隽语美人 Beauty

佚名/Anonymous

It is said that the true nature of being is veiled. The labor of words, the expression of art, the seemingly ceaseless buzz that is human thought all have in common the need to get at what really is so. The hope to draw close to and possess the truth of being can be a feverish one. In some cases it can even be fatal. if pleasure is one's truth and its attainment more important than life itself. In other lives, though, the search for what is truthful gives life.

I used to find notes left in the collection basket, beautiful notes about my homilies and about the writer's thoughts on the daily scriptural readings. The person who penned the notes would add reflections to my thoughts and would always include some quotes from poets and mystics he or she had read and remembered and loved. The notes fascinated me. Here was someone immersed in a search for truth and beauty. Words had been treasured, words that were beautiful. And I felt as if the words somehow delighted in being discovered, for they were obviously very generous to the as yet anonymous writer of the notes. And now this person was in turn learning the secret of sharing them. Beauty so shines when given away. The only truth that exists is, in that sense, free.

It was a long time before I met the author of the notes.

One Sunday morning, I was told that someone was waiting for me in the office. The young person who answered the rectory door said that it was "the woman who said she left all the notes." When I saw her I was shocked, since I immediately recognized her from church but had no idea that it was she who wrote the notes. She was sitting in a chair in the office with her hands folded in her lap. Her head was bowed and when she raised it to look at me, she could barely smile without pain. Her face was disfigured, and the skin so tight from surgical procedures that smiling or laughing was very difficult for her. She had suffered terribly from treatment to remove the growths that had so marred her face.

We for a while that Sunday morning and agreed to meet for lunch later that week.

As it turned out we went to lunch several times, and she always wore a hat during the meal. I think that treatments of some sort had caused a lot of her hair to fall out. We shared things about our lives. I told her about my schooling and growing up. She told me that she had worked for years for an insurance company. She never mentioned family, and I did not ask.

We spoke of authors we both had read, and it was easy to tell that books are a great love of hers.

I have thought about her often over the years and how she struggled in a society that places an incredible premium on looks, class, wealth and all the other fineries of life. She suffered from a disfigurement that cannot be made to look attractive. I know that her condition hurt her deeply.

Would her life have been different had she been pretty? Chances are it would have. And yet there were a sensitivity and a beauty to her that had nothing to do with looks. She was one to be listened to, whose words were so easy to take to heart. Her words came from a wounded but loving heart, very much like all hearts, but she had more of a need to be aware of it, to live with it and learn from it. She possessed a fine-tuned sense of beauty. Her only fear in life was the loss of a friend.

How long does it take most of us to reach that level of human growth, if we ever get there? We get so consumed and diminished, worrying about all the things that need improving, we can easily forget to cherish those things that last. Friendship, so rare and so good, just needs our care—maybe even the simple gesture of writing a little note now and then, or the dropping of some beautiful words in a basket, in the hope that such beauty will be shared and taken to heart.

The truth of her life was a desire to see beyond the surface for a glimpse of what it is that matters. She found beauty and grace and they befriended her, and showed her what is real.

人们说，人生的真谛是神秘莫测的。言语的加工、艺术的表达，以及人类那似乎永无休止、被称为思想的争论都是在追求人生的真谛。人们狂热地渴望靠近真理，把握真谛。在某些情况下，如果人们把追求快乐当做真理，并且认为结局比生活本身更重要，那么这种渴望就甚至是致命的。

过去我常会在教堂的心意篮中发现一些小便条，上面有关于我的布道的议论，还有一些是作者平时读《圣经》的感想。便条的作者总是对我的想法发表一些自己的感想，同时还引用了一些他/她曾读过的、所喜爱的诗人或神秘主义者那些令人难忘的话语。这些短文深深地吸引了我，我看到了一个执著追求真与美的人，这些珍藏的话语优美且感人。我有种感觉，这些字句好像很高兴被发现，因为很明显这是便条的匿名作者慷慨留下的，而且这位神秘的作者也知道有人在秘密地与其分享便条上的美文。当美丽向外散发的时候，是如此熠熠生辉。从这个意义上讲，世界上只有一个真理，那就是无价的。

很久以后，我才看到这些美文的作者。

一个周日早上，我被告知办公室有人等我。给我应门的年轻人说：“是个女士，她说留言是她放的。”见到她时，我不禁大吃一惊，因为我一下子就认出了她是我教区的信徒，只是我始终不知道那些美文是出自她手。她坐在椅子上，双手相握放在大腿上，头低垂着。她抬头看我时，微笑起来却十分费力。那是一张变形的脸，外科手术使她的脸皮紧绷，笑对她来说是非常困难的事。为了去除脸上碍眼的肉瘤，她接受了令人痛苦的手术治疗。

那个周日的早上，我们聊了一会儿，并商量好哪周再找个时间共进午餐。

而后我们不止吃了一顿午饭，而是吃了好多顿，每次她都头戴帽子，我想或许是某种治疗使她脱了好多发。我们将各自生活中的点点滴滴讲出来一起分享。我向她讲述了我读书和成长的故事，她告诉我，她在一家保险公司工作了好多年，但她从未提及她的家庭，我也就没过问。

我们还谈及了大家都读过的一些文章的作者，显然她是一个酷爱读书的人。

这些年我常会想起她，在这个追求容貌、地位、财富以及其他一切浮华的残酷社会中，她是怎样一路挣扎着走过的呢？损毁的容貌无论如何也无法使她变得魅力四射，我知道这对她是个巨大的打击。

如果她外表美丽，她的生命能否会是另一番情形呢？或许会的。她的身上有一种与外表无关的灵气和美，她是用来倾听的，她的文字很容易穿透人的灵魂。她的隽语来自于一颗受过伤害却满怀爱意的心——如所有人的心一样，只是她比别人更关注自己的心灵，更关注专心体会生活，并从中学习获得提高。她有一种细腻的美，她生命中唯一惧怕的就是失去朋友。

如此高度的成熟我们要花费多长时间才能达到呢？最终能否真正达到还不得而知。我们总是身心俱疲，怀才不遇，只担心眼前的不足，却忽视了那些经久不衰的东西。友谊珍贵且美好，要我们用心去呵护，有时简单的暗示便已足够了。比如偶尔给朋友写几句话，或把一些感人的美文写在便条上投入篮子里，供大家分享，让大家一起记住这美妙时刻的美好感觉。

她生命的真谛便是对越过浮华，窥探生命本质的一种渴望。她发现了美和慈爱，而美和慈爱也把她当做朋友，把生命的真谛展现给她。

W 词汇笔记

feverish[?fi?v?ri?]adj.高度活跃或兴奋的

例 He is too feverish to rest.

他兴奋得安静不下来。

homily[?h?mili]n.（长篇）说教；讲道；宣道

例 Actually I am very shy and worried for this sharing, because it is my very first time to give homily in English.

对于这次分享，我真的非常害羞和担心，因为用英文做弥撒讲道，还是第一次。

fold[?f??ld]v.折叠

例 He folded up with laughter.

他笑弯了腰。

sensitivity[?sensi?tiviti:]n.敏感；敏感度

例 Such is the sensitivity of the information that only two people are allowed to know it.

这信息极为敏感，只允许两个人知道。

S 小试身手

人生的真谛是神秘莫测的。

译___________________________________________

过去我常会在教堂的心意篮中发现一些小便条。

译___________________________________________

她的隽语来自于一颗受过伤害却满怀爱意的心。

译___________________________________________

P 短语家族

……human thought all have in common the need to get at what really is so.

in common：共有；共同

造___________________________________________

And now this person was in turn learning the secret of sharing them.

in turn：轮流；依次；转而

造___________________________________________