌 上 有 甚 麽 益 处 呢 ？
我 见 神 叫 世 人 劳 苦 ， 使 他 们 在 其 中 受 经 练 。
神 造 万 物 ， 各 按 其 时 成 为 美 好 ， 又 将 永 生 （ 原 文 是 永 远 ） 安 置 在 世 人 心 里 。 然 而 神 从 始 至 终 的 作 为 ， 人 不 能 参 透 。
我 知 道 世 人 ， 莫 强 如 终 身 喜 乐 行 善 ；
并 且 人 人 吃 喝 ， 在 他 一 切 劳 碌 中 享 福 ， 这 也 是 神 的 恩 赐 。
我 知 道 神 一 切 所 做 的 都 必 永 存 ； 无 所 增 添 ， 无 所 减 少 。 神 这 样 行 ， 是 要 人 在 他 面 前 存 敬 畏 的 心 。
现 今 的 事 早 先 就 有 了 ， 将 来 的 事 早 已 也 有 了 ， 并 且 神 使 已 过 的 事 重 新 再 来 。
1. 希腊，罗马的衰亡，对应的是穆斯林黄金时代的开始，还有中国的汉唐盛世，就好像此番唱毕我登场，人类文明并没有在亘古长夜中停滞或后退。中世纪的欧洲“黑暗”了，别的地方又亮起来了。
2. 希腊，罗马的古典文化或政治，社会体制如果有强大的生命力，远比他落后的蛮族的入侵如何能让这个巨大的帝国毁于一旦？ 熟悉罗马历史的，都知道尼禄皇帝的骄奢淫逸和当时败坏的社会风俗，这难道不是“但以理书”中所说泥足的金铜巨人。 一个文化如不进化更新，最终的结局不外腐朽衰败。基督教的兴起不过是一块犀利的飞石，击打在这巨人的泥足上，让他跌倒粉碎，就如大卫击打歌利亚一般。
3. 中世纪天主教会的沉疴，不在它断绝了希腊，罗马的传统，而在于它不能隔断这样的传统与风俗，当神权与世俗掺杂，就使芥菜种子长成了参天大树。 天主教会不是吼叫的狮子，而是被吞噬的。
不论是文艺复兴或是后来的启蒙运动，不过是不同时代的文化对于自己所面临的挑战的回应。远古的火种被用来重新点燃人类的文明，这重生的光彩照亮了后来的世纪。 但是就如这之前的所有的世代一样，这样的光彩必不能持久，它必衰微，最终新的文明会从它的灰烬中重生。
这就是“传道书”中所说的
凡 事 都 有 定 期 ， 天 下 万 务 都 有 定 时 。
生 有 时 ， 死 有 时 ； 栽 种 有 时 ， 拔 出 所 栽 种 的 也 有 时 ；
杀 戮 有 时 ， 医 治 有 时 ； 拆 毁 有 时 ， 建 造 有 时 ；
哭 有 时 ， 笑 有 时 ； 哀 恸 有 时 ， 跳 舞 有 时 ；
抛 掷 石 头 有 时 ， 堆 聚 石 头 有 时 ； 怀 抱 有 时 ， 不 怀 抱 有 时 ；
寻 找 有 时 ， 失 落 有 时 ； 保 守 有 时 ， 舍 弃 有 时 ；
撕 裂 有 时 ， 缝 补 有 时 ； 静 默 有 时 ， 言 语 有 时 ；
喜 爱 有 时 ， 恨 恶 有 时 ； 争 战 有 时 ， 和 好 有 时 。
这 样 看 来 ， 做 事 的 人 在 他 的 劳 碌 上 有 甚 麽 益 处 呢 ？
我 见 神 叫 世 人 劳 苦 ， 使 他 们 在 其 中 受 经 练 。
神 造 万 物 ， 各 按 其 时 成 为 美 好 ， 又 将 永 生 （ 原 文 是 永 远 ） 安 置 在 世 人 心 里 。 然 而 神 从 始 至 终 的 作 为 ， 人 不 能 参 透 。
我 知 道 世 人 ， 莫 强 如 终 身 喜 乐 行 善 ；
并 且 人 人 吃 喝 ， 在 他 一 切 劳 碌 中 享 福 ， 这 也 是 神 的 恩 赐 。
我 知 道 神 一 切 所 做 的 都 必 永 存 ； 无 所 增 添 ， 无 所 减 少 。 神 这 样 行 ， 是 要 人 在 他 面 前 存 敬 畏 的 心 。
现 今 的 事 早 先 就 有 了 ， 将 来 的 事 早 已 也 有 了 ， 并 且 神 使 已 过 的 事 重 新 再 来 。
Friday, October 08, 2010
“Last Letter” by Ted Hughes
What happened that night? Your final night.
Double, treble exposure
Over everything. Late afternoon, Friday,
My last sight of you alive.
Burning your letter to me, in the ashtray,
With that strange smile. Had I bungled your plan?
Had it surprised me sooner than you purposed?
Had I rushed it back to you too promptly?
One hour later—-you would have been gone
Where I could not have traced you.
I would have turned from your locked red door
That nobody would open
Still holding your letter,
A thunderbolt that could not earth itself.
That would have been electric shock treatment
For me.
Repeated over and over, all weekend,
As often as I read it, or thought of it.
That would have remade my brains, and my life.
The treatment that you planned needed some time.
I cannot imagine
How I would have got through that weekend.
I cannot imagine. Had you plotted it all?
Your note reached me too soon—-that same day,
Friday afternoon, posted in the morning.
The prevalent devils expedited it.
That was one more straw of ill-luck
Drawn against you by the Post-Office
And added to your load. I moved fast,
Through the snow-blue, February, London twilight.
Wept with relief when you opened the door.
A huddle of riddles in solution. Precocious tears
That failed to interpret to me, failed to divulge
Their real import. But what did you say
Over the smoking shards of that letter
So carefully annihilated, so calmly,
That let me release you, and leave you
To blow its ashes off your plan—-off the ashtray
Against which you would lean for me to read
The Doctor’s phone-number.
My escape
Had become such a hunted thing
Sleepless, hopeless, all its dreams exhausted,
Only wanting to be recaptured, only
Wanting to drop, out of its vacuum.
Two days of dangling nothing. Two days gratis.
Two days in no calendar, but stolen
From no world,
Beyond actuality, feeling, or name.
My love-life grabbed it. My numbed love-life
With its two mad needles,
Embroidering their rose, piercing and tugging
At their tapestry, their bloody tattoo
Somewhere behind my navel,
Treading that morass of emblazon,
Two mad needles, criss-crossing their stitches,
Selecting among my nerves
For their colours, refashioning me
Inside my own skin, each refashioning the other
With their self-caricatures,
Their obsessed in and out. Two women
Each with her needle.
That night
My dellarobbia Susan. I moved
With the circumspection
Of a flame in a fuse. My whole fury
Was an abandoned effort to blow up
The old globe where shadows bent over
My telltale track of ashes. I raced
From and from, face backwards, a film reversed,
Towards what? We went to Rugby St
Where you and I began.
Why did we go there? Of all places
Why did we go there? Perversity
In the artistry of our fate
Adjusted its refinements for you, for me
And for Susan. Solitaire
Played by the Minotaur of that maze
Even included Helen, in the ground-floor flat.
You had noted her—-a girl for a story.
You never met her. Few ever met her,
Except across the ears and raving mask
Of her Alsatian. You had not even glimpsed her.
You had only recoiled
When her demented animal crashed its weight
Against her door, as we slipped through the hallway;
And heard it choking on infinite German hatred.
That Sunday night she eased her door open
Its few permitted inches.
Susan greeted the black eyes, the unhappy
Overweight, lovely face, that peeped out
Across the little chain. The door closed.
We heard her consoling her jailor
Inside her cell, its kennel, where, days later,
She gassed her ferocious kupo, and herself.
Susan and I spent that night
In our wedding bed. I had not seen it
Since we lay there on our wedding day.
I did not take her back to my own bed.
It had occurred to me, your weekend over,
You might appear—-a surprise visitation.
Did you appear, to tap at my dark window?
So I stayed with Susan, hiding from you,
In our own wedding bed—-the same from which
Within three years she would be taken to die
In that same hospital where, within twelve hours,
I would find you dead.
Monday morning
I drove her to work, in the City,
Then parked my van North of Euston Road
And returned to where my telephone waited.
What happened that night, inside your hours,
Is as unknown as if it never happened.
What accumulation of your whole life,
Like effort unconscious, like birth
Pushing through the membrane of each slow second
Into the next, happened
Only as if it could not happen,
As if it was not happening. How often
Did the phone ring there in my empty room,
You hearing the ring in your receiver—-
At both ends the fading memory
Of a telephone ringing, in a brain
As if already dead. I count
How often you walked to the phone-booth
At the bottom of St George’s terrace.
You are there whenever I look, just turning
Out of Fitzroy Road, crossing over
Between the heaped up banks of dirty sugar.
In your long black coat,
With your plait coiled up at the back of your hair
You walk unable to move, or wake, and are
Already nobody walking
Walking by the railings under Primrose Hill
Towards the phone booth that can never be reached.
Before midnight. After midnight. Again.
Again. Again. And, near dawn, again.
At what position of the hands on my watch-face
Did your last attempt,
Already deeply past
My being able to hear it, shake the pillow
Of that empty bed? A last time
Lightly touch at my books, and my papers?
By the time I got there my phone was asleep.
The pillow innocent. My room slept,
Already filled with the snowlit morning light.
I lit my fire. I had got out my papers.
And I had started to write when the telephone
Jerked awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: ‘Your wife is dead.’
Double, treble exposure
Over everything. Late afternoon, Friday,
My last sight of you alive.
Burning your letter to me, in the ashtray,
With that strange smile. Had I bungled your plan?
Had it surprised me sooner than you purposed?
Had I rushed it back to you too promptly?
One hour later—-you would have been gone
Where I could not have traced you.
I would have turned from your locked red door
That nobody would open
Still holding your letter,
A thunderbolt that could not earth itself.
That would have been electric shock treatment
For me.
Repeated over and over, all weekend,
As often as I read it, or thought of it.
That would have remade my brains, and my life.
The treatment that you planned needed some time.
I cannot imagine
How I would have got through that weekend.
I cannot imagine. Had you plotted it all?
Your note reached me too soon—-that same day,
Friday afternoon, posted in the morning.
The prevalent devils expedited it.
That was one more straw of ill-luck
Drawn against you by the Post-Office
And added to your load. I moved fast,
Through the snow-blue, February, London twilight.
Wept with relief when you opened the door.
A huddle of riddles in solution. Precocious tears
That failed to interpret to me, failed to divulge
Their real import. But what did you say
Over the smoking shards of that letter
So carefully annihilated, so calmly,
That let me release you, and leave you
To blow its ashes off your plan—-off the ashtray
Against which you would lean for me to read
The Doctor’s phone-number.
My escape
Had become such a hunted thing
Sleepless, hopeless, all its dreams exhausted,
Only wanting to be recaptured, only
Wanting to drop, out of its vacuum.
Two days of dangling nothing. Two days gratis.
Two days in no calendar, but stolen
From no world,
Beyond actuality, feeling, or name.
My love-life grabbed it. My numbed love-life
With its two mad needles,
Embroidering their rose, piercing and tugging
At their tapestry, their bloody tattoo
Somewhere behind my navel,
Treading that morass of emblazon,
Two mad needles, criss-crossing their stitches,
Selecting among my nerves
For their colours, refashioning me
Inside my own skin, each refashioning the other
With their self-caricatures,
Their obsessed in and out. Two women
Each with her needle.
That night
My dellarobbia Susan. I moved
With the circumspection
Of a flame in a fuse. My whole fury
Was an abandoned effort to blow up
The old globe where shadows bent over
My telltale track of ashes. I raced
From and from, face backwards, a film reversed,
Towards what? We went to Rugby St
Where you and I began.
Why did we go there? Of all places
Why did we go there? Perversity
In the artistry of our fate
Adjusted its refinements for you, for me
And for Susan. Solitaire
Played by the Minotaur of that maze
Even included Helen, in the ground-floor flat.
You had noted her—-a girl for a story.
You never met her. Few ever met her,
Except across the ears and raving mask
Of her Alsatian. You had not even glimpsed her.
You had only recoiled
When her demented animal crashed its weight
Against her door, as we slipped through the hallway;
And heard it choking on infinite German hatred.
That Sunday night she eased her door open
Its few permitted inches.
Susan greeted the black eyes, the unhappy
Overweight, lovely face, that peeped out
Across the little chain. The door closed.
We heard her consoling her jailor
Inside her cell, its kennel, where, days later,
She gassed her ferocious kupo, and herself.
Susan and I spent that night
In our wedding bed. I had not seen it
Since we lay there on our wedding day.
I did not take her back to my own bed.
It had occurred to me, your weekend over,
You might appear—-a surprise visitation.
Did you appear, to tap at my dark window?
So I stayed with Susan, hiding from you,
In our own wedding bed—-the same from which
Within three years she would be taken to die
In that same hospital where, within twelve hours,
I would find you dead.
Monday morning
I drove her to work, in the City,
Then parked my van North of Euston Road
And returned to where my telephone waited.
What happened that night, inside your hours,
Is as unknown as if it never happened.
What accumulation of your whole life,
Like effort unconscious, like birth
Pushing through the membrane of each slow second
Into the next, happened
Only as if it could not happen,
As if it was not happening. How often
Did the phone ring there in my empty room,
You hearing the ring in your receiver—-
At both ends the fading memory
Of a telephone ringing, in a brain
As if already dead. I count
How often you walked to the phone-booth
At the bottom of St George’s terrace.
You are there whenever I look, just turning
Out of Fitzroy Road, crossing over
Between the heaped up banks of dirty sugar.
In your long black coat,
With your plait coiled up at the back of your hair
You walk unable to move, or wake, and are
Already nobody walking
Walking by the railings under Primrose Hill
Towards the phone booth that can never be reached.
Before midnight. After midnight. Again.
Again. Again. And, near dawn, again.
At what position of the hands on my watch-face
Did your last attempt,
Already deeply past
My being able to hear it, shake the pillow
Of that empty bed? A last time
Lightly touch at my books, and my papers?
By the time I got there my phone was asleep.
The pillow innocent. My room slept,
Already filled with the snowlit morning light.
I lit my fire. I had got out my papers.
And I had started to write when the telephone
Jerked awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: ‘Your wife is dead.’
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