Return to Paradise

"Paradise."

My heart spoke as I observed the trees of the winter as the plane touched down in Beijing.

Not a very 'paradise' place, no doubt, but yet there's just this feeling 'you might find it here.' when you travel to a totally new locations alien to your home.

We spend our lives searching for Paradise. That's why some people travel so much; and never want to come back to work. Not that they found paradise, but they found something looking like it.

It's the tinge of the immense beauty of True Paradise.

Good news is that, there is a Paradise. I think one thing CS Lewis pointed out really well was that, our heart often gives us an answer.

If a man was hungry for food i.e. he desired for food, we can automatically conclude that food actually exists. That man was in a state where he wasn't hungry before.

Like in the movie Water World, the whole earth was covered by waters; but there was a man who kept searching and searching for land. He knew that the feet was never made for swimming, and therefore concluded that land did exist. And he spent his life searching for that precious piece of land. (turns out the whole earth was flooded and a large part of earth was covered by water)

Where is the evidence of Paradise? In our heart of hearts.

I was watching the Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor this afternoon. Characters good and bad both searching for eternal life at Shangri-La.

It seems to permeate all cultures and religions; there's always a notion of a Shangri-La, of heaven.

The truth is: we're homesick. Since Adam and Eve were banished from their Paradise in Eden, our hearts have been aching to go back since.

When we observe a beautiful sunset, majestic mountains, beautiful trees of the forest, our hearts ache. It aches because deep down in our hearts, we know we had left our true Home a long long time ago, and all that glimpses of eternity is reminding us of that.

You know its there, not because someone proved it with a scientific formula. It's because your heart tells you so.

Bad news? It doesn't exist on earth, not today. There's no hidden evergreen valley called Shangri-La in the deep mountains of Himalayas. We will only find it when our Father calls us Home.