智慧人生篇章 第33期:死亡不是終點

　　In a more agnostic culture than the one I grew upwith it's a challenge to know how to talkmeaningfully about something so enormous whenwe don't really understand it. There is scepticismabout the afterlife these days. But however scepticalpeople may be about heaven and hell, it always feelsbrutal to speak of the total extinction ofpersonality, when the personality concerned issomeone you know. Whether we believe or don'tbelieve about life after death we tend to soften thelanguage of finality, to resort to metaphor, tosaying death is like this or like that even the death is not like anything. That is its majesty. As apriest who conducts funerals I find the language of faith, with poetry, music and acts ofremembrance are what allow us to make the transition between life and death, to discoverthat death, though a change of state, is not the end of being.",

　　在一個比我所處環(huán)境更崇尚不可知論的文化環(huán)境中，去含義雋永的談?wù)撘粋€自身都不甚了了的大問題總是一項巨大的挑戰(zhàn)?，F(xiàn)在有很多人對身后事持懷疑態(tài)度。不管人們怎么懷疑天堂地獄，講一個人的一切就這么徹底消失總給人一種殘酷的感覺，尤其當這個人還是你的熟人的時候。不管我們相不相信身后之事，我們都傾向于盡量柔化這種涉及終結(jié)的語言，用隱喻將死亡比喻成這，比喻成那。其實死亡就是死亡，這是它的無上權(quán)威。作為一個主持葬禮的牧師，我找到了用詩篇、音樂和懷念構(gòu)成的信念，足以讓我們穿越生死，看透死亡。死，只是一種狀態(tài)的改變，卻不是生命的終結(jié)。