The Philippine Online Chronicles

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “No one has ever gone up to heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believers in Him may have eternal life....

“Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not be lost, but may have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world; instead, through Him the world is to be saved.”

John 3: 13-17

Heaven is an important concept in Chinese philosophy and religion, and so are happiness and prosperity. Pre-Mao China was poor and influenced by the teachings of Confucius, who taught that human nature was essentially good and that education should be made available to all in order to enable everyone to live wise and virtuous lives.

Post-Mao China changed drastically. All forms of education, whether sectarian or non-sectarian, were abolished. The Chinese classics were discredited. Religion was banned. Religious missionaries were deported and persecuted. Churches went underground from then until today. After the communists took over from the nationalists in 1949, there was a period of euphoria and people looked up to Mao as someone close to a deity. The next two decades were a confusing and painful experience for the Chinese. Mao’s cultural and economic experiments saw the rise of the cultural and industrial revolutions in China. With the Cultural Revolution, so-called elitist education was purged of bourgeois elements. Teachers, professors, and religious leaders were publicly denounced and ridiculed. The “Great Leap Forward” was an economic experiment which mobilized everyone to propel China forward to world dominance. Both experiments failed miserably, leaving the ordinary Chinese poor both materially and culturally.

The China of today has a hard time remembering and forgetting its past. It has a hard time denying what so many have lived through. There are enough witnesses who speak of the past. But then, the present generation has a hard time remembering what they did not experience. There are many good things happening in China, but there also is her other face.

So many Filipinos have gone to China and found opportunities and jobs. Quite a number have also come back. Yesterday, I spoke to a Filipino who just returned. We talked a bit about China and began comparing it to the Philippines. China is beautiful, big and promising. Our country is so much smaller and at the moment beset with countless economic and political woes. China does not seem to have the same problems. Not to an outsider anyway. But to those who have worked in China, the reality is different. The tendency to look out and beyond one’s borders always happens to those going through some kind of hell. Heaven becomes both a hope and a temporary escape for those who suffer.

My friend and I are grateful to our experience of having lived in China. Among the many experiences that we treasure is the realization that heaven is never too far away. Heaven is neither America nor China. Heaven is where one finds not only the means to survive but the very meaning of survival and life.

When I was in China I pined for the motherland. The feeling of being a foreigner, an outsider, intensifies this longing. While I lived and worked in China, my inner eyes seemed to look further, beyond what my physical eyes saw. In fact, during the many times I prayed and closed my eyes, I did not see heaven. I saw what was around and within me. Heaven can be an escape, an alienating thought that allows us to avoid responsibility for our lives. Thus Jesus tells Nicodemus, “No one has ever gone up to heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.” Here, Jesus reminds us to look hard at where we are and at how we live our lives where we are. Let us not waste our lives pining and wishing for what is not there and doing nothing more. For Jesus, heaven was always near. It was that moment of connection and union with His Father. It was also those many moments when He fulfilled His Father’s will where He was and with those around Him.

Dear Lord, teach us to find you not out there but right here where we live and work. Teach us the way Jesus lived, totally present and totally responsive. Teach us to live with faith and hope, without illusion, without desire to escape. Amen.