Two Truths to Live by
本帖最后由 梦溪 于 2011-12-19 18:15 编辑Two Truths to Live by
By Alexander M. Schindler
The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbits of old put it this way: "A man comes to this world with his first clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open." Surely we ought to hold fast to life. for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God's own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what it was and then suddenly realize that it is no more. We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beaty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered. A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack that had been in intensive care for several days. It was not a pleasant place.
One morning, I had to have some additional tests. The required machines were located in a building at the opposite end of the hospital, so I had to be wheeled across the courtyard on a gurney. As we emerged from our unit, the sunlight hit me. That's all there was to my experience. Just the light of the sun, and yet how beautiful it was - how warming, how sparkling, how brilliant! I looken to see whether anyone else relished the sun's golden glow, but everyone was hurrying to and fro, most with eyes fixed on the ground. Then I remembered how often I, too, had been indifferent to the grandeur of each day, too preoccupied with petty and sometimes even mean concerns to respond to the splendor of it all. The insight gleaned from that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: life's gifts are precious-but we are too heedless of them
Here then is the first pile of life's paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.
Hold fast to life... but not so fast that you cannotlet go. This is the second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.
This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of or passionate being can, nay, will, be ours. But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surly this second truth dawns upon us.
At every stage of life we sustain losses- and grow in the process. We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. We enter a progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our own strength. And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves, as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be.
But why should we be reconciled to life's contradictory demands? Why fashion things of beauty when beauty is evanescent? Why give our heart in love when those we love will ultimately betorn from our grasp?
In order to resolve this paradox, we must seek a wider perspective, viewing our lives as through windows that open on eternity. Once we do that, we realize that though our lives are finite, our deeds on earth weave a timeless pattern.
Life is never just being. It is a becoming, a relentless flowing on. Our parents live on through us, and we will live on through our children. The institutions we build endure, and we will endure through them. The beauty we fashion cannot be dimmed by death. Our flesh may perish, our hands will wither, but that which they create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come.
Don't spend and waste your lives accumulating objects that will only turn to dust and ashes. Pursue not so much the material as the ideal, for ideals alone invest life with meaning and are of enduring worth.
Add love to a house and you have a home. Add righteousness to a city and you have a community. Add truth to a pile of red brick and you have a school. Add religion to the humblest of edifices and you have a sanctuary. Add justice to the far-flung round of human endeavor and you have civilization. Put them all together, exalt them above their present imperfections, add to them the vision of humankind redeemed, forever free of need and strife and you have a future lighted with the radiant colors of hope.
生活的艺术在于紧握生命之美，又能适时放它们而去。因为人生就存在于这样似是而非的真理之中：它催促我们抓住生命的礼物，又注定了最终的失去。古时的犹太法学家这样告诉我们：“人来到世上时，紧握双拳，离开时，两手空空。”
诚然， 在上帝创造的世界之中，每一根毛孔都渗透着了生命的美好， 我们本应紧握。虽知如此，可太多时候，当我们蓦然回首，忆起生活之美时，一切都早已烟消云散。
我们的记忆里有太多消逝的美，衰老的爱。但我们回忆的更大痛苦却是年少时，我们未曾珍视美的灿烂，未曾回应爱的呼喊。
最近的经历也在重复的向我讲解这个真理。我因为严重的心脏病而住进了重症监护室，一连几天，那里的日子并不好过。一天清晨，我去进行几项辅助检查。因为所用的机器放在医院对面的一座楼里，我不得不坐在轮椅上，被人推着，穿过庭院。
就当我们从病房出来的一瞬间，阳光打在了我的身上。这就是我想告诉你们的全部了，但就是这阳光，多么美的阳光——多么温暖、耀眼、灿烂！
我旁视左右，想要看看其它人是否也在享受这金色的阳光。没有。每个人都在忙于奔波，大多数人的眼睛盯在了地面上。我又在想，曾几何时，自己不也是和他们一样，成日忙于琐碎，与这华美，默然相对。
我所洞悉的，也许和我的这次经历一样，并无与众不同之处：生命的礼物如此珍贵，我们却对此并不留心。
在这似是而非的真理终，生命给予我们的第一个启示便是：请勿因为忙碌奔波而错过了对生命的欣赏何感叹。请虔诚的面对每次黎明。紧握每日每时，抓住每分每秒。
紧握生命，但请不要握的过紧，我们还应学会放手。这便是这个真理的硬币上，我想给你们看的另一面：我们应当接受我们失去的，并学会如何看着它们离开。
这并不是容易学会的一课，尤其是当我们还年轻，意气风发，梦想世界在我们的掌控之中，只要我们全力以赴地渴求，不论何事都能够，是一定能够，属于我们。但是生命，它将现实呈现在我们面前。我们会渐渐懂得这条真理。这个过程或许缓慢，但却无法逃避。
在人生地每一个阶段我们都承受着失去，并在这个过程中成长。只有在从母亲的子宫中诞生，脱离它地保护伞，我们才能成为独立的个体。
我们上学，一步一步，然后我们离开父母和儿时的家园。我们结婚，我们生子，然后我们放开双手，任孩子们在这个世界上自己打拼。我们面对着亲人和配偶的离逝，我们面对着自己逐渐或者突然的衰老。最终，如同那个犹太法学家所告诉我们的寓言一样，我们必须面对自己无法
逃避的死亡，失去自己，失去一切我们的梦想。
但是为什么，我们应该屈从于生命这相互矛盾的要求呢？为什么美丽易逝，我们还要创造美丽？既然总有一天，我们再也触不到爱人的双手，那么为什么在我们的心中，还要植下爱情的种子呢？
为了解释这个矛盾，我们必须去寻找一个更加宽广的视野，通过永恒之窗，审视我们的生命。一旦我们这样做了，我们便可以明白，虽然生命有限，但我们走过这世界的双脚，却可以编织永恒的图案。
生命，永远不只是“活着”那么简单。它是一个过程，毫无恻隐之心的，向前奔涌。我们父母的生命，在我们身上得以延续，我们的生命也会在我们的孩子身上得以延续。我们所创造的美好不会因为我们的死亡而暗淡，我们也将在自己所创造的美好中继续生命。我们的躯体枯损，双手皱褶，但我们所创造的真、善、美，都将永恒存留世间。
请不要把生命只浪费在金钱上，因为金钱最终只会化为尘土和灰烬。追求精神而非物质，因为是精神赋予了生命意义，及永恒的价值。
房子有了爱，便是一个家。城市有了道义，便是一个社会。红砖之上有了真理，便是学校。陋室之上有了宗教，便是圣堂。在人类绵延千年的探索上有了正义，便是文明。将这一切汇集起来，在不完美中追寻完美，在人类的救赎中添加新的一笔，需求和争论的永恒自由。你会拥有一个未来，它被希望的光彩点燃。 Regardless of how many times you are dropped down, you are not whipered, if you get up one more time than you're knocked down.
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