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The Prayer that Was Answered

【聯合報／讀李家同學英文】

Doctor Liu and I were good friends; there was nothing he wouldn’t talk about with me. He told me he prayed often, and always with the same appeal: that God would destroy the wicked people of the world with the fire of his heavenly indignation. But he had to admit that though his prayers were very earnest, it seemed like they hadn’t been answered at all. He was extremely disappointed, not to mention bewildered.

One day the telephone rang. It was Doctor Liu asking me to come to the hospital as fast I could. I asked him why, but he wouldn’t tell me. “You’ll see when you get here,” he said.

When I arrived at the hospital, I found Doctor Liu staring at an email in a daze.

The sender’s English name was God, which was odd enough in itself. But the strangest thing was the sender’s address. The address of this letter was perfectly simple, only one word long: Heaven. Every email has a subject, and the subject of this one was “prayer”. It looked like Doctor Liu had received a letter from Heaven—from God Himself, no less!

Dear Doctor Liu,
I heard your prayers a long time ago. No doubt you’re wondering why I haven’t answered you yet. If you want to know the reason, you can find it at www.
God

Sure enough, we found a file on the World Wide Web that seemed to be connected with the email. We opened it and saw that it was filled with pictures of evildoers, the people Doctor Liu wanted God to destroy. For each person there was a picture followed by a short catalogue of his crimes.

The first picture was of a Bosnian warlord branded by the UN as a war criminal. The second picture was, too. Their crime was using racial hatred to stir up war.

Suddenly, after about ten pictures of criminals, there was a picture that gave us both quite a shock. It was a photo of Doctor Liu. The problem was, each picture represented a sinner that God wanted to destroy with the fire of his righteous indignation. Why was he a candidate for destruction?

Simultaneously seized by the same thought, our eyes darted down to the description of his crimes: Doctor Liu, not guilty of any crime.

That was somewhat reassuring. But the rest of it didn’t look so good for Doctor Liu: Doctor Liu has no love in his heart. All he thinks about is destroying sinners—he’s never once thought of saving them.

A sort of paralysis overtook Doctor Liu. I quickly turned off the computer. Doctor Liu was utterly unable to speak.

Doctor Liu took a two-week vacation. When he came back to work after those two weeks, he gradually changed. Even though he was still a Christian, he was no longer so fixated on the sins of others. He started taking extra good care of his patients. Each time, his friendly smile and handshake brought them great comfort.

（本文摘錄於《讀李家同學英文5》，已由聯經出版事業公司出版）