NPR 07-05:All Beings Are Interconnected自由的真正含义

Being held captive in Iraq helped James Loney solidify¹ his sense that he wasn't alone

I believe in mystery.
I believe in family.
I believe in being who I am.
I believe in the power of failure.
And I believe normal life is extraordinary.
This I Believe.

Our feature, This I Believe has spawned² a sister series from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. And our essay today comes to us by way of the CBC. It's from James Loney of Toronto. In 2005, he was working as a Christian³ peace activist⁴ in Iraq when he was captured by militants⁵. Here is our series curator, independent producer Jay Allison.

For almost four months, James Loney was held hostage in a small room in a residential⁶ neighborhood in Baghdad. He was confined with three other humanitarian⁷ workers, one of whom was killed. Loney and the other two prisoners were rescued by a special team of coalition⁸ forces. Such an experience might shake a person's fundamental beliefs, for James Loney, it reinforced them. Here he is with his essay, for This I Believe.

I believe all things and all beings are interconnected. I saw this most clearly in the time I was a hostage. For 118 days, our world was reduced to what could be heard and said and done, while handcuffed and chained with three other men in a cold, paint peeling, eternally gloomy, 10-by-12-foot room. But despite being vanished off the face of the Earth, there were times the walls around us would dissolve. And I could see with perfect blue sky clarity that everything I needed to know about the world was immediately available to me.

One day our captors treated us to some Pepsi. We were very excited. More about the bottle than about the Pepsi because it meant we could now relieve ourselves in urgent circumstances. As you might expect, it's not easy to relieve yourself in urgent circumstances when your right and left hand are handcuffed in some else's right and left hand.

Sometimes, despite our most careful efforts, we ended up with an unfortunate mess. On a later day, after bringing us a particularly greasy⁹ lunch, fried eggplant rolled up in a tiny bit flat bread. The captor we called uncle needed to clean his greasy fingers. He saw a rag hanging on the back of a chair and used it to wipe his hands. He did not know that it was our unfortunate mess rag and that had been used earlier that morning. In that moment, I saw how everything we do, even the things that seem most insignificant¹⁰, cleaning up a mess or wiping our hands, affects everything and everyone else.

Uncle thought he was simply rubbing some grease off his fingers, but in reality, he was soiling himself in the squalor and degradation¹¹ of our captivity¹², without him knowing it or us intending it.

Uncle was one of our guards with keys in one hand and gun in the other, his power over us seemed absolute, but he was not free. He says so himself on one of those interminable days when we asked him if he had any news about when we would be released. He pointed¹³ glumly¹⁴ to his wrists as if he himself were handcuffed and said," when you are free, I will be free. "

I believe there are many ways we can hold one another captive, it might be with a gun, an army, a holy book, a law, an invisible free market hand. It doesn't matter how we do it, who we do it to or why. There is no escaping it. We ourselves become captives whenever we hold another in captivity. Whenever we soil someone else with violence, whether through a war, poverty, racism¹⁵ or neglect, we invariably soil ourselves. It is only when we turn away from dominating others that we can begin to discover what the Christian scriptures¹⁶ call "the glorious freedom of the children of God."

James Loney with his essay for This I Believe. Loney remains¹⁷ involved with the Christian peace movement in Canada. If you are interested in contributing to our series, visit our website NPR.orgthisIbelieve or you can find out more and see the more than 30,000 essays that have been sent in.

For This I Believe, I am Jay Allison.

Next Sunday, on weekend edition, a This I Believe essay from a native American poet, Joy Hardier¹⁸.

Support for This I Believe comes from Prudential Retirement¹⁹.

1 solidify   

v.(使)凝固，(使)固化，(使)团结

参考例句：

• Opinion on this question began to solidify.对这个问题的意见开始具体化了。
• Water will solidify into ice if you freeze it.水冷冻会结冰。

2 spawned   

（鱼、蛙等）大量产（卵）( spawn的过去式和过去分词 )； 大量生产

参考例句：

• The band's album spawned a string of hit singles. 这支乐队的专辑繁衍出一连串走红的单曲唱片。
• The computer industry has spawned a lot of new companies. 由于电脑工业的发展，许多新公司纷纷成立。

3 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

4 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

5 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

6 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

7 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

8 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

9 greasy   

adj. 多脂的，油脂的

参考例句：

• He bought a heavy-duty cleanser to clean his greasy oven.昨天他买了强力清洁剂来清洗油污的炉子。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

10 insignificant   

adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的

参考例句：

• In winter the effect was found to be insignificant.在冬季，这种作用是不明显的。
• This problem was insignificant compared to others she faced.这一问题与她面临的其他问题比较起来算不得什么。

11 degradation   

n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变

参考例句：

• There are serious problems of land degradation in some arid zones.在一些干旱地带存在严重的土地退化问题。
• Gambling is always coupled with degradation.赌博总是与堕落相联系。

12 captivity   

n.囚禁；被俘；束缚

参考例句：

• A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
• He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。

13 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

14 glumly   

adv.忧郁地，闷闷不乐地；阴郁地

参考例句：

• He stared at it glumly, and soon became lost in thought. 他惘然沉入了瞑想。 来自子夜部分
• The President sat glumly rubbing his upper molar, saying nothing. 总统愁眉苦脸地坐在那里，磨着他的上牙，一句话也没有说。 来自辞典例句

15 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

16 scriptures   

经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典

参考例句：

• Here the apostle Peter affirms his belief that the Scriptures are 'inspired'. 使徒彼得在此表达了他相信《圣经》是通过默感写成的。
• You won't find this moral precept in the scriptures. 你在《圣经》中找不到这种道德规范。

17 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

18 hardier   

能吃苦耐劳的，坚强的( hardy的比较级 )； （植物等）耐寒的

参考例句：

• Theoretically, experiments with genes that confer resistance to disease or herbicides could create hardier weeds. 从理论上说，用含有抗病或抗除草剂的基因进行试验，可能产生更难于对付的杂草。
• Similar fruit to Black Mission, but hardier and a smaller size tree than Mission. 类似加洲黑，但比加洲黑强壮，果比加洲黑更小的尺寸。

19 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。