Enter the beginning of the mystery of time

【Gazing into the eye of time】5

Started a year ago"Looking into the Eyes of Time"The series stems from my curiosity about the theme of time and my desire to share fantasy literature classics with more people, so I embarked on a journey of reading, thinking and exploring the mysteries of time.

Ask about time and walk with you

Along the way, I discovered that time is like dewdrops, like crystal jade. Under the light of the sun, moon, stars, and even candlelight, it shines with millions of brilliance, far exceeding what I originally expected. I can't help but feel the same emotion as St. Augustine:

"When we discuss time, we seem to understand it; when we hear others discussing time, we still understand it. But what exactly is time? When no one asks me, I still know it; when someone asks me to explain it to him, I'm confused."

Time is abstract, invisible and intangible, but it leaves traces everywhere in life. When looking at the external natural environment, the movement of stars, the rising and setting of the sun, the setting of the moon, the four seasons, and the tides of day and night, all of them cannot escape the norms of time sequence. The migration of birds and animals, the reproduction of flowers and trees, all have their own regular biological rhythms. Looking back on the long history of history, the pages of yesterday’s archives are full of the marks of collective human time. Pay attention to the personal universe. Individual life from birth to death is also inseparable from the cycle of time and night.

The universe, nature, history, society, and individual time interact with each other to create the mystery of time. Everyone has to find their own answer to the mystery.

Is time a veiled memory? Does time have no beginning and no end, or does time have a beginning and an end? Does time travel in a straight line, jump up and down, or curve around? God created time, but outside of time, He sees a thousand years as a day and a day as a thousand years. After the fall of man, physical life on earth has a beginning and an end. How should we understand eternity without beginning or end?

Look at the world and uncover myths

Questions may not necessarily be answered through meditation, so I began to quietly observe the way people use their time, and found many interesting and even shocking experiences. In the past, the tiring and time-consuming way of traveling made people leaving Yangguan in the west feel like saying goodbye. Today, with the development of high-speed land, sea and air transportation, the earth has become a village, and life is full of time-saving tools. People should have a lot of time to spare, right? But what is commonly heard is the complaint that people never have enough time. The pace of life in post-modern society is tense and hectic. The harder adults race against time, the more they panic when they are chased by the flying arrows of time!

Where are the children?Although childhood schedules are jam-packed with study, talent, and entertainment, the mental boredom index is rising along with the parental stress index.Many young people are indifferent to the past and pessimistic about the future. As long as they have it once, they don't care if it lasts forever. They are accustomed to the immediate excitement of the current loud noises and colorful spectacles, and have hardly heard the ticking of the pendulum. The natural timing of the twenty-four festivals is as far away as legends. I often think about how to adapt to this generation of fast food. Develop the plains of time and describe the long river of time?

Perhaps, count the stars on the mountain, listen to the sound of the tide at the beach, and switch the rhythm of your heart and mind while reading.

Therefore, the column "Looking into the Eyes of Time" invites readers to put on different glasses and observe the sudden changes of "time" through representative works of Western juvenile fantasy novels. In the process of deliberation and search, we borrow the eyes of the first-class British and American fantasy authors and gaze intently at the pupils of the years—sometimes with a startled glance, sometimes with a backward gaze, and sometimes with deep affection. The time we see with the eyes of our souls is the world on earth where we fight for the infinite with the finite. life experience.

Looking back at the past four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and imagining flying on the pages of the book, we entered and exited the following four times of multi-layered time and space:

I. "Tom's Midnight Garden"──Listen to the bells from the river of time

First, we come to England in the mid-20th century. A young boy, Tom, stays at his aunt's house to avoid infectious diseases. However, after the clock strikes thirteen, he accidentally steps into the garden at the end of the last century and becomes irreconcilable with a young girl, Heidi. In the curved time stream of day and night, Tom begins to pursue the mystery of time layer by layer.

He once thought he had found the answer to both worlds - as long as he stayed in the garden he walked into at midnight, he could avoid the flow of real time and enjoy innocent play and friendship forever. When Tom's thought-proof plan goes awry, we share with him the painful heartbreak of disillusionment.

By the end of the story, we reach out our arms with him to embrace the gray-haired Heidi, and we also learn to accept the process of growth and change in life, and calmly face the transition from childhood to youth, adulthood, and twilight. Isn't it?The passage of time is not a betrayal that never comes back. The churning of the river will leave shining gold of growth in our lives. (Please refer to the third issue of this magazine)

II. "Silence"──The flower of time blooms under the starlight

Next season, we fly to the ruins of the ancient European theater and meet Mo Mo, an orphan living alone. Together with her, we practiced generously giving ourselves time, listened to the voices of villagers and children near and far, and discovered that giving is indeed more blessed than receiving.

When the mysterious Gray God's conspiracy to steal human time is exposed, he silently and thrillingly avoids the Gray God's every-second pursuit. He is lucky enough to hide in the birthplace of time and glimpse the blooming flower of time. The flower buds that open quietly under the bright starlight are each unique and indescribably beautiful!

We understand the big lie that Gray God quantifies and monetizes all time; in fact, the time everyone has is life, which is as short, beautiful and unique as a flower. Money can be saved or even exchanged, but flowers can only be cherished. We also firmly believeNo matter how long your life lasts, as long as you live honestly in God’s will, time will be enough for you and me! (Please refer to the fourth issue of this magazine)

III. "The Eternal Di Family"──Restarting the Time Wheel

On that sultry midsummer afternoon, the joyful flying felt gently landed beside the bored rich girl Ding Wei in the village of Meidong. I followed her into the depths of the woods, not knowing that I would bump into Jesse, a sunny boy who remained youthful for centuries, and the earth-shattering secret of the spring behind him!

In just three days, Ding Wei experienced a well-intentioned kidnapping, a malicious rescue, and even a helpless manslaughter. She must face radically subverted morals, contradictory laws, shaky social expectations... and the most difficult question:Is immortality a blessing or a curse?We and Ding Wei stand at the junction of short life and immortality, struggling where to start?

Her final decision may have surprised the children for a while, but as time goes by, we can gradually figure out Ding Wei's wisdom from above. Ding Wei’s story leads usLook again at the non-rotating axis in the center of the wheel of time, and grasp the true eternity. (Please refer to the fifth issue of this magazine)

IV. "A Wrinkle in Time"──A spiritual journey that lasts for thousands of years

Reading Flying Felt continues to fly in the fantasy world. On the eve of the storm, we meet Meg face to face in the attic of her old house, an angry and confused Meg who has been frustrated at school. Her deep yearning and enthusiasm for her mysteriously missing physicist father also infected us - yes, as long as her father is found, all the real problems of Meg and her brother Charles will be solved! Even though the search involves three extremely weird old woman guides and unheard-of time travel, Meg still moves forward without hesitation.

Meg and we escaped from the limitations of time and space on earth and traveled through time and space together, only to discover thatEven if the body can roam the Milky Way and the stars, it does not guarantee that the mind will be truly free.When Meg discovers that even though she has found her father, the problem has not disappeared automatically, and she, the weakest and most powerless person, is actually the only person who can rescue her fallen brother from the abyss of evil!

In the dark corners of the universe, we still have to face our own weaknesses and the dark abyss of human nature;We still have to decide whether to risk crossing the single bridge of love over the abyss. Difficult choices will be transformed into the strength to face realistic situations. (Please refer to the seventh issue of this magazine)

Allow yourself to decay, or aim for eternity?

While reading, we may lower our heads to track the trajectory of the wheel of time in our personal journey, or we may look up at the drifting bird of time and see which branch it is eager to try. Between turning the pages and closing the book in deep contemplation, we and the characters in the book cross the high barrier of thought and action, and together we repeatedly ponder the essence of life... Interacting with these stories, knocking on the doors and windows of thinking, broadening the horizons of the soul, allowing our horizons, The windows of the heart are wider. I firmly believe that the process of reading and discussing these timeless fantasy classics between parents and children is the moment when meaning begins to emerge.

Our time on earth is limited, and we are often under the pressure of life, and we unconsciously compete for time. The enemy comes only to steal, kill, and destroy; Satan uses all kinds of tricks to make people's lives seem like empty space chasing the wind: it can deceive people's ears and eyes, making people live in a state of confusion, drunkenness and dreaming, or drag people into a whirlpool of busyness and blindness. , or make people mistakenly believe that time is equal to money, or tempt people to pursue the illusion of physical youth - traps are everywhere, there is only one narrow road to avoid evil temptations, there are many ways to "kill" time, but there is only one way to make life more abundant!

American writer and educator Henry Van Dyke (1852 – 1933) said:"For those who wait, time is too slow; for those who are afraid, time is too short; for those who mourn, time is too long; for those who rejoice, time is too short; but for those who live in For those in love, time is eternity.”

The greatest tragedy that time brings to people is that they are determined to obtain the robe of splendor in life, but allow their souls to rot secretly. May we enter the beginning of the mystery of time because of our knowledge of the eternal God. In the love between man and God, may we have the opportunity to encounter the divine every day, and have the wisdom to turn moments into eternity.

Author profile

Huang Ruiyi, from Taiwan, majored in Chinese education at Ohio State University, specializing in children's literature. Now living in Los Angeles, I practice the balance between raising children and serving in the church every day. I also enjoy catching the flashes of inspiration in the flowers of words.