在探索中成長爲題的中英雙語美文欣賞

Growing in the Middle Ground by Anne Phipps在探索中成長 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.我堅信，自己的信仰一直在改變。沒有什麼事情是絕對的。或許，我還只是處在幼體的發育階段，總有一天我會發育完全，就會對一切深信不疑；或許，我將用一生的時間去探索。

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.在這個冬天以前，我信仰外界的事物，信仰在自然與藝術中所發現的美。美麗總會稍縱即逝，從外到內，給人留下無盡的感傷。當我騎馬穿過夏日的樹林，當我聆聽 着浪花翻滾的韻律，當我手中握着一朵鮮花時，我感覺到一種無形的信念。

There was the same inspiration from art, here and there in flashes; in seeing for the first time the delicacy of a white 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 consciousness, 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. Ifit's not, I found e was an emptiness inside, which beauty could not fill.同樣的靈感也來源於藝術——它無處不在，轉瞬即逝。當我初次看到一隻精妙的白玉花瓶 時，或者看到一塊華麗的.地毯，聽到一段演奏得近乎完美的音樂，看到馬爾科娃在《吉賽爾》中優美的舞姿時，都會有這種靈感。然而，最多的靈感卻是來自於閱讀。他人的思想，對情感、顏色、聲音的敏銳，以及對形式的感知，都會給我帶來啓迪。我發現，對美的需求是人類最崇高的善舉，是人類靈魂最偉大的天賦。但是，我想它並非一切。

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.今年冬天，我開始了大學生活。我所面臨的問題也有所改變。很多事實與那些“誰拉着誰徘徊在哪個牆邊？”的問題已變得毫無意義。相反，一些永恆的問題出現在我的面前，比如，何爲美？何爲真？何爲上帝？我與其他學生探討信仰的問題，我閱讀聖奧古斯丁與托爾斯泰的著作。我想知道，自己是否一直徘徊在信仰的邊緣。自然與藝術皆爲邊緣，心中的信仰纔是核心所在。我真實地發現，自己擁有一個靈魂。

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 the 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，當我坐在陽光下時，我猛然明白了聖尼古斯丁的話的涵義：太陽與月亮，所有自然界的奇蹟，皆非上帝的“初作”，而是精神上的二次創造。直到那一刻，透過外部的事物，我才認識到精神上的美，那種美已經走進我的心中。如今，我正在通往內在精神意識的道路上摸索前行，希望有一天能夠將它們從我的內心喚醒。我迷失在探索之中，我在學習。