生命的拼搏--《转自：听力课》

(2024-11-12 21:15:41)

从前，在一个非常非常遥远的国度，有一位心地善良的老人。他喜爱一切东西，动物啦、蜘蛛啦、昆虫啦。
  一天，这位善良的老人在树林里散步的时候，发现了一个蝴蝶的茧。他把茧带回了家。
   几天后，茧裂开了一道小缝。老人几小时地坐在那里，看着蝴蝶挣扎着让自己的身体从小缝中挤出来。后来，蝴蝶破茧好象停了下来，没有什么进展了。看来蝴蝶好象是撑到了最后，再也不可能前进了。
    看到这里，老人决定帮助蝴蝶。于是他找出一把剪刀，把茧剩余的部分剪破了。这样，蝴蝶就轻易地从茧中脱出来了。
但是，蝴蝶的身子肿胀着，翅膀又小又皱。老人继续观察着蝴蝶，因为他期望着这样一个时刻的到来：蝴蝶的翅膀会变大，大到能支持它的身体，而蝴蝶的身体届时也会缩小。可是什么也没有发生。事实上，这只蝴蝶的余生中就只能拖着臃肿的身体和萎缩的翅膀爬来爬去了。它永远也不能飞起来了。
在好心和匆忙间，老人并不理解，蝴蝶破茧而出时需要的那种束缚和挣扎其实是大自然用来将蝴蝶的体液挤到翅膀中的方法，这样，蝴蝶一旦能从茧中脱出，就能准备好飞翔了。
有时候，挣扎正是我们生活中所需要的。如果我们能得以毫无障碍地走过一生，这会使我们软弱。我们就不可能变得强壮。
重要的是，我们就不可能腾飞。

Once upon a time in a land far far away, there was a wonderful old man who loved everything. Animals, spiders, insects...

One day while walking through the woods the nice old man found a cocoon of a butterfly. He took it home.
A few days later, a small opening appeared; he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.
Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.The butterfly then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.It never was able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were Nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were allowed to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

And we could never fly.

行胜于言

我在内华达大学拉斯维加斯分校教经济学，每周上三次课。上周一，在刚开始上课的时候，我兴致勃勃地问学生们周末过得怎么样。一个男生说，他的周末不太愉快，因为他的智齿被拔掉了，结果让他痛了一整天。然后，他又问我为何我总能保持那么快乐的心情。

他的问题使我想起了一句不知出处的话：“每天早上，当你起床的时候，你可以选择如何面对一天的生活”，我说：“我选择快乐。

“我给你们举个例子吧，”我对着全班六十个学生继续说道，“除了在这儿上课，我还在一所社区大学任教，那儿离我家17英里。几周前的一天，我驾车前往那所学校，驶离高速公路后，我转入了校园区。在只差400多米就到学校的时候，我的汽车抛锚了。我努力重新发动引擎，但就是不行。我只好把指示灯打亮，然后抓起课本直奔学校。”

我一到学校就马上打电话给汽车协会，让他们在我下课后开辆拖车过来。院长办公室的秘书问我发生了什么事。“今天我真走运。”我笑着答道。

“你的车坏了，你还说今天走运？”她一脸的困惑。“你什么意思啊？”

我回答到：“我住在离这儿17英里的地方。其实我的车有可能在高速公路上的什么地方就坏掉了的，但庆幸的是，没有。相反，汽车是在离开了高速公路后才抛锚，而且距离学校很近。我还赶得及上课，还能够安排拖车在课后来处理。如果我的汽车是注定了要在今天抛锚的，那在这个位置抛锚已经是非常幸运了。”

“那个秘书听得目瞪口呆地，然后她笑了。我也冲她笑了一下，便上课去了。”这就是我的故事。

我扫视了一下全班六十张脸。虽然是在大清早，但没有一个学生在打盹儿。不知道为什么，他们好像被我的故事触动了。也许触动他们的并不是故事本身。其实，从一开始有学生发现我兴致高昂的时候，他们便已经被我的快乐感染了。

I teach economics at UNLV three times per week. Last Monday， at the beginning of class， I cheerfully asked my students how their weekend had been. One young man said that his weekend had not been so good. He had his wisdom teeth removed. The young man then proceeded to ask me why I always seemed to be so cheerful.

His question reminded me of something I’d read somewhere before： “Every morning when you get up， you have a choice about how you want to approach life that day，” I said. “I choose to be cheerful.”

“Let me give you an example，” I continued， addressing all sixty students in the class. “In addition to teaching here at UNLV， I also teach out at the community college in Henderson， 17 miles down the freeway from where I live. One day a few weeks ago I drove those 17 miles to Henderson. I exited the freeway and turned onto College Drive. I only had to drive another quarter mile down the road to the college. But just then my car died. I tried to start it again， but the engine wouldn’t turn over. So I put my flashers on， grabbed my books， and marched down the road to the college.

“As soon as I got there I called AAA and arranged for a tow truck to meet me at my car after class. The secretary in the Provost’s office asked me what has happened. ’This is my lucky day，’ I replied， smiling.

’Your car breaks down and today is your lucky day？’ She was puzzled. ’What do you mean？’

’I live 17 miles from here.’ I replied. ’My car could have broken down anywhere along the freeway. It didn’t. Instead， it broke down in the perfect place： off the freeway， within walking distance of here. I’m still able to teach my class， and I’ve been able to arrange for the tow truck to meet me after class. If my car was meant to break down today， it couldn’t have been arranged in a more convenient fashion.’

The secretary’s eyes opened wide， and then she smiled. I smiled back and headed for class.“ So ended my story.

I scanned the sixty faces in my economics class at UNLV. Despite the early hour， no one seemed to be asleep. Somehow， my story had touched them. Or maybe it wasn’t the story at all. In fact， it had all started with a student’s observation that I was cheerful.

Deepak Chopra has quoted an Indian wise man as saying， “Who you are speaks louder to me than anything you can say.” I suppose it must be so.

死不是生命的终结

在一个比我所处环境更崇尚不可知论的文化环境中，去含义隽永的谈论一个自身都不甚了了的大问题总是一项巨大的挑战。现在有很多人对身后事持怀疑态度。不管人们怎么怀疑天堂地狱，讲一个人的一切就这么彻底消失总给人一种残酷的感觉，尤其当这个人还是你的熟人的时候。不管我们相不相信身后之事，我们都倾向于尽量柔化这种涉及终结的语言，用隐喻将死亡比喻成这，比喻成那。其实死亡就是死亡，这是它的无上权威。作为一个主持葬礼的牧师，我找到了用诗篇、音乐和怀念构成的信念，足以让我们穿越生死，看透死亡。死，只是一种状态的改变，却不是生命的终结。

Life's struggle

In a more agnostic culture than the one I grew upwith it's a challenge to know how to talkmeaningfully about something so enormous whenwe don't really understand it. There is scepticismabout the afterlife these days. But however scepticalpeople may be about heaven and hell, it always feelsbrutal to speak of the total extinction ofpersonality, when the personality concerned issomeone you know. Whether we believe or don'tbelieve about life after death we tend to soften thelanguage of finality, to resort to metaphor, tosaying death is like this or like that even the death is not like anything. That is its majesty. As apriest who conducts funerals I find the language of faith, with poetry, music and acts ofremembrance are what allow us to make the transition between life and death, to discoverthat death, though a change of state, is not the end of being.",

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