Insight
工程技术，地产投资，信仰家园，时尚生活
《境界》独立出品【灵光掠影】
文/严行
子孙绵延是否会被打破？
孩子，是触动亲情的敏感点，只轻轻一拨，心就会颤动。苦情戏常常会打孩子的牌，就是要在孩子身上赚取眼泪，从而赚取大把票房。多年前，《世上只有妈妈好》一片就是这样捞了个钵满盘满，现在，导演陈可辛携《亲爱的》登上今年的加拿大多伦多电影节，打的也是亲情牌。
《亲爱的》片名，乍一看还以为是恋情片呢，其实，在中国文化里，小孩是比情人更重要、更亲爱的对象。情人可以分手，夫妻可以离婚，但孩子永远是自己的，孩子有自己的血脉，孩子是自己的未来，所以，在中国传统家族文化里，妻子如衣服，兄弟如手足，孩子却是一切。因此才有这样的说法——“无后为大”！连阿Q想跟女佣人吴妈好，主要都不是为了性欲，而是怕“断子绝孙”。
千百年来，在没有宗教的中国文化里，子孙绵延，支撑了中国人的世俗信仰，愚公就曾充满自负地说：“虽我之死，有子存焉；子又生孙，孙又生子；子又有子，子又有孙；子子孙孙，无穷匮也”。你看，愚公能够不畏惧死亡，原因就在于他相信他的子子孙孙会无穷无尽！
愚公根本没预料过另一种可能：子孙绵延是否会被打破？
陈可辛就把这个可能搬进电影里来了，而且用的是十分极端的方式：孩子被拐了！
天哪！还有比这更可怕的事吗？出事之后，当父亲的像挨了一棒，天旋地转；当母亲的像被掏去了心，失魂落魄。
在这个有几千年历史的不信神的文化里，士大夫把信仰寄托在历史中，谋求“留取丹心照汗青”，期望他的名万世留芳；而百姓则把指望交托给肉身，由子孙传递他的血脉，他便可以活在他子孙的生命绵延中。
传道书所说的“神又将永远安置在世人心里”，在中国文化中就表现为这两种追求。举目四望，世上哪个民族有华人的家谱热？如此来看，没有孩子，这家谱可怎么传下去呢？
“小家伙”是家庭的偶像
孩子，亲爱的小孩，其实是中国文化的救世主弥赛亚。一个家庭得了儿子的时候，都会本能地期望这儿子是拯救他们家庭的人，是这个家庭的希望之光。
若不理解这一点，将很难理解影片中失去子女的父母的绝望。孩子没了，这日子可怎么过下去？找回孩子，必须的！从此这就是他们活着的主题。因为他们没有别的了，只剩下这个了，没了这个就什么也没有了！
他们组成“寻子会”，用传销的方式互相鼓励，四处奔走，遍撒传单，在没有政府配合社会支持的情况下，历尽艰辛地寻找。
原来，拐孩子的家庭，也是因为没有生育能力，要使出这种歪招来得个儿子。
演员赵薇饰演的孩子的养母，操着浓重的乡音，一口一个“小家伙”，不停地讲她对孩子的热切之情。
一个孩子，撒裂了两个家庭。丢失孩子的家庭， 奔波在寻亲中；拐孩子的家庭，也面对养了几年的孩子被领走的痛苦。陈可辛始终把电影情节的焦点对准孩子，虽然“小家伙”并不是影片的主人公，但一直是影片的中心。因为，“小家伙”是家庭的偶像。
圣经里有这样一组完全不同的场景。亚伯拉罕带着他所爱的独子以撒，走了三天，到摩利亚山，准备把这孩子向耶和华献为燔祭。这孩子本是他的唯一，他的血脉也要靠这孩子来延续，他蒙神所赐的福份也要因这孩子传递。
但亚伯拉罕更尊神为大，愿神的旨意成全，独子以撒不能成为亚伯拉罕的偶像，他的信仰在神那里，始终是神。献祭之际，神亲手拦阻了他，说：“现在我知道你是敬畏神的了。因为你没有将你的儿子，就是你独生的儿子，留下不给我。”
神大大祝福亚伯拉罕，地上万国都因他的后裔得福，直至今日。
以撒之后两千年，耶和华神的独子，真正的救主耶稣基督在十字架上献祭，把“因他的后裔得福”的那个福音，全然展现出来，让信他的人都得着了这个福。
只是这个福，不在世上，反而是把人从罪恶的世上救赎出来。
《亲爱的》导演只知道影片中丢失的儿子，却不认识十字架上的圣子。所以
这部影片，只能把世上的幸福，寄托在“小家伙”身上。
作为一部目前中国电影市场中难得的现实题材影片，《亲爱的》确实触及了许多社会问题，如拐卖妇女儿童现象，计划生育政策，民间互助组织，司法律师系统，地方保护主义……
只是由于对这些现象无力解读，使影片停留在浮光掠影上，无法给出真正的盼望。于是导演拿世上永恒不败的主题，如“母爱”、“亲情”用来立意，靠滚滚泪水，泛溢的情绪，把观众裹入感情的旋涡。因此，电影拍得很缺乏节制，一如现实的混乱与喧嚷。
鲁迅一直批判中国文化是“杀子文化”，只是，鲁迅没有看到，杀子的方式，竟是膜拜子，将子当成救主。
任何文化的问题，核心都是信仰问题。中国文化的祖先崇拜和子嗣追求，是一体两面的，在没有神的地方，或者将先人举为神明，或者将后人视为偶像。愿先人佑庇家族，愿后人光宗耀祖。
但先人不是神，后人也不是。孩子若能够成为可期望的，只能是将他们放在神的手中，不然，小孩子只是——“小家伙”。
【公益故事】
“甜甜圈宝宝”的中美奇迹之旅
文/亚萨（读者家人）
这几年，明星富豪们“慈善秀”越来越多了。而“暴力慈善”、“诈捐门”等花样频出，也让众人觉得慈善慢慢变了味，变成了专属有钱人的一种游戏。真正的慈善，应是什么味道呢？让我们来看一则某国外驻上海记者讲述的真实的故事：
2010年一个寒冷漆黑的冬天晚上，该记者和朋友正从上海一间酒店不远的一家甜甜圈店门口经过时，发现了一个大约6个月大的疾病缠身的无名弃婴。她身子底下垫着两个塑料袋，里面装着新生儿的衣服、几罐配方奶粉、几包尿布和洗刷干净的奶瓶——这些是一位母亲对自己将永远别离的孩子，唯一能留下的爱意。
后来发现，这位被昵称为“甜甜圈宝宝”的孩子有很多疾病，包括先天性心脏病、双目白内障失明和部分蹼足。
包括记者在内，谁也没有料到，从那天起，她的故事便由悲剧转变成基督教童话：近四年前，她还是个在寒冷漆黑的窄巷里啼哭的孤儿；如今，她已是在阳光明媚的路易斯安那州享受美丽人生的娇蛮幼童。
这个童话的缔造者——不是明星，不是巨富，甚至够不上普通的中产阶级——杰里米·斯特里克兰(Jeremy Strickland)夫妇——当时正在1.2万公里之外的美国小镇上过着清贫生活。
事实上，这对夫妇于2012年7月开始办理领养手续时，他们的积蓄仅有100美元。杰里米因慢性头疼已从美国空军(USAir Force)病退，妻子拉卡莎则刚刚辞职，把更多时间投身于教会工作。
从理性上来看，领养一个重病缠身的小孩显然不是他们下一步该做的。连他们的美国领养机构都警告他们这个宝宝有“太多危险信号”。
但杰里米夫妇清楚自己为什么要这样做：除了种种其他原因，还因为上帝希望他们这样做。“主将领养的念头放到我们心里。”拉卡莎说，“主激起我们的渴望，于是我们开始寻觅这样的机会。”
从中国领养一个有特殊需求的孩子，费用最多可达3万美元，包括文书工作、翻译和旅行费用。而抚养这样一个孩子，哪怕在美国，这笔费用无疑也相当可观。所以他们不只是做出决定，他们发起了一场运动。
2012年10月，他们发起了“带贝拉宝宝到美国”的活动。他们不但请来家人、朋友、教友帮忙募捐，而且开始想其他一切可能的办法。他们在当地沃尔玛(Walmart)的停车场支起帐篷售卖T恤，衣服上印着《雅各书》第一章第27节：“在神我们的父面前，那清洁没有玷污的虔诚，就是看顾在患难中的孤儿寡妇。”他们在教堂午餐会上卖出了260盘“鸡肉奶酪意大利面”，筹集到2500美元。他们甚至拎着桶子，举着贝拉的海报站在红绿灯下筹集善款 ……
对于这段经历，拉卡莎在自己的博文《从上帝的口袋领养宝宝》(Adoption from God’s Pocket)中写道：“开头很难，我既自豪，又觉得这样很蠢。但过了片刻后，渐渐有车子停下来，开始询问她的事情，然后往我们的桶里投钱。
我们分享着贝拉的故事，还有上帝之爱，以及对贝拉的生活规划。”她总结道：“这便是传教！上帝为我们提供了与陌生人谈论他、他所做过且仍将继续做的事的方式。还有什么话题比谈论一个有需要的孩子更容易聊呢。”
接着他们又奇迹般地收到了一笔3110美元银行汇款，斯特里克兰夫妇至今没猜出这笔钱的来源，但他们知道社工进行“家庭调查”的费用正是3110美元，该调查是从中国领养小孩的先决条件。同时，他们曾经的一位姻亲向人借了4000美元来帮助他们。斯特里克兰夫妇去银行办理房屋贷款时，一位银行职员居然主动为他们排除了障碍。
虽然他们筹到了资金，但”甜甜圈宝宝”仍在上海一家孤儿院以蒋新倩的名字生活着。杰里米夫妇给她起了个英文名——贝拉.克莱尔。
早在贝拉到路易斯安那州以前，她就已经是这个家庭的一员了。她在孤儿院过2岁生日的当天，斯特里克兰家照了张全家福，每人手里都抓着个甜甜圈，象征他们与甜甜圈宝宝的亲情关系。那一年他们家的圣诞合影上有拉卡莎、杰里米、他们的儿子佩顿(Peyton)和一张贝拉的相片。拉卡莎甚至在他们飞往上海前把头发染成黑色，这样贝拉就不会对她的样子太过惊奇——因为在中国几乎每个人的头发都是乌黑的。
当然，这个童话般的结局开始时并不顺利。2013年5月贝拉被移交给斯特里克兰夫妇时，她已经两岁半了，她不仅拒绝被拥抱，而且挣扎着要逃跑。拉卡莎拍下了她当时凄惨绝望的表情，并把视频传到YouTube上。
但在48小时后，贝拉已活泼起来，两条小细腿磕磕绊绊地探索着新环境，就像她没什么走路经验似的……拉卡莎、杰里米和佩顿都已迷上了她，他们指着她眼中的白内障、脚趾的蹼膜的样子，就像别的家长在炫耀孩子的酒窝，他们还让记者摸她胸腔上初期心脏修复手术所留下的船首状突起。
由于领养的中国儿童身有残疾，他们所要付出的无私的爱更是常人难以企及。中国
内地人大多不愿领养残疾儿童，即便在海外也很难为这些需要领养的孩子找到足够的家长。相当多领养特殊需求孩子的外国人都有强烈的宗教信仰，他们认为这些孩子尤为值得基督教慈善事业的关怀。
现在贝拉已经适应了她的新生活。“她经常跟她哥哥比赛。如果他说话，她就说得更大声。她非常聪明，她喜欢数数、唱歌，和独立作祈祷。”拉卡莎还补充说，贝拉刚来头几个月常做恶梦，如今已逐渐减少了：“她小小的身体里有太多愤怒。”拉卡沙希望，
贝拉的亲生父母有一天能读到记者写的这篇文章，知道他们的宝宝在路易斯安那州快乐地生活着。但即便他们没看到这篇文字，也无需为甜甜圈宝宝担忧。
慈善的施与者，往往会面临一个巨大的诱惑：以救赎者自居，产生高人一等的道德优越感。而这种心态是真正慈善的死敌：它不仅严重地伤害被救助者，最后也会使施与者丧失动力。
或许，圣经哥林多前书十三章的一段关于爱的颂歌，更清楚地揭示了慈善的本质:爱是恒久忍耐，又有恩慈，爱是不嫉妒，爱是不自夸，不张狂，不做害羞的事，不求自己的益处，不轻易发怒，不计算人的恶，不喜欢不义，只喜欢真理……
这，才是慈善真正的味道。
FT Magazine
July 25, 2014 12:28 pm
Adopting an abandoned Chinese baby: a family’s experience
By Patti Waldmeir
In 2010, Patti Waldmeir found a seriously ill newborn in a Shanghai alley. Since then the story has turned from communist tragedy to Christian fairy tale
Bella Xin KaLare with her adoptive parents LaKasha and Jeremy Strickland
Baby Bella made her debut in this magazine in 2011, under a different name, “Baby Donuts”, given for the Dunkin’ Donuts outlet where her birth parents chose to leave her in December 2010. She was about six weeks old. More than 110,000 children born in China have been adopted by families overseas in the past two decades. But Bella has the dubious distinction of being the only Chinese baby yet abandoned at the feet of an FT journalist.
A friend and I found her one night, only steps from one of Shanghai’s top hotels. She was lying on top of two plastic bags that bulged with new baby clothes, tins of infant formula, packs of newborn nappies and scrubbed-clean baby bottles: the only love note a mother could dare to leave, for a child she would never know.
The fact that her parents chose to leave her at a place frequented by foreigners may mean they wanted her to end up living overseas. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they wanted a healthy baby, if they were only going to have one child. (China has since slightly relaxed its one-child policy but babies are still being abandoned.) Bella has a number of disabilities, including a congenital heart defect, blindness in both eyes from cataracts and a partially webbed foot. Perhaps her parents simply couldn’t cope.
Baby Donuts (aka Bella), shortly after she was found
In lots of ways, theirs was an entirely rational decision: in China, many families have only minimal health insurance, and the cost of all the surgery Baby Donuts needed (along with the bribes paid to doctors) could have bankrupted even a family of substantial means. Abandoning her meant that she would become a ward of the state, which would at least pay to keep her alive. China says it has about 700,000 “orphans” (meaning children whose parents can’t care for them). About 100,000 live in state institutions but most of the rest collect a government subsidy.
What seems less rational is why LaKasha and Jeremy Strickland, living on a shoestring in a town 12,000km away, felt able, not to mention willing, to do for Baby Donuts what her birth family could not. Even their US adoption agency, through which they first heard about Bella, warned them off, saying the baby had “too many red flags”. When they started the adoption process in July 2012, the couple had just $100 in savings. Jeremy had been medically retired from the US Air Force for chronic headaches and LaKasha had just left her job to become more involved with her church. Adopting a child with serious medical needs wasn’t the obvious next move.
But the Stricklands are clear about why they did it: among other things, because God wanted them to. “God put adoption in our hearts,” LaKasha says. “God stirred our hearts and we started searching.” And they didn’t just make a decision, they mounted a crusade. It can cost upwards of $30,000 to adopt a special needs child from China, including paperwork, translations and travel costs. Raising such a child, even in the promised land of Obamacare, will doubtless cost considerably more (in spite of Jeremy’s excellent medical insurance as an ex-serviceman).
Undeterred, the Stricklands launched a “Bring Baby Bella to America” campaign in October 2012, enlisting family, friends, members of their church and even the Bible to fundraise. They set up a tent in the parking lot of the local Walmart to sell T-shirts emblazoned with these words from James 1:27: “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father is to care for orphans in their troubles.” They sold 260 plates of “chicken cheesy spaghetti” at a church lunch, raising $2,500. They even stood at traffic lights with a bucket and a poster of Bella, collecting dollar bills.
"It can cost $30,000 to adopt a special needs child from China. The couple had just $100 of savings"
LaKasha says she was shocked when Jeremy came up with the idea of panhandling to raise money for Bella. But their experience at the traffic lights yielded both cash and encouragement, as she shares on her blog “Adoption from God’s Pocket”. “It was so hard at first, feeling silly and prideful,” she writes. “But after a little wait a few cars started pulling in and asking about her and putting dollars in our bucket. We got to share about her and about God’s love and plan for her life,” she says, adding: “This was ministry!! He has given us a way to talk to strangers about Him and what He has done and will continue to do. There’s nothing easier to talk about than a child in need.”
And then there was the miracle of the $3,110 bank deposit: the Stricklands have never figured out exactly where it came from, but they do know that $3,110 was exactly what they needed to pay for the “home study” by social workers, which is a prerequisite of any adoption from China. And there was the former sister-in-law who borrowed $4,000 to help them, and the bank employee who cleared the way, unexpectedly, for the Stricklands to refinance their home.
While they raised money, Bella was still living at the Shanghai orphanage under the name Jiang Xinqian. The Stricklands decided that her American name was to be Bella KaLare (pronounced “Claire”). “I talked to God a lot that day about if I was making the right choice,” LaKasha writes on her blog. “He showed me that her name was beauty and clarity and I knew he was happy with it: beauty, with her imperfections, and clarity, within her mind without delays.” Later on the Stricklands added “Xin” to honour her Chinese roots.
Bella became a member of the family long before she got to Louisiana. On her second birthday (which she spent in the orphanage), the Stricklands posed for a family portrait, each clutching a donut, to symbolise their bond with the baby. Their Christmas photo that year shows LaKasha, Jeremy, their son Peyton and a framed portrait of Bella. LaKasha even dyed her hair black before they flew to Shanghai, so that Bella would not be too shocked at her appearance (in China nearly everyone’s hair is jet black, including septuagenarians).
Bella Xin KaLare Strickland
Bella today
Of course, any parent who adopts from China has to demonstrate great commitment. The process is lengthy, costly and – when the vast majority of Chinese children available for adoption are disabled – requires a level of selflessness not many of us can muster. Mainlanders mostly refuse to adopt disabled children, and even overseas it is hard to find enough parents for the children who need them. Many non-Chinese who adopt special needs babies have strong religious beliefs and see these children as being especially worthy of Christian charity.
In spite of limited financial means, stretched further by repeated adoptions, they remortgage homes, sell chicken cheesy spaghetti, T-shirts – anything to make the adoption happen.
I adopted my own two (healthy) Chinese daughters as infants in 2000 and 2002 using the money I had saved during a lifetime of working. But whether we beg, borrow or finance our adoptions from our trust fund, most adoptive parents go through the same agonising moment when an orphanage nanny hands us our child – and they shriek in outrage. Bella, then two-and-a-half years old, went one better: she tried to escape. The abject misery in her face at the handover to the Stricklands in May 2013 is captured in a video LaKasha posted on YouTube entitled “Gotcha Day/Bella Xin KaLare.” The fairy-tale ending got off to a very rough start.
But by the time I joined the family 48 hours later, Bella had already begun to blossom. I remembered a beautiful newborn in a blanket: what I saw two years later was a determined, winsome and mischievous toddler, tripping off on her little spindly legs – which looked like they hadn’t much experience of the world of walking – to explore her surroundings.
"I remembered a beautiful newborn: what I saw was a determined, winsome toddler"
LaKasha, Jeremy and Peyton were all besotted with her already, pointing out the cataracts in her eyes and the webbing of her toes like other parents might brag about dimples, and inviting me to feel the prow-like protrusion of her ribcage left after her heart defect had its initial repair. And what about the prominent bruise in the middle of one cheek? “The orphanage said they weren’t sure how that happened,” says LaKasha. Orphanage staff had told the Stricklands that Bella was “very strong-willed” – perhaps heartening for an adoptive parent to hear, since strong will may be just what got her through that night in the alleyway, and the many illnesses of her infanthood.
Later we took Bella to the Dunkin’ Donuts where our story began, in the company of my friend John Fearon, the British businessman who first heard her abandoned cries. Not surprisingly, she couldn’t have cared less (especially since the donut shop had closed). But we adults all spent a moment feeling the tragic miracle that is every Chinese adoption – and the pain of birth parents who cannot keep their child – before we set off to McDonald’s to feed Bella her first all-American French fries.
Bella is now “settling in beautifully” to her new life. “She is constantly competing with her brother. If he talks she talks louder. She is so smart: she loves to count and sing and say her prayers all by herself,” LaKasha says, adding that the night terrors of Bella’s first months at home are beginning to abate: “She has a lot of anger in that little body.”
LaKasha hopes Bella’s birth parents may one day read these words, and know they can find their baby living happily in Louisiana. But unless and until they do, no one need worry about Baby Donuts. She’s just where she needs to be. Hallelujah.
Patti Waldmeir is the FT’s Shanghai correspondent. With additional reporting by
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