Growing in the Middle Ground 在探索中成长
Growing in the Middle Ground在探索中成长Anne Phipps安妮.菲普斯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.
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。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.
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。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.
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。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.
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？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.
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。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.
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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