Our Temporary Life

by Xing Xue

Housing is a never-ending subject. Tu Fu, the famous Chinese poet in the Tang Dynasty, once wrote: "Oh, if only I had thousands of roomy houses!".And in today's overpopulated world, housing problems have become all the more demanding.

I spent most of my early years in a dark damp basement. That basement was our kitchen and our closet as well as serving as my bedroom. When I got married.and in due course our daughter came along, we had to rent accommodation. For three and a half years we shared a two-bedroom apartment with another family of four. The difficulties we had to endure at that time were indescribable. Because my husband and I had both earned Master's degrees, we were finally assigned a one hundred square foot room on the top floor of an apartment building, and we moved in. On rainy days there we often enjoyed the privilege of free water - as it dripped down from the ceiling! Six families shared one toilet and there was one water faucet for the entire floor. Even so, we were much better off than before. We lived there for another two years. We witnessed people trying every means to improve their living conditions, even if it meant losing the friendship of their neighbors. We, on the other hand, carried on living like bookworms, with no idea when we would be able to start living in the decent environment due an associate professor. So we decided to go abroad and try our luck elsewhere.

Eventually I did receive an invitation to go overseas. In Europe, it was easy to find a decent room as long as you could afford the rent. You didn't have to go all over the place begging for a better place to live. At the beginning I lived by a riverside, with green trees and flowing water outside my window. Inside, the room had every kind of modern facility. I felt as if I was in heaven. I remember when I was young I used to take a walk outside the gardened houses where German colonists had once lived. How I dreamed of living in a house like that! But now my dream had come true and better still, I was actually living in those colonists' own home town !. Later I moved to England and this time my home overlooked a bay. Soon I was so accustomed to the gorgeous views of the sky, the horizon, the sea, the sailing boats and the seagulls, that these luxuries became mere necessities. Although the people around me had plenty of space to live, they still strove hard to improve their living situation. So I came to realize that all humans are alike - the desire for material luxuries can never be satisfied. But I was also very clear that none of these luxuries really belonged to me; I was still a visitor. When I moved to America and lived in a large house with green lawn and flower garden, my sense of alienation grew even stronger.

It was around that time that I began to be exposed to the Bible and to church. Through evangelistic brochures, sermon tapes, the pastor's sermons and the testimonies of believers, I gradually opened my heart, a heart which had for so long been controlled by pure materialism. I was able to discover the origin of the universe and the mystery of human life. One of the Ten Commandments, You shall not covet your neighbor's house, made me think a lot. Ah ! so man had originally come from the soil of the earth ? that explains why all the elements in our body are exactly the same as those in the soil. The very first house an individual inhabits is the tiny little womb. Not until we are born do we share a common roof with our parents. Then we grow up, get married and have our own children before we move into another house, supposedly a very much better one. When we grow old, we give up our large house to our grandchildren and move on to a smaller place. Then we leave this world and we go into the coffin, a very much smaller place to live in ! In the end we decay and revert to what we were originally. It is exactly as the Bible says: For dust you are and to dust you will return (Genesis 3:19). Therefore the earth is the final destination for everybody. From this viewpoint, then, I see that all houses in this world, good or bad, large or small, are mere temporary stops that we cannot take with us when we depart this world. So, why are we envious of other people's houses?

Last year I immigrated to Canada. I lived in the Lake Ontario area with its beautiful red maples, its singing birds and its comfortable lifestyle. I found it fitting that this city was voted by the United Nations for four years in a row the world's most suitable for human habitation. None of these factors, however, really excited me or really attracted me since I had now become a Christian. I had become able to see through to the essentials: that even though I was enjoying all these pleasures of life, they would eventually disappear like everything else in this world. The question of whether to rent a house or to buy one is not worth all that much heart-searching . The feeling of alienation and loneliness I used to have when I first came abroad has diminished as I have travelled extensively in several countries in the past few years. Human beings like to call their birthplace "home", and wherever they travel to they describe as "foreign". Chinese people have the tradition of coming back to their hometown to die. So do the American people who will do all they can to find the bones of the soldiers killed in wars, even those who died several dozen years ago, and bring them back to their home country for burial. In fact, the idea of home is all relative. Within a state, home is the local county; within a country, your state is home. When you go abroad, your home country is your home; when you go out into space, earth is home. In this sense, the whole earth is our home. So goes the saying "My hometown is everywhere", and "All soil buries bodies." On the other hand, the whole earth is also foreign to us because it is full of temporary stops on the human journey. And, besides, I am now able to know the Lord of our life and in Him I find my true spiritual home. So my heart is full of joy and hope for the future.

Having experienced different political systems and social structures in European and American countries, I have come to realize there is no Utopia or Garden of Eden in this world. The excessive yearning for Western civilization we all had before we came abroad now seems too naive. An ideal country or a holy kingdom exists only in Heaven. Although I am now a green card holder, I do not feel the kind of joy I used to imagine I would have. After all, there are too many materialistic temptations in this world along with too much human sufferings. As one passes, another is ordained to be onits way. Everything is crystal clear to me now: "We are aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." (Hebrews 12:13-16) So we must not pay too much attention to worldly vanity and material gains, nor to our living conditions. These are but temporary stops we make on our way to Heaven. The heavenly kingdom is our true destination.

Indeed, although I am still simply "a lily of the field", I am no longer lonely. Our faithful Lord is looking after me from heaven. So not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like me. (Matthew 6:28-29) Indeed, although I remain a wanderer in a foreign country, I am no longer homeless. As the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ has already established the bridge that enables me and everybody who believes in Him to step over from the valley of the shadow of death into the rich and glorious kingdom of the Lord.

The author came from Shandong. She used to conduct medical research in Germany, England and the United States. She now lives in Toronto, Canada.