Love

Love

I maybe able to speak the language of men and even of angels, but if I have not love, my

speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell, I may have the gift of inspired preaching, I

may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move

mountains- but if I have not love, I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and even give

up my body to be burned- but if I have not love, it does me no good.

Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous, or conceited, or proud; love is not ill-mannered,

or selfish, or irritable; love doesn‘t keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is

happy with the truth. Love never gives up; it‘s faith, hope and patience never fail.

Love is eternal, there are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking

in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. For our gifts of

knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; but when what is perfect comes, then what is

partial will disappear.

Meanwhile, these three remain faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.

我若能说万人的方言， 并天使的话语， 却没有爱， 我就成了鸣的锣， 响的的镲一般。

我若有先知讲道之能， 也明白各样的奥秘， 各样的知识， 而具有全备的信， 叫我能移山却没有爱， 仍然与我无益。 爱是永恒忍耐， 又有恩慈， 爱是不嫉妒， 爱是不自夸， 不张狂， 不做害羞的事， 不求自己的益处， 不轻易发怒， 不计算人的恶， 不喜欢不义， 只喜欢真理， 凡事包容，凡事相信， 凡事盼望， 凡事忍耐， 爱是永不止息…….然而， 信心、 盼望和爱这三样是永存的， 而其中最重要的是爱。

Never Admit the Pain

Mary Gilmore

Never admit the pain 永远不要诉说痛苦

Bury it deep 把它埋得深深

Only the weak complain 只有弱者才抱怨

Complaint is cheap 牢骚值不了几文

Cover the wound, fold down 捂住你的伤口

Its curtained place 包扎好不要露出

Silence is still a crown 沉默仍然是顶王冠

Courage a grace 勇气便是美德

Surgery as Love

I invited a young diabetic糖尿病患者 woman to the operating room to amputate切 her leg.

She couldn‘t see the great shaggy black ulcer溃疡 upon the foot and ankle that threatened to

encroach侵犯 upon the rest of her body, for her is blind as well. There upon her foot was a

Mississippi Delta brimming充满 with corruption, sending its raw tributaries支流 down between

her toes. Gone were all the little web spaces that when fresh and whole are such a delight to loving

men. She couldn‘t see her wound, but she could feel it. There is no pain like that of the bloodless

limb腿 turned rotten and festering溃烂. There is neither unguent软膏 nor anodyne止痛药 to

kill such a pain and yet leave intact未受损的 the body.

For over a year I trimmed削减 away the putrid腐臭的 flesh, cleansed清洁, anointed涂油, and dresses the foot, starving off, delaying. Three times each week, in her darkness, she sat upon

my table, rocking back and forth, holding her extended leg by the thing, gripping紧握 it as

though it were a rocket that must be steadied lest it explode and scatter her toes about the room.

And I would cut away a bit here, a bit there, of the swollen blue leather that was her tissue.

At last we gave up, she and I. We could no longer run ahead of the gangrene坏疽. We had not

the legs for it. There must be an amputation截支 in order that she might live—and I as well. It

was to heal us both that I must take up knife and saw, and cut her leg off. And when I could feel it

drop from her body to the table, see the blessed space appear between her and that leg, I too would

be well.

Now it is the day of the operation. I stand by the anesthetist administers the drugs, watch as the

tense familiar body relaxes into narcosis麻醉. I turn then to uncover the leg. There. Upon her

kneecap, she has drawn, blindly, upside down for me to see, a face; just a circle with two ears, two

eyes, a nose, and a smiling upturned mouth. Under it she has printed SMILE DOCTOR. Minutes

late, I listen to the sound of the saw, until a little crack at the end tells me it is done.

（So, I have learned that man is not ugly, but that he is beauty itself.

There is no other his equal in this world.）

（All that is worth cherishing in this world begins in the heart, not the head.）

He Ate and Drank the Precious Words

He ate and drank the precious words,

His spirit grew robust;

He know no more that he was poor,

Nor that his frame was dust.

He danced along the dingy days,

And this bequest of wings was but a book.

What liberty

A loosened spirit brings!

Emily Dickson

Not knowing when the dawn will come

I open every door;

Or has it feathers like a bird,

Or billows like a shore?

我不知黎明何时到来，

便把所有的门都打开；

不知她是否生着翅膀，好像飞鸟

或是激浪澎湃，好像海岸？

As if I asked a common alms,

And in my wondering hand

A stranger pressed a kingdom,

And I, bewildered, stand—

S if I asked the Orient

Had it for me a Morn—