《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 57 (123):尋找神
The search for God is a reversal of the normal, mundane worldly order. In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult. You abandon your comforting and familiar habits with the hope (the mere hope!) that something greater will be offered you in return for what you've given up. Every religion in the world operates on the same common understandings of what it means to be a good disciple—get up early and pray to your God, hone your virtues, be a good neighbor, respect yourself and others, master your cravings. We all agree that it would be easier to sleep in, and many of us do, but for millennia there have been others who choose instead to get up before the sun and wash their faces and go to their prayers. And then fiercely try to hold on to their devotional convictions throughout the lunacy of another day.
對神的追求，與平凡的世界秩序背道而馳。在尋找神的時候，你撇下吸引自己的東西，遊向困難的事情。你捨棄舒適熟悉的習慣，期待得到更大的報償，抵償你捨棄的東西。世上每一種宗教的運作，都是基於對所謂人生鍛鍊的相同共識——起個大早，向神祈禱，磨練自己的美德，敦親睦鄰，尊重自己並尊重他人，控制七情六慾。我們都同意睡懶覺比較容易，許多人也這麼做，然而數千年來也有人選擇日出前起身、洗臉、晨禱，極力把持自己的信仰，度過又一個狂亂的日子。
The devout of this world perform their rituals without guarantee that anything good will ever come of it. Of course there are plenty of scriptures and plenty of priests who make plenty of promises as to what your good works will yield (or threats as to the punishments awaiting you if you lapse), but to even believe all this is an act of faith, because nobody amongst us is shown the endgame. Devotion is diligence without assurance. Faith is a way of saying, "Yes, I pre-accept the terms of the universe and I embrace in advance what I am presently incapable of understanding." There's a reason we refer to "leaps of faith"—because the decision to con-sent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don't care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn't. If faith were rational, it wouldn't be—by definition—faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch.
世上的虔誠信徒履行他們的例行公事，卻不保證從中得到任何好處。當然，許多經文著作、許多神職人員都許諾你的善行將取得何種報償（或威脅你背離正道將受到何種懲罰），但去相信這一切也是一種信仰實踐，因爲我們也沒見過最終的結局。虔誠是一種沒有保證的勤奮之舉。信仰的另一種說法是：“是的，我先行接受宇宙的條件，我事先接受目前無法瞭解的事情。”因此我們說“跨越信念”——因爲決定認可神的概念，等於從理性跨向未知，不管哪種宗教的學者如何賣力地用他們的一堆堆經文著作向你證明其信仰合乎理性；事實卻不然。信仰若合乎理性，就不稱之爲——根據定義——信仰。信仰是去相信你看不見、證明不了、摸不着的東西。
Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be . . . a prudent insurance policy.
信仰是勇往直前衝向黑暗。假如我們真能事先知道生命的意義、神的本質、靈魂的命運這些問題的答案，我們的信仰就不是跨越信念，也不是勇敢的人類行爲；而只是……審慎的保險條款。
I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water. Eat, Pray, Love
我對保險業不感興趣。我已厭倦做懷疑論者。我受夠了心靈的審慎，實證之辯使我焦躁不耐。我不想再聽。我不在乎證據、證明、保證。我只要神。我要我內心的神。我要神在我的血液中玩耍，像陽光在水面上自娛。
