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Chapter 1 Confusion over the True Meaning of Life
Before we were born, our Heavenly Father has already loved us. If this is not so, how possibly could we have been created? Before I accepted baptism, God’s blessings have already been with me. If this is not so, how could I possibly have had the spiritual wisdom of accepting it? Faith is the most amazing grace God has given me. God’s calls to individual souls to the truth are so diverse. I was born and raised in a pagan family that, though not very wealthy, was affluent enough to offer all family members a rather comfortable life. Since I never had any contact with relatives or friends in abject poverty, I had never personally experienced the bitter taste of poverty. Not having met poverty face to face, I simply did not cherish what I owned, assuming that other people were having a life like mine. The elementary and high schools I attended were run by the nuns of The Sacred Heart Convent. These schools (Sacred Heart Elementary School, The Aurora Girls’ High School) were the famous ones for the ‘nobility’ or elite among the masses. The tuition fees were so high that these could not be afforded by the ordinary family. It was not until that high school year, just before the communist takeover in China when monetary values depreciated drastically, that one day I found in our family’s storage room a hemp bag full of money bills. I was told that it was the money my father wanted our chauffeur to carry to the school to pay for our -— three sisters’ and one niece’s — tuition fees for just one academic term! It was a big surprise to me that we had to pay money to go to school and with such a great amount. From this, you can tell how little I knew about society and how naïve I was. Back then, besides attending school, I was busy going to movies. On Sundays I sometimes saw three movies in one day. The meals could be skipped, but not the movies. I saw “Gone with the Wind” again and again, eight times in all. “Waterloo Bridge”, “Jane Eyre” and others I saw at least five times each. I could even recite some of the scripts word for word. I wrote frequently to the Hollywood movie stars; they sent me occasionally autographed photographs that I treated as priceless treasures. There were times I thought to myself: I have been such a fool ! I was worshipping those stars as idols and they didn’t even know who I was. The movies and cinemas were the things I spent most of my energy and time in, but they in turn brought me countless moments of sorrow and confusion. Money cannot buy happiness. The material world will afford us only temporary pleasures; fame and status are both like clouds passing us by in a blink of the eye. If this is not so, why then even some billionaires and red-hot movie stars committed suicide? If wealth could fulfill their heart’s yearnings, why did they take on the path of self-destruction? Ever since the day I began to remember things, I acknowledged that time flows by like water in a river. You cannot make it stationary or speed up the flow. Beautiful, sparkling snowflakes are glinting like crystals but they vaporize into nothingness once they are met with a blow of warm breath. The moon wanes and waxes, announcing to mankind that the months and years are passing constantly. During my childhood the time of the year I most long for was the Lunar New Year. This was a time for festivities when the folks would make delicious rice and pork dumplings, sweet dumplings, and kill chickens and ducks for food. As well-to-do children, we were truly fortunate. There were lots of candies and dried melon seeds to eat with lots of firecrackers to play with. You would get what you wanted. When you paid your formal respects to the elders in the family, you would receive in return red packets with lucky money inside. Nothing at all can yield more fun for a child than the Chinese New Year. Nevertheless, all things will come to pass. However joyful the New Year might be, it would eventually pass. While you were waiting for the New Year’s arrival, even if you tried to speed up the earth with a whip in your hand, the earth shall not budge. It still rotates according to its own rhythm, slowly and orderly as usual. When the New Year was here, you wished to tie up the earth to make it slow down for you. Would it pay any attention to your demand? After all, nothing on earth lasts forever. I, too, wished people would never die so that we could enjoy our lives in this world for one lifetime after another. But as I grew older I realized that everyone must face the final curtain of death. This way, humans are forced to have a relatively more realistic understanding of everything in this life. Otherwise, conflicts and contradictions among men would degenerate into a horrific state. My mind wandered on. I was drifting aimlessly and confused. Where can I find the true source or meaning of life? Where is the truth for eternal life?
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