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It was the late 70s and we thought him almost a god, my school friends Helen and Anne and I. An actor-director undergraduate, impossibly tall, dark and drop dead gorgeous, he co-hosted a party every summer for which all the guests had to dress in white. Everything he did was cool and desirable. Until, in the 80s, a killer disease from America swept through the beautiful people like a scythe, and left him a wasted skeleton in a hospital bed. Anne managed to visit him and I meant to, really I did. But I couldn't quite believe there wasn't plenty of time. You see he seemed incapable, but incapable, of doing anything disagreeable.We need to be "more Christian to one another" over AIDS, Elton John said yesterday. An interesting phrase, given Mr John's introduction to this once devastating scourge.
他那時是演員兼導演專業的學生，皮膚黝黑、英俊高大。每年夏天他都會聯合舉辦一次社交聚會，到場的來賓都必須身著白色衣服。他做的每一件事都十分出色、令人滿意。直到八十年代，一種致命的疾病如鐮刀般擊倒了這位完美的人，他躺在醫院的病床上，被病痛折磨成了一個骨瘦如柴的廢人。安妮去看望了他，盡管我也十分想去，但我無法接受他將不久于人世。你也許覺得他看上去什么事也做不了，但他不會去做令人生厭的事。昨日，艾爾頓·約翰說在艾滋病的問題上，我們必須“像基督徒一樣更加仁慈對待彼此”。考慮到約翰初次接觸這一度被視為是毀滅性的災難時的情形，他這樣的表述十分有意思。
In 1985 he first read about and then met a brave young haemophiliac, Ryan White. When a journalist revealed that Ryan was dying of AIDS, not only was he banned from school and a judicial restraining order put on him to the cheers of neighbours, but his own church required him to sit in a separate pew, and on Easter Day no one in the congregation would shake his hand as a sign of peace. If this is the behaviour of the church, why should we want to be more "Christian" towards one another? We hardly have an impeccable record, do we? Once when we had reached a very low ebb as a family, I asked my husband, in despair, "Why should we go on believing, when God doesn't answer prayer and Christians can behave worse than anybody?" All he said in reply was this. "Look at the character of Jesus. Who else do you think He could have been?" Not "Christian" theology. Far less the behaviour of "Christian" sinners like ourselves. But the character of Christ.
1985年，約翰讀到關于血友病患者瑞安·懷特的報道，并和他見面。當記者透露瑞安死于艾滋病時，約翰不僅被學校拒之門外，還收到了法律禁令，他的鄰居都為此欣喜不已，就連他所在的教堂都要求他坐在單獨的長椅上。到了復活節，會眾中沒有一個人跟他握手言和。如果這就是教堂的所作所為，為何我們要更“像基督徒”那樣對待彼此呢？人無完人，不是嗎？家庭遇到困境時，我曾絕望地問丈夫“既然上帝都不去回應人們的禱告，基督徒可以比任何人都要無情，為什么還要繼續我們的信仰呢？”他的回答是：“看看耶穌的品格，你覺得除了他還有誰可以是上帝？”使他成為上帝的不是基督教所信仰的理論，更不是我們這有罪過的基督教徒的言行，而是基督的品格。
My godmother gave me a Bible, in red tooled leather, which I had throughout my childhood and have still. At that moment I thought of its garish, dated children's pictures, a shepherd with long hair and a lamb across His shoulders. Who else could He have been? It's true, He could be angry. He was capable of condemning. He even talked of Judgement. But it's not for this that we remember Him. We remember a Man who loved a sex worker for indecently wiping His feet with her loose hair, who publicly befriended a fraudster worse than any recently discredited banker, who cured those whose illnesses made them even more untouchable than Ryan, ostracised by his society. Elton John's book is provocatively entitled, Love is the Cure. Not medicine, or science, or technology, it is love for which this God is known above all, extending an invitation into His kingdom to a terrorist hanging by His side. As Elton John said, Jesus, like Ryan who followed Him, "loved and forgave unconditionally and died for the sake of others." A death even more disagreeable than my friend's all those years ago.
我的教母曾給了我一本紅色書皮的圣經，我從兒時一直保存到現在。我想到書中艷麗、陳舊的兒童圖畫，上面畫著長發的牧羊人，肩上坐著一只羊羔。除了他誰還能是上帝？的確，他可以發怒。他能做出審判。他甚至提到過裁決。但我們不是因此才紀念他。我們紀念的是一個男人：當性工作者不雅地用蓬亂的頭發擦試他雙腳時，他給予她愛；遇到名聲比任何名譽掃地的銀行家都要惡劣的詐騙犯時，他公然和他成為朋友；有人因疾病受到比瑞安更甚的排斥，他為他們治療。艾爾頓·約翰為他的書起了一個有爭議性的標題，《愛是良藥》。并非藥物，并非科學技術，而是愛讓上帝為世人所知曉，讓他邀請被絞死在他身側的恐怖分子來到他的國度。正如艾爾頓·約翰所說，瑞安所追隨的耶穌“無條件的熱愛并寬恕著人們，為他人獻身”，這樣的死亡比數年前朋友去世更令人難受。
