The lesson of the story, I suggested, was that in some strange sense we are more whole when we are missing something. The man who has everything is in some ways a poor man. He will never know what it feels like to yearn, to hope, to nourish his soul with the dream of something better. He will never know the experience of having someone who loves him give him something he has always wanted or never had.
There is a wholeness about the person who has come to terms with his limitations, who has been brave enough to let go of his unrealistic dreams and not feel like a failure for doing so. There is a wholeness about the man or woman who has learned that he or she is strong enough to go through a tragedy and survive, she can lose someone and still feel like a complete person.
Life is not a trap set for us by God so that he can condemn us for failing. Life is not a spelling bee, where no matter how many words you’ve gotten right; you’re disqualified if you make one mistake. Life is more like a baseball season, where even the best team loses one third of its games and even the worst team has its days of brilliance. Our goal is to win more games than we lose.
When we accept that imperfection is part of being human, and when we can continue rolling through life and appreciate it, we will have achieved a wholeness that others can only aspire to. That, I believe, is what God asks of us—not “Be perfect”, not “Don’t even make a mistake”, but “Be whole.”
If we are brave enough to love, strong enough to forgive, generous enough to rejoice in another’s happiness, and wise enough to know there is enough love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other living creature will ever know.
从前，一只圆圈缺了一块楔子。它想保持完整，便四处寻找那块楔子。由于不完整，所以它只能慢慢地滚动。一路上，它对花儿露出羡慕之色。它与蠕虫谈天侃地。它还欣赏到了阳光之美。圆圈找到了许多不同的楔子，但没有一件与它相配。所以，它将它们统统弃置路旁，继续寻觅。终于有一天，它找到了一个完美的配件。圆圈是那样地高兴，现在它可以说是完美无缺了。它装好配件，并开始滚动起来。现在它已成了一个完美的圆圈，所以滚动得非常快，以至于难以观赏花儿，也无暇与蠕虫倾诉心声。当圆圈意识到因快奔急骋使它失去了原有的世界时，它不禁停了下来，将找到的配件弃置路旁，又开始慢慢地滚动。
我觉得这个故事告诉我们，从某种奇妙的意义上讲，当我们失去了一些东西时反而更加完整。一个拥有一切的人其实在某些方面是个穷人。他永远也体会不到什么是渴望、期待及如何用美好梦想滋养自己的灵魂。他也永远不会有这样一种体验：一个爱他的人送给他某种他梦寐以求的或者从未拥有过的东西意味着什么。
人生的完整性在于知道如何面对缺陷，如何勇敢地摒弃不现实的幻想而又不以此为缺憾。人生的完整性还在于学会勇敢面对人生悲剧而继续生存，能够在失去亲人后依然表现出完整的个人风范。
人生不是上帝为谴责我们的缺陷而给我们布下的陷阱。人生也不是一场拼字游戏比赛，不管你拼出多少单词，一旦出现了一个错误，你便前功尽弃。人生更像是一个棒球赛季，即使最好的球队也会输掉1/3的比赛，而最差的球队也有春风得意的日子。我们的目标就是多赢球，少输球。
当我们接受不完整性是人类本性的一部分，当我们不断地进行人生滚动并能欣赏其价值时，我们就会获得其他人仅能渴望的完整人生。我相信这就是上帝对我们的要求：不求“完美”，也不求“永不犯错误”，而是求得人生的“完整”。如果我们能够勇敢地去爱，坚强地去宽容，大度地去为别人的快乐而高兴，明智地理解身边充满爱，那么我们就能取得别的生物所不能取得的成就。
A Winter Walk冬日漫步
The wind has gently murmured through the blinds, or puffed with feathery softness against the windows, and occasionally sighed like a summer zephyr lifting the leaves along, the livelong night. The meadow mouse has slept in his snug gallery in the sod, the owl has sat in a hollow tree in the depth of the swamp, the rabbit, the squirrel, and the fox have all been housed. The watch-dog has lain quiet on the hearth, and the cattle have stood silent in their stalls. The earth itself has slept, as it were its first, not its last sleep, save when some street-sign or wood-house door has faintly creaked upon its hinge, cheering forlorn nature at her midnight work—the only sound awake twixt Venus and Mars,—advertising us of a remote inward warmth, a divine cheer and fellowship, where gods are met together, but where it is very bleak for men to stand. But while the earth has slumbered, all the air has been alive with feathery flakes descending, as if some northern Ceres reigned, showering her silvery grain over all the fields.
We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impressive. The floor creaks under our feet as we move toward the window to look abroad through some clear space over the fields. We see the roofs stand under their snow burden. From the eaves and fences hang stalactites of snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites covering some concealed core. The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on every side; and where were walls and fences, we see fantastic forms stretching in frolic gambols across the dusky landscape, as if Nature had strewn her fresh designs over the fields by night as models for man’s art.
Silently we unlatch the door, letting the drift fall in, and step abroad to face the cutting air. Already the stars have lost some of their sparkle, and a dull, leaden mist skirts the horizon. A lurid brazen light in the east proclaims the approach of day, while the western landscape is dim and spectral still, and clothed in a sombre Tartarean light, like the shadowy realms. They are infernal sounds only that you hear, —the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, the chopping of wood, the low whines, all seem to come from Pluto’s barnyard and beyond the Styx, —not for any melancholy they suggest, but their twilight bustle is too solemn and mysterious for earth. The recent tracks of the fox or otter, in the yard, remind us that each hour of the night is crowded with events, and the primeval nature is still working and making tracks in the snow. Opening the gate, we tread briskly along the lone country road, crunching the dry and crisped snow under our feet, or aroused by the sharp, clear creak of the wood-shed, just starting for the distant market, from the early farmer’s door, where it has lain the summer long, dreaming amid the chips and stubble; while far through the drifts and powdered windows we see the farmer’s early candle, like a paled star, emitting a lonely beam, as if some severe virtue were at its matins there. And one by one the smokes begin to ascend from the chimneys amid the trees and snows.
