Author: Casey Gerald(Writer)
Part1
There we were, souls and bodies packed into a Texas church on the last night of our lives.
Packed into a room just like this, but with creaky（吱吱作响的） wooden pews（教堂长椅） draped in（披上） worn-down（磨损的） red fabric（织物）, with an organ（管风琴） to my left and a choir（[ˈkwaɪər]唱诗班） at my back and a baptism pool（洗礼池） built into the wall behind them.
A room like this, nonetheless（尽管如此）.
With the same great feelings of suspense（焦虑）, the same deep hopes for salvation（得救）, the same sweat in the palms（ [pɑːmz] 手心出汗） and the same people in the back not paying attention.
This was December 31,1999, the night of the Second Coming of Christ（基督复临）, and the end of the world as I knew it.
I had turned 12 that year and had reached the age of accountability（责任）.
And once I stopped complaining about how unfair it was that Jesus would return as soon as I had to be accountable for all that I had done, I figured I had better get my house in order very quickly.
So I went to church as often as I could. I listened for silence as anxiously（ ['æŋkʃəsli]） as one might listen for noise,
我焦急地等待着寂静，就像等待着嘈杂的声音一样
trying to be sure that the Lord hadn't pulled a fast one（骗局） on me and decided to come back early.
And just in case he did, I built a backup plan, by reading the "Left Behind"（《末日迷踪》讲述由凯奇扮演的机长驾驶飞机在万米高空突遇诡异气象，同时地球上成百万人神秘消失） books that were all the rage at the time（风靡一时的）.
And I found in their pages that if I was not taken in the rapture（狂喜） at midnight, I had another shot（另一个机会）.
All I had to do was avoid taking the mark of the beast, fight off demons(恶魔), plagues （ [pleɪɡz]瘟疫）and the Antichrist（基督的大敌魔鬼） himself.
It would be hard --but I knew I could do it.
Part2
But planning time was over now. It was 11:50 pm.
We had 10 minutes left, and my pastor（ [ˈpæstər]牧师） called us out of the pews and down to the altar（祭坛） because he wanted to be praying when midnight struck.
So every faction（派别） of the congregation（教堂会众） took its place.
The choir stayed in the choir stand, the deacons（[ˈdikənz]执事） and their wives -- or the Baptist（浸礼会教徒） Bourgeoisie（[ˌbʊrʒwɑːˈziː] 资产阶级） as I like to call them --took the first position in front of the altar.
You see, in America, even the Second Coming of Christ has a VIP section.
And right behind the Baptist Bourgeoisie were the elderly --
these men and women whose young backs had been bent under hot suns in the cotton fields（棉田） of East Texas, and whose skin seemed to be burnt a creaseless noble brown（无皱纹的高贵棕色）, just like the clay（陶土） of East Texas,
and whose hopes and dreams for what life might become outside of East Texas had sometimes been bent（弯曲） and broken even further than their backs.
Yes, these men and women were the stars of the show for me.
They had waited their whole lives for this moment, just as their medieval predecessors（中世纪前辈） had longed（渴望） for the end of the world,and just as my grandmother waited for the Oprah Winfrey Show to come on Channel 8 every day at 4 o'clock.
And as she made her way to the altar, I snuck（sneak 偷偷地走） right in behind her, because I knew for sure that my grandmother was going to heaven.
And I thought that if I held on to her hand during this prayer, I might go right on with her.
So I held on and I closed my eyes to listen, to wait.
And the prayers got louder.
And the shouts of response to the call of the prayer went up higher even still.
And the organ rolled on in to add the dirge（哀歌）. And the heat came on to add to the sweat.
And my hand gripped firmer（抓得更紧）, so I wouldn't be the one left in the field.
My eyes clenched tighter so I wouldn't see the wheat（小麦） being separated from the chaff（谷壳）.
And then a voice rang out above us: "Amen."
It was over.I looked at the clock.It was after midnight.I looked at the elder believers whose savior had not come,who were too proud to show any signs of disappointment,who had believed too much and for too long to start doubting now.
But I was upset on their behalf（代表他们）.
They had been duped（[duːpt]被欺骗）, hoodwinked（ [ˈhʊdwɪŋkt] 被欺诈）, bamboozled（[bæmˈbuːzld]被哄骗）, and I had gone right along with them.
I had prayed their prayers, I had yielded not to temptation（不屈服于诱惑） as best I could.
I had dipped（浸） my head not once, but twice in that snot-inducing（惹人嫌的） baptism pool.
I had believed.
Now what?
I got home just in time to turn on the television and watch Peter Jennings announce the new millennium（千禧年） as it rolled in around the world.
It struck me that it would have been strange anyway, for Jesus to come back again and again based on the different time zones.
And this made me feel even more ridiculous（可笑的） -- hurt, really.
But there on that night, I did not stop believing.
I just believed a new thing: that it was possible not to believe.
It was possible the answers I had were wrong, that the questions themselves were wrong.
And now, where there was once a mountain of certitude（确实的事）, there was, running right down to its foundation, a spring of doubt, a spring that promised rivers.
I can trace the whole drama of my life back to that night in that church when my savior did not come for me; when the thing I believed most certainly turned out to be, if not a lie, then not quite the truth.
And even though most of you prepared for Y2K in a very different way,I'm convinced that you are here because some part of you has done the same thing that I have done since the dawn（黎明） of this new century,since my mother left and my father stayed away and my Lord refused to come.
And I held out（伸出） my hand, reaching for something to believe in.
Part3
I held on when I arrived at Yale（[ˈjeɪl]耶鲁大学） at 18, with the faith that my journey from Oak Cliff, Texas was a chance to leave behind all the challenges I had known, the broken dreams and broken bodies I had seen.
But when I found myself back home one winter break（寒假）, with my face planted in the floor, my hands tied behind my back and a burglar's（窃贼） gun pressed to my head, I knew that even the best education couldn't save me.
I held on when I showed up at Lehman Brothers as an intern in 2008.
2008年，当我去雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers，美国第四大投资银行，现已破产)实习时，我坚持了下来。
So hopeful that I called home to inform my family that we'd never be poor again.
But as I witnessed this temple of finance come crashing down before my eyes, I knew that even the best job couldn't save me.
I held on when I showed up in Washington DC as a young staffer,who had heard a voice call out from Illinois（伊利诺斯州（美国州名））, saying, "It's been a long time coming, but in this election, change has come to America."（奥巴马竞选演讲内容）
But as the Congress（国会） ground to a halt（停滞不前） and the country ripped（撕碎） at the seams（缝合处） and hope and change began to feel like a cruel（残酷的） joke, I knew that even the political second coming could not save me.
I had knelt faithfully at the altar of the American Dream（一种相信美国的社会、经济、政治体制可以使每个人成功的理想）, praying to the gods of my time of success, and money, and power.
But over and over again, midnight struck, and I opened my eyes to see that all of these gods were dead.
And from that graveyard（墓地）, I began the search once more, not because I was brave, but because I knew that I would either believe or I would die.
So I took a pilgrimage（[ˈpɪlɡrɪmɪdʒ]朝拜） to yet another mecca（[ˈmekə]麦加; 沙特城市，伊斯兰教圣城）, Harvard Business School --
this time, knowing that I could not simply accept the salvation that it claimed to offer.
No, I knew there'd be more work to do.
The work began in the dark corner of a crowded party, in the late night of an early, miserable(使人难受的) Cambridge winter,
when three friends and I asked a question that young folks（年轻人） searching for something real have asked for a very long time: "What if we took a road trip?"
We didn't know where'd we go or how we'd get there, but we knew we had to do it.
Because all our lives we yearned（渴望）, as Jack Kerouac（杰克·凯鲁亚克author of the novel 《On the Road》） wrote, to "sneak out into the night and disappear somewhere," and go find out what everybody was doing all over the country.
So even though there were other voices who said that the risk was too great and the proof too thin, we went on anyhow.
We went on 8,000 miles across America in the summer of 2013, through the cow pastures（奶牛牧场） of Montana（[mɑnˈtænə]蒙大拿（州））, through the desolation（荒漠） of Detroit（[dɪˈtrɔɪt]底特律）, through the swamps（沼泽） of New Orleans（[nuː ˈɔrliənz]新奥尔良）,
where we found and worked with men and women who were building small businesses that made purpose their bottom line.
And having been trained at the West Point（西点军校，美国陆军学院） of capitalism（资本主义）, this struck us as a revolutionary idea.
And this idea spread, growing into a nonprofit called MBAs（工商管理学硕士） Across America, a movement that landed me here on this stage today.
It spread because we found a great hunger in our generation for purpose, for meaning.
It spread because we found countless entrepreneurs（企业家） in the nooks and crannies（每个角落） of America who were creating jobs and changing lives and who needed a little help.
But if I'm being honest, it also spread because I fought to spread it.
There was no length to which I would not go to preach（布道，宣扬） this gospel, to get more people to believe that we could bind the wounds of a broken country, one social business at a time.
But it was this journey of evangelism（传布福音） that led me to the rather different gospel that I've come to share with you today.
Part4
It began one evening almost a year ago at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, at a gala for alumni（校友聚会） of Harvard Business School.
Under a full-size replica（复制品） of a whale, I sat with the titans（巨人） of our time as they celebrated their peers（同龄人） and their good deeds（善举）.
There was pride in a room where net worth and assets under management surpassed（超过） half a trillion dollars.
We looked over all that we had made, and it was good.
But it just so happened, two days later, I had to travel up the road to Harlem（纽约哈莱姆区）, where I found myself sitting in an urban farm that had once been a vacant lot（空地）, listening to a man named Tony tell me of the kids that showed up there every day.
All of them lived below the poverty line（贫困线）.
Many of them carried all of their belongings in a backpack to avoid losing them in a homeless shelter.
Some of them came to Tony's program, called Harlem Grown, to get the only meal they had each day.
Tony told me that he started Harlem Grown with money from his pension（退休金）, after 20 years as a cab driver.
He told me that he didn't give himself a salary, because, despite success, the program struggled for resources.
He told me that he would take any help that he could get.
And I was there as that help.
But as I left Tony, I felt the sting（刺） and salt of tears welling up in my eyes.
I felt the weight of revelation（真相） that I could sit in one room on one night, where a few hundred people had half a trillion dollars, and another room, two days later, just 50 blocks up the road, where a man was going without a salary to get a child her only meal of the day.
And it wasn't the glaring（[ˈɡlerɪŋ] 明显的） inequality that made me want to cry, it wasn't the thought of hungry, homeless kids, it wasn't rage（愤怒） toward the one percent or pity toward the 99.
No, I was disturbed（心烦意乱） because I had finally realized that I was the dialysis（[ˌdaɪˈæləsɪs]） for a country that needed a kidney transplant.
I realized that my story stood in for all those who were expected to pick themselves up by their bootstraps（自力更生）, even if they didn't have any boots; that my organization stood in for all the structural, systemic help that never went to Harlem or Appalachia（阿巴拉契亚，指美国东部的纽约州南部、阿拉巴马州北部、密西西比州北部和佐治亚州北部一带） or the Lower 9th Ward（第九区，电影里外星人被隔离的地方）; that my voice stood in for all those voices that seemed too unlearned, too unwashed, too unaccommodated（太没学问，太没教养，太不适应）.
And the shame of that, that shame washed over me like the shame of sitting in front of the television, watching Peter Jennings announce the new millennium again and again and again.
I had been duped, hoodwinked, bamboozled.
But this time, the false savior was me.
You see, I've come a long way from that altar on the night I thought the world would end, from a world where people spoke in tongues and saw suffering as a necessary act of God and took a text to be infallible truth.
Yes, I've come so far that I'm right back where I started.
Because it simply is not true to say that we live in an age of disbelief -- no, we believe today just as much as any time that came before.
Some of us may believe in the prophecy（[ˈprɑːfəsi] 预言） of Brené Brown（布林·布朗博士，是休斯顿大学社会工作研究生院的助理研究教授。她的研究课题包括脆弱性、勇气、真实性和羞耻。） or Tony Robbins（托尼·罗宾斯Tony Robbins，励志演讲家与畅销书作家，白手起家、事业成功的亿万富翁，是当今最成功的世界级潜能开发专家。）.
We may believe in the bible of The New Yorker or the Harvard Business Review.
We may believe most deeply when we worship（崇拜） right here at the church of TED, but we desperately（拼命地） want to believe, we need to believe.
We speak in the tongues of charismatic leaders（有魅力的领导者） that promise to solve all our problems.
We see suffering as a necessary act of the capitalism that is our god, we take the text of technological progress to be infallible（永无过失的） truth.
And we hardly realize the human price we pay when we fail to question one brick, because we fear it might shake our whole foundation.
But if you are disturbed by the unconscionable things that we have come to accept, then it must be questioning time.
So I have not a gospel of disruption（破坏） or innovation or a triple（三倍的） bottom line.
I do not have a gospel of faith to share with you today, in fact.
I have and I offer a gospel of doubt.
The gospel of doubt does not ask that you stop believing, it asks that you believe a new thing: that it is possible not to believe.
It is possible the answers we have are wrong, it is possible the questions themselves are wrong.
Yes, the gospel of doubt means that it is possible that we, on this stage, in this room, are wrong.
Because it raises the question, "Why?"
With all the power that we hold in our hands, why are people still suffering so bad?
This doubt leads me to share that we are putting my organization, MBAs Across America, out of business.
We have shed去除 our staff and closed our doors and we will share our model freely with anyone who sees their power to do this work without waiting for our permission.
This doubt compels（迫使） me to renounce（宣布放弃） the role of savior that some have placed on me, because our time is too short and our odds（逆境） are too long to wait for second comings, when the truth is that there will be no miracles here.
And this doubt, it fuels me, it gives me hope that when our troubles overwhelm us, when the paths laid out for us seem to lead to our demise（消亡）, when our healers bring no comfort to our wounds, it will not be our blind faith（盲目信仰） -- no, it will be our humble（谦虚的） doubt that shines a little light into the darkness of our lives and of our world and lets us raise our voice to whisper or to shout or to say simply, very simply, "There must be another way."
Thank you.
