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Obituary | The work of prayer
訃告 | 禱告工作
英文部分選自經濟學人20241221期訃告板塊
Obituary | The work of prayer
訃告|禱告工作
Brother Harold Palmer lived alone in the wilds by choice
哈羅德·帕爾默修士選擇獨自生活在野外
The Northumbrian hermit died on October 4th, aged 93
這位諾森伯蘭郡的隱士於10月4日去世，享年93歲
Sometime in 1970 Brother Harold Palmer, then living in a house of the Society of St Francis, received a strange parcel in the post. He never knew who had sent it. It contained a mason’s trowel, a set square, a plumb-line and a surveyor’s measuring tape. Plainly, he had building to do.
1970年，當時住在聖方濟會下的一所修道院的哈羅德·帕爾默修士收到了一個奇怪的包裹。他不知道是誰寄來的，裡面有一把泥瓦匠用的泥鏟、一把直角尺、一根鉛垂線和一根測量員用的捲尺。很顯然，他有建築工作要做了。
Up until then he had been undecided. He had seen a possible site, called Shepherds Law, on top of a gorse-thick hill in Northumberland with views as far as Scotland. But it was still not ideal. In fact, it was ruins: bits of an 18th-century cottage, two triple-arched arcades and an almost-gone pavilion. Not worth a visit, his guide had said. The arcades had probably been part of a folly long ago. There was no point in starting a new one.
在那之前，他一直猶豫不決。他曾在諾森伯蘭郡一座長滿金雀花的山頂上發現了一個可行的地點，叫做謝佩爾茲羅（Shepherds Law），從那裡可以遠眺蘇格蘭。但這個地方仍不理想。事實上，那裡是一片廢墟：一座18世紀小屋的殘骸, 兩個三拱式迴廊和一個幾乎倒塌的小亭子。他的嚮導說，那裡不值得去。那些迴廊大概是很久以前庭院裝飾的部分遺留。在那裡建一所新房子毫無意義。
Probably not. But Brother Harold had been looking for a long time, and all over the place, for somewhere he could found a skete: a tiny monastic community where he would live alone and a few chosen brothers would live close, in separate cells. They would tend a communal garden, eat and do chores together, and most vitally build a little chapel where they would sing the Divine Office seven times a day. That too was work: Opus Dei, the work of God. And after a while it would become an exercise in joy.
也許此言非虛。但哈羅德修士已經四處找尋了很久，他想找一個地方來建一座隱修院：一個小型修道院社群，在那裡他可以獨自居住，還會挑選少量幾位修士住在附近的單間裡。他們會照料公共花園，一起用餐、做家務，最重要的是建一座小教堂，在那裡他們每天會唱七次日課經（the Divine Office）。這也是工作：主業會（Opus Dei），即上帝的工作。而且過一段時間之後，它將成為一種快樂修行。
An Anglican priest, Father William Sirr, had tried to set up a skete at Glasshampton in 1918; sadly, no one had joined him. Perhaps Brother Harold’s counter-culturaldream could catch on in the modern age. People often said how much they longed for silence and stillness, and a life of prayer, solitary or almost so, was all about that. This was what had struck him most strongly when he visited Mount Athos and wandered among the sketes there: a stillness that if suddenly broken by a swallow, or a boat engine, immediately redescended like a presence. It had been a feature, too, of the lives of the earliest saints of Northumbria. St Cuthbert was said to have stood so still in the sea, praying by night, that his feet froze, and two otters came to him to lick them warm. In those days the Christian church had been undivided. He longed fiercely for it to be one body again.
1918年聖公會的神父威廉·希爾（William Sirr）曾嘗試在格拉斯漢普頓設立一個隱修院，但可惜無人加入。哈羅德（Harold）神父的反主流文化理想，或許可以成為神父威廉–希爾（Sirr William）在當代的繼承人。人們常說自己多麼渴望靜謐和安寧，修行者的孤獨生活正是如此。哈羅德(Harold)去遊歷阿索斯山,在那裡的修道院之間遊蕩, 此行給他最深刻的感受是一種靜謐：即便突然被燕子或者船引擎聲打破, 靜謐也會即刻再次迴歸。早期諾森布里亞的聖徒過的就是這樣的生活。據說, 聖卡斯伯特(St Cuthbert)夜晚在海里紋絲不動地駐立祈禱, 以至於雙腳都凍住了, 兩隻水獺把他的腳舔暖. 那時候的基督教會還沒有分開派系。如今他強烈希望教會能再次合為一體。
skete ：斯基特是東方基督教中的一個修道院社群,允許僧侶相對隔離,通常由許多小間或穴組成,作為居住區,並有一個集中的教堂或禮拜堂。
Since 1960, when he became a member of the SSF (the Anglican version of the Franciscans), he had lived in several SSF houses. But he couldn’t settle. He did not enjoy community on that scale, disliked being regimented, and hated the principle of enclosure. All in all, a difficult brother. He was happiest at the Alnmouth house on the Northumbrian coast, where the friars had to go down to the beach to gather sea-coal for the freezing rooms, and where railway trains, his passion, steamed past on the east-coast main line. In order not to miss them he would hitch his robe into his girdle, seize his situp-and-beg bike and race madly towards the smoke. He loved to be out and doing. He also loved to constantly acknowledge God around and within him, in song or silence, and alone.
1960年，他成為SSF(英國國教版的方濟各會)的一員。自那時起，他曾在多個SSF修道院居住過。但是他一直沒能安定下來。他在那種規模的社群住不慣，不喜歡受管束，討厭封閉式的條條框框。總之，他不算一個好相處的修士。他在諾森伯蘭沿岸的阿爾茅斯鎮修行所過得最快樂，在那裡修道士們需要到海灘上去採集海煤來給屋子取暖，還有鐵軌火車會在東海岸的主線旁疾馳而過。鐵軌火車是他的激情所在，為了不錯過列車，他會把長袍塞進束帶裡，抓起他那輛坐立式腳踏車，瘋狂地朝著煙霧衝去。他閒不住喜歡往外跑，也享受他獨身一人時感受到的上帝與自己同在的那些美好瞬間，或在吟誦時或在寂靜中。
situp-and-beg：The original sit-up-and-beg was a style of bicycle. It had a handlebar rather higher than the saddle, and when you put your hands up to steer, you looked rather like a begging dog.
St Francis had faced that dilemma. He ordered his followers to preach in towns, and did so himself. But he also made a habit of retiring to pray in remote and rocky places. Each Franciscan had to ask, as Francis did, whether he belonged in the world or not. The Northumbrian saints had a similar mission to the laity but also treasured solitude, as Cuthbert did when he fled to the Farne Islands. Brother Harold definitely needed both, and when he first went to live at Shepherd’s Law, in 1971 in a cold caravan wrapped in straw-bales containing rats, he often wondered what on earth he was doing. He made sure to get a mobile phone.
聖弗朗西斯也曾面臨這種困境，他曾命自己的信眾去各鎮傳教，自己也身體力行。但是他喜歡在偏僻的石頭多的地方修行。每個方濟會的信眾都會問，弗朗西斯也會問自己，他到底屬不屬於這個世界。北安布里亞的聖徒也有類似的向普通大眾傳教的任務，但是他們也很珍視離群索居的時光，卡斯伯特（Cuthbert）就曾逃去過法恩群島。哈羅德（Harold）絕對也是兩種狀態都需要，1971年他第一次去到謝佩爾茲羅（Shepherds Law），住在一輛冰冷的大篷車上，車上鋪著稻草，老鼠窸窣作響，他常常問自己到底都在幹嘛。他當時想方設法都要給自己搞臺手機。
2，卡斯伯特（Cuthbert、約634年—687年3月20日）是7世紀諾森布里亞的一位凱爾特聖人。他曾在古梅爾羅斯和林迪斯法恩等地傳教。
He had decided to raise money for his hermitage-house by working in a geriatric ward, tending frail old men who steadily died around him. But at Shepherds Law fellow-friars and local people, from the village of Eglingham and round about, soon lent a hand. Traditionally, hermits and anchorites always drew visitors. Clearly most locals liked having this curious solitary nearby. As he built his hermitage—thick walls of local stone and concrete, clay pantiles on the roof—donations of material kept coming. Since sanitation for years was a slop-bucket and an Elsan, he exchanged dog-walking for baths. His letterbox was at the bottom of the hill, to save the postman trouble. Villagers would leave cakes and other offerings there. The Friends of Shepherds Law were set up to raise funds for him. Over his 50 years of hermithood he became a village character: smiling, scruffy, missing a front tooth, and devoted to his Thomas the Tank Engine woolly hat with earflaps.
為了籌集隱居小屋的資金，他決定在一家老年病房工作，照顧身邊那些脆弱的老人，讓他們陸陸續續的離世。但是在謝佩爾茲羅（Shepherds Law），其他的修士、埃格林傑姆（Eglingham）村和周邊的居民很快就伸出了援手。一直以來，各種隱居士的存在總會吸引訪客。很顯然，大部分當地人都挺喜歡這個令人有些好奇的獨居者生活在附近。當他建造他的隱居所——用當地的石材和混凝土造的厚牆、用瓦片鋪蓋的屋頂——時，源源不斷地有人捐贈建築材料給他。由於多年來他的衛浴設施只是一個便桶、一瓶馬桶清潔劑（注：Elsan，英國常見的馬桶清潔劑品牌，也生產其他衛浴消毒產品，但以馬桶清潔最為知名），他透過替人遛狗來換取洗澡的福利。為了給郵遞人員省去麻煩，他的信箱放置在山腳下。村民們也會將糕點或是其他捐贈放在那裡。為了給他籌集資金, 還成立了一個“謝佩爾茲羅之友（Friends of Shepherds Law）”社團。五十多年的隱士生活，他儼然成了村莊的標誌人物：笑呵呵的，衣服有些破破爛爛，還缺了一顆門牙；總是戴著一頂有耳罩的托馬斯小火車圖案的無簷針織帽。
His purpose there, though, was prayer. Prayer both Anglican, from the Book of Common Prayer, and Catholic, since in 2004 he had turned to Rome. He loved, and used, both liturgies together. At first there was nowhere to pray but in the biting wind; then in a lean-to against the ruined wall, roofed with corrugated iron. Money from his mother, after she died, paid for a beautiful Romanesque chapel in local stone, dedicated to St Mary and St Cuthbert, with icons and stained glass and a relic of Cuthbert under the altar. The walls contained fragments of brick gathered from the beach at Lindisfarne, his Holy Island. Seven times a day, for the canonical hours of matins, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers and compline, Brother Harold would ring a medieval bell and enter to sing the Psalter. He had spent hours unearthing and translating Latin liturgies from archives in Durham and elsewhere, fitting them to Gregorian chant he had composed himself on the backs of envelopes. Chant, like his icons, pointed to the Mystery.
不過，他在隱居所的目的仍然是祈禱。既包括英國國教的祈禱（來自《公共祈禱書》），也有天主教的祈禱。因為2004年起，他已經轉投了羅馬（注：羅馬教廷，指代天主教）。兩種禮拜儀式他都深愛，也都會使用。起初，除了在凜冽的寒風中，他沒有其他地方可以禱告；後來來到靠著廢墟牆邊搭的小披棚裡，一層瓦楞鐵板便是屋頂。他用母親去世後留給他的錢建造了一個漂亮的羅馬式小教堂，使用的也是當地石材，獻給聖瑪麗和聖卡斯伯特。小教堂裡有聖像（注：聖像畫，基督教中被用來注視、思考、以此進入神的秘境並與聖人聯結的繪畫，非禮拜用）、花窗玻璃，聖壇之下還有一件聖卡斯伯特的聖徒遺物；牆壁上嵌有從林迪斯法恩聖島的海灘收集的磚塊碎片。一天的禱告有七次，在基督教禮儀時辰中的夜禱（matins，子夜時分）、第一時辰（prime，六點時）、第三時辰（terce，九點時）、第六時辰（sext，正午）、第九時辰（none，下午三點）、晚禱（vespers，點燈時分或下午六點）、睡前禱（compline，睡前或晚九點）時，哈羅德修士會敲響中世紀的鐘，進入小教堂，吟唱《詩篇》。他花費了幾多小時，從杜倫和其他地方的檔案中發掘並翻譯拉丁教會的禮拜儀式，配上自己在信封背面譜寫的格里高利聖詠。聖詠如同聖像，也指向著神的秘境。
Usually he was alone. He had built four well-equipped cells for visitors, each with its upstairs oratory; quite a few stayed, but no one stayed for good. Perhaps they disliked the smell of paraffin lamps, or objected to the meals of cold baked beans. It didn’t matter too much. As long as he himself remembered God continually, as he did, and addressed Him on behalf of the world and its troubles, and allowed God to enter his heart and dwell there, all was well. Between the verses of the Psalms, sheep bleated outside. He was perfectly still.
通常，他都是獨自一人。為了訪客，他建造了四個設施齊全的單間，每個樓上都配有自己的祈禱室；不少訪客都曾在裡面留宿，但沒有人長期留下來。或許他們不喜歡煤油燈的氣味，或許他們拒絕把冷茄汁焗豆當作一日三餐。這都不重要。他只需數年如一日，一直記得主，一直代表這個世界和這個世界的困擾向主祈禱，並允許主進入他的內心、駐留在那裡，就夠了。《詩篇》段落之間，外面的小羊在咩咩地叫。而他，巋然如山。
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