名篇背诵: 在探索中成长

编者按:

美丽总会稍纵即逝,从外到内,给人留下无尽的感伤。对美的需求是人类最崇高的善举,是人类灵魂最伟大的天赋。

Growing in the Middle Ground

Anne Phipps

I believe that my beliefs are changing. Nothing is positive. Perhaps I’m in a stage of metamorphosis, which will one day have me emerging complete, sure of everything. Perhaps, I shall spend my life searching.

Until this winter, I believed in outward things, in beauty as I found it in nature and art. Beauty past—swift and sure—from the outside to the inside, bringing intense emotion. I felt a formless faith when I rode through summerwoods, when I heard the counterpoint of breaking waves, when I held a flower in my hand.

There was the same inspiration from art, here and there in flashes; in seeing for the first time the delicacy of a green jade vase, or the rich beauty of a rug; in hearing a passage of music played almost perfectly; in watching Markov dance Giselle; most of all, in reading. Other people’s creations, their sensitivity to emotion, color, sound, their feeling for form, instructed me. The necessity for beauty, I found to be the highest good, the human soul’s greatest gift. But there were moments when I wasn’t sure. There was an emptiness inside, which beauty could not fill.

This winter, I came to college. The questions put to me changed. Lists of facts—and who dragged whom how many times around the walls of what—lost importance. Instead, I was asked eternal question: what is beauty, what is truth, what is God? I talked about faith with other students. I read St. Augustine and Tolstoy. I wondered if I hadn’t been worshipping around the edges. Nature and art were the edges, and inner faith was the center. I discovered—really discovered—that I had a soul.

Just sitting in the sun one day, I realized the shattering meaning of St. Augustine’s statement that, “The sun and the moon, all the wonders of nature, are not God’s first works but second to spiritual works.” I had, up till then, perceived spiritual beauty only through the outward. It had come into me. Now I am groping towards an inner, spiritual consciousness that will be able to go out from me. I am lost in the middle ground. I’m learning.

在探索中成长

 安妮.菲普斯

我坚信,自己的信仰一直在改变。没有什么事情是绝对的。或许,我还只是处在幼体的发育阶段,总有一天我会发育完全,就会对一切深信不疑;或许,我将用一生的时间去探索。

在这个冬天以前,我信仰外界的事物,信仰在自然与艺术中所发现的美。美丽总会稍纵即逝,从外到内,给人留下无尽的感伤。当我骑马穿过夏日的树林,当我聆听着浪花翻滚的韵律,当我手中握着一朵鲜花时,我感觉到一种无形的信念。同样的灵感也来源于艺术——它无处不在,转瞬即逝。当我初次看到一只精妙的白玉花瓶时,或者看到一块华丽的地毯,听到一段演奏得近乎完美的音乐,看到马尔科娃在《吉赛尔》中优美的舞姿时,都会有这种灵感。然而,最多的灵感却是来自于阅读。他人的思想,对情感、颜色、声音的敏锐,以及对形式的感知,都会给我带来启迪。我发现,对美的需求是人类最崇高的善举,是人类灵魂最伟大的天赋。但是,我想它并非一切。

今年冬天,我开始了大学生活。我所面临的问题也有所改变。很多事实与那些“谁拉着谁徘徊在哪个墙边?”的问题已变得毫无意义。相反,一些永恒的问题出现在我的面前,比如,何为美?何为真?

何为上帝?我与其他学生探讨信仰的问题,我阅读圣奥古斯丁与亚里士多德的著作。我想知道,自己是否一直徘徊在信仰的边缘。自然与艺术皆为边缘,心中的信仰才是核心所在。我真实地发现,自己拥有一个灵魂。

一天,当我坐在阳光下时,我猛然明白了圣尼古斯丁的话的涵义:太阳与月亮,所有自然界的奇迹,皆非上帝的“初作”,而是精神上的二次创造。直到那一刻,通过外部的事物,我才认识到精神上的美,那种美已经走进我的心中。如今,我正在通往内在精神意识的道路上摸索前行,希望有一天能够将它们从我的内心唤醒。我迷失在探索之中,我在学习。


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