I cried when I read the first line of your letter. Since that nightmarish noon time, we appeared suddenly in front of each other and started our journey together wandering between life and death, heaven and earth. We were pursued by fear during the day and wailed in the middle of night when the whole world was quiet. We fell on our knees in Notre Dame and in that white Cathedral of Sacred Heart located high on the hill. I was not aware if you were crying then; I just knew that I had a good cry and you tried to comfort me. Later we each purchased a necklace with a cross with Jesus being crucified. We sent them to our wives in Beijing, Fuly and Lily.

I did not realize that fate could be so cruel to you and Fuly. When Jason told me about the accident, in shock, my first reaction was my knees started trembling and I fell on my knees crying out to God, "Why? Lord, Why?" I prayed for you every night. My wife and my daughter also prayed for you to come out of the coma, for you were unconscious also. We prayed that God would heal you. Twenty days later, when I received your phone call and heard your sad, weak voice, I truly did not know how to comfort you. I could tell from your voice that your soul was crying and bleeding. All human words, no matter how wise and reasonable, appeared so shallow and weak in front of a bleeding soul. I remember I only told you that in my prayer I believed God would grant Fuly a full recovery. You replied immediately that these were the words you were dying to hear. At the time, Fuly was still like a vegetable, and the promise of full recovery certainly was very touching to you. Yet if it was not of God, how would I ever dare to pronounce it? Also at the time I lacked the courage to tell you yet another message from God, that God has His good will in this accident.

My reasoning, just like yours, could not comprehend what my spirit had heard from God. The only difference was that my reason admitted that it had happened in the depth of my soul. It could not but accept what had been received through my spirit. That caused me to relay to you the message of full recovery. I was also sure of the second message that God had His good will for you, which I failed to delivered.

Can you say that you do not have similar experiences also? As you mentioned, your reason cannot comprehend your inner spiritual being, but yet it clearly knows "there is a spiritual being at the depth of my heart that I have never met. I came across it in my tragedy. and in praying to God, it secures its footing." Whether you realize it or not, your spirit has been awakened by this maybe too sudden and traumatic, experience. It is your reason with its limitation and its rebellious nature which is still fighting against such a conclusion. Self awareness, with the help of the awakened soul breaking through the bondage of reason, is the first step towards true faith. You no longer belong to the group who do not know their inner being. You have touched the true foundation of life at the end of your human reasoning. When your soul trembled at the precipice of the known and unknown, didn't your whole being tremble also? When your soul calmed down at prayers, didn't your whole being calm down also?

Since you have come across "it" and secured it in prayers, why are you still searching? Are you trying to lay the discovered spirit on the foundation of humanity? Or are you trying to analyze this spiritual awakening by your rational ability? You will not be satisfied until you have turned this spiritual experience into human sensation, will you? This sounds like a beggar begging with a golden bowl. Your "inner spiritual being" is God's breath of life (Gen2:7); your acquaintance with "it" is the calling of God; the one who grants you peace in your prayers is God Himself. Isn't God much closer to you than that moment at Notre Dam in Paris five years ago? If one moment of carelessness then caused you such regret, now as you came back from the brink of death, how should you respond?

You know that I had been in the same boat before, "struggling, helpless, lost in hopelessness and in despair". My heart was naked like a skinless person walking in a storm, extremely sensitive to the fickleness of people and the vicissitudes of life. Both within and without the democratic student movement, I have witnessed the wickedness of human heart; with my father's sudden death I learned the shortness of life; and while seeking a dream in the West, I discovered the vanity of this world. Within a few hundred days, all these were woven together into a great wall which my emotions and reasoning were unable to scale. In great distress, my spirit stood up like a tentacle searching for support. When "it" was touched by the light shining through Christians and Jesus' word, it found its rest. I am glad that I have fully surrendered myself to "its" experience with God which filled the gap between life and death and built up the bridge between God and man. And I shall never depart from "it".

It is true that every human being has his "inner spiritual being". It is awakened one way or the other by the things that happen in life causing it to seek help. However, this is not sufficient. For there is nothing but God's spirit that can revive it and help it to stand. St. Augustine once said that the human spirit is restless until it finds its rest in God. Why? Because "it" is from God!

You have asked "where is God?" I remember the first time I visited you after the accident, I suggested to you to study Jesus. I remember when I saw how low and broken you were, I held back my tears. When I saw how badly Fuly was smashed up, I tried not to cry. But as we were kneeling down to pray that night, I could no longer hold back my tears. I wailed loudly and you cried bitterly too. God is my heavenly Father and I know He is yours, too. It is only natural for our spirit to pour out its heart in the presence of our spiritual heavenly father.

Your spirit knows where God is, but your reasoning is head knowledge arrogantly demanding evidence. I do not know if you indeed have spent time reading about Jesus. "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (John1:18) This Jesus, son of a carpenter, who never went to school, and who passed away at a young age of thirty-three, has left behind for the world a way to heaven. In the past one thousand nine hundred ninety-five years, His love has captured the hearts of mankind. From the lands of Europe and North America which placed their trust in Him, has flowed forth the great river of modern civilization. Today, one billion six hundred million people, ranging from the very learned to the illiterates, from peasants to presidents, call him Lord and Savior. This is not something that a poor young man in three and half years of preaching on the streets could accomplish. This is the work of God! God did not come to the world as a nobleman, lest man might say that nobility produced the fruit. He did not come as a learned man, lest man might mistake His work as coming from knowledge. He did not come as a powerful person, lest man confuse His will with human willpower and ability. God chose to reveal his power and glory through a person who was deprived of all human glory, in order to show that He is God!

At times even his own family regarded Jesus as crazy. But Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."; "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself, He can do only what He sees His Father doing."; "For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me." Please read about these things in the gospel according to John. Confronted with the evidence of His work in human hearts and history, even my reason cannot deny that He is God's only begotten Son through the Holy Spirit. He is the only Way, Truth and Life leading to God. His incarnation was for the purpose of awakening man's inner spirit and giving it a new birth.

Miraculously, Fuly has basically recovered. I do not know how much human effort and other things contributed to her recovery, but one thing I know, everything is under God's control. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

What is the good will of God? I still cannot put my finger on it, but I still firmly believe in it. I am just thinking -- if God intends to give eternal life to your family and allows you and Fuly to go through this momentarily tragic suffering, which is as short as a heart-rending scream or a terrible nightmare, could this be His good will? If God helps Fuly to recover fully within a year or two and gives her a peaceful, joyful and devoted heart to be born again, would it be His good will? If you, through the shattering of your emotional senses and reason, receive spiritual light from heaven, not to mention your soul and what will happened to the rest of your life, will it not rejuvenate your broken soul and reason to reach for new heights and have a deeper understanding of the human heart? With 1.2 billion hearts yearning to be fed, and God has awakened you with a heavy blow, I think it may be more than His mere permissive will!

I am quite sure of one thing: you and I are now not kneeling in the Notre Dame Cathedral, but squarely in the presence of God.

*****

Mr. Yuan Zhiming came from Beijing, China. He is the co-author of "River Elegy" and is now an editor and research staff member for Overseas Campus Magazine.