Close to home?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Close to home?

The news hit us hard because Taiwan has recently been a tourist hot spot for mainland travelers. The news would’ve hit you harder still, though, if, for example, you’ve just returned from a similar trip a month ago. It would’ve hit you harder if, say, you yourself are a bus driver or a tourist guide or if you are from Liaoning Province.

In short, the closer you feel you are connected to the event, the greater impact the news of the accident will have on you.

In other words, it will hit closer to home.

Or it feels closer to home.

Here are recent media examples of situations where things hit or feel close to home, i.e. touching and affecting us directly and deeply:

1. Later this month, at a gala evening ceremony in London, this year’s $1.7 million Templeton Prize will be awarded to 86-year-old Canadian Catholic philosopher and activist Jean Vanier. The annual prize – more lucrative than the Nobel prizes – “honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.”

For Vanier, it all began in 1964, when, after serving in the British and Canadian Royal Navies, he chose to act meaningfully on his deeply held Christian beliefs. Hearkening to the call of Jesus “to help the least of these my brothers,” Vanier befriended two institutionalized men with mental disabilities and invited them to live at his home in Trosly-Breuil, a small town north of Paris.