《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 3 (5):我心目中的神
Now, this was a first for me. And since this is the first time I have introduced that loaded word—GOD—into my book, and since this is a word which will appear many times again throughout these pages, it seems only fair that I pause here for a moment to explain exactly what I mean when I say that word, just so people can decide right away how offended they need to get.
這對我來說可是頭一遭。既然我首次把這個沉重的字眼——神——引進本書，既然這個字眼將在本書中重複出現多次，請容我在此停頓片刻，原原本本地解說我提及這個字眼時意指爲何，以便讓大家能立刻決定自己會被觸怒的程度。
Saving for later the argument about whether God exists at all (no—here's a better idea: let's skip that argument completely), let me first explain why I use the word God, when I could just as easily use the words Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu or Zeus. Alternatively, I could call God "That," which is how the ancient Sanskrit scriptures say it, and which I think comes close to the all-inclusive and unspeakable entity I have sometimes experienced. But that "That" feels impersonal to me—a thing, not a being—and I myself cannot pray to a That. I need a proper name, in order to fully sense a personal attendance. For this same reason, when I pray, I do not address my prayers to The Universe, The Great Void, The Force, The Supreme Self, The Whole, The Creator, The Light, The Higher Power, or even the most poet-ic manifestation of God’s name, taken, I believe, from the Gnostic gospels: "The Shadow of the Turning."
把神是否存在的論點留待稍後（不 ——我有個更好的主意：乾脆跳過這一點 ），容我先行說明使用“神”這個字的原因，而我原本是可以使用“耶和華”“阿拉”“溼婆”“梵天”“毗溼奴 ”或“宙斯”等這些名稱的。或者我可以把神稱爲“那東西 ”，在古梵語經文中正是如此稱呼，而我認爲這很接近自己時而體驗到的那種無所不包、不可名狀的實體。然而“那東西”讓我覺得沒有人味——一種非人的東西——而就我個人而言 ，我是無法對一個“東西”祈禱的。我需要一個確切的名稱，以便能完全感覺到一種隨侍在側、屬人的氣質。同理，在我祈禱時，禱詞的對象並非“宇宙”“太虛”“原力”“至高者”“全靈”“造物主”“靈光”“大能”，或選自諾斯底福音書（Gnosticgospels）、我認爲最富詩意的神名：“峯迴路轉的陰影”。
I have nothing against any of these terms. I feel they are all equal because they are all equally adequate and inadequate descriptions of the indescribable. But we each do need a functional name for this indescribability, and "God" is the name that feels the most warm to me, so that’s what I use. I should also confess that I generally refer to God as "Him," which doesn't bother me because, to my mind, it's just a convenient personalizing pronoun, not a precise anatomical description or a cause for revolution. Of course, I don’t mind if people call God "Her," and I understand the urge to do so. Again—to me, these are both equal terms, equally adequate and inadequate. Though I do think the capitalization of either pronoun is a nice touch, a small politeness in the presence of the divine.
我並不反對使用這些詞。我覺得它們一律平等，因爲其既適用、亦不適用於描述無可名狀的東西。不過我們每個人都需要一個功能性的名稱，來指稱這無可名狀之對象。而“神 ”這個名稱，讓我覺得最溫暖，於是我用它。我也得承認，基本上我把神稱作“他”（Him），這對我並不費事，在我腦海裏，這只是一種方便的個人化代詞，並非某種確切的解剖學描述或革命的理由。當然，若有人稱作“她”Her，我也不介意，我能瞭解想這麼稱呼的衝動。我還是要說，這兩者對我來說都是平等的詞兒，既恰當，也不恰當。不過，我認爲兩個代詞大寫是不錯的表示，是對神的存在略表敬意。
