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A photo of the Rolling Stones was prominent in the papers yesterday, as they came together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their first live performance in 1962. Their faces revealed that they had, to put it politely, aged somewhat. "You are old Father William" said the child in the nursery rhyme, and so is each one of us of course in due time. As far as evolution is concerned, that time comes when we've done all that is necessary, that's, passed on our genes to another generation. Then we can simply be left to die.
滾石樂隊(duì)再聚首，慶祝1962年首度登臺表演50周年。昨天報(bào)紙刊登了他們十分引人注目的照片。委婉地說，他們的相貌頗為成熟。“你已經(jīng)老啦，威廉爸爸”，兒歌里這樣唱到。毋庸置疑，我們每個(gè)人到了特定的時(shí)候都會(huì)如此。從進(jìn)化的角度考慮，當(dāng)我們已經(jīng)完成了所有必盡之事——傳宗接代后，時(shí)辰就到了。剩下的事情僅是茍且偷生罷了。
Again, as far as a society driven by economic activity is concerned that time comes when we're no longer productive and we're ready for recycling. So when we look at that aging face in a care home or in a hospital bed what is there to stop us getting really depressed? Do we have a vision of what it is to be a human person which will undergird and sustain the gentle care which the elderly need?
在如今這個(gè)被經(jīng)濟(jì)活動(dòng)所驅(qū)使的社會(huì)里，年長的人失去了生產(chǎn)力，還要做好被回收利用的打算。因此，當(dāng)我們看到護(hù)理中心或者醫(yī)院病床上那一張張衰老的面容而唏噓不已時(shí)，怎樣才能走出消沉呢？給予老人溫柔的呵護(hù)與扶持是做人之本。我們有這個(gè)認(rèn)識嗎？
Recently I was in Georgia, what I call proper Georgia, in the Caucasus, to speak in their European week, and one day I managed to get out into the country for a lovely walk with a friend. It came out that it was my birthday, and unknown to me, he rang up someone he knew in a nearby village. In this very simple home we were shown characteristic Georgian hospitality, and then the toasts began. First to me, then to my surprise to my parents, and then to everyone's parents, and then as they put it, "to our forebears to whom we owe so much." It was such a contrast to our normal highly individualistic way of thinking. Striking too was their moving sense of gratitude to the older generation. And yet even gratitude may not be enough. After all, sometimes people do feel pretty fed up with the old. We need something even more powerful, something to sustain our best attitudes, whether we're feeling appreciative or highly irritated, quite simply a sense of the value of the human person as such. We need it in our care homes, and we need it to be expressed in the political policies of the State towards the elderly.
最近我前往格魯吉亞，在為期一周歐洲會(huì)議上發(fā)言。該地位于高加索山脈，是嚴(yán)格意義上的格魯吉亞。某日，我得以從工作中抽身，和友人在鄉(xiāng)間散步，十分愜意。結(jié)果那天是我的生日，朋友瞞著我給他鄰村的朋友打了電話。在簡樸的房間里，他們用典型的格魯吉亞的待客方式款待了我們。隨后我們舉杯慶祝。首先是為我祝酒，讓我吃驚的是，我們之后依次為我的父母和每個(gè)人的父母祝酒。他們還說“我們欠了先人太多。”這與我們平時(shí)高度的個(gè)人主義思考方式大相徑庭。吸引我的還有他們對長輩們令人動(dòng)容的感激之情。然而，僅僅感激是不夠的。畢竟人們有時(shí)會(huì)對老人感到厭煩。我們需要更強(qiáng)有力的做人的價(jià)值觀來支撐我們，使我們無論喜怒都以最好的態(tài)度來對待老人。護(hù)理中心需要這樣的態(tài)度。國家在針對老人出臺的政策中也應(yīng)有所體現(xiàn)。
You don't need to be religious to have this attitude. But I do think that a Christian understanding of what it is to be a human person made in the image of God, with a spiritual orientation and destination, does give a dimension that suffuses, and reinforces our best human values and attitudes. As Gerard Manly Hopkins puts it in his poem on the resurrection: This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, is immortal diamond. From one point of view we human beings are just a joke, a broken piece of pottery or potsherd, a used match, but essentially we are immortal diamonds.
