IN SEARCH OF THE HOMELAND

went South twenty years ago. I know the North. So many memories about it still remain vivid in my mind. Nevertheless, my missing the North doesn't prevent me from loving the South. North and South alike, they both constitute my beloved Motherland.

Despite this I've constantly living in the mood of an exile. For no matter where I live, I've always been missing another homeland and searching restlessly for a wonderful one. It's so beautiful. I see it very clearly as if I had once lived in it but now lost it.

I've been looking for a homeland of sheer truth. But in this earthly life I've encountered innumerable errors. I err, the other person errs, everybody may err at one time or another. To err is human. Never to err is really a miracle.

I've been looking for a homeland of sheer sincerity. But I've found so many falsehoods. Fake goods are plentiful but hypocritical people are even more numerous. If I knew what other people think about me, what they say in my back, what they feel when I meet with good or bad luck, or what they'll do after my death, I would consider it a rare and precious thing to be frank.

I've been looking for a homeland of sweet and absolute love. But I've found hatred and relative love mixed with bitterness. Love songs are usually lamentable. Sad songs often groan for lost love. When I want to praise love, it suddenly turns into tears. And when I want to wail for my pain, it becomes love.

I've been looking for a homeland of sheer faithfulness. But I've found lots of unfaithfulness and disloyalty. It seems that in every vow or promise is hiding a seed of betrayal and in every hope, a seed of despair, lying in wait for due time to spring up.

I've been looking for a homeland of get-togethers and reunions. But I see all around me a great farewell scene. Flowers now blossom now fade. Clouds now gather now clear away. The moon now waxes now wanes. Our dear ones are now near now far away. With every passing moment separation steals into life.

I've been looking for a homeland of sheer joy. But I've found rivers of tears. Man is born in cries, grows up in hardships and trials, becomes old and feeble in regret, and finally dies in pain.

I've been looking for a homeland of sheer goodness. But I've encountered innumerable evils. Sins are so numerous. Sins are so terrible. They seem to exert all their powers in an effort to tear down the destiny of mine, of my fellowmen, and of the whole mankind.

In a nutshell, the homeland I wish to dwell in I haven't found. On the contrary, what I detest I have to live with. What a contradiction! This contradiction dwells in me and I in it.

This contradiction causes in me a permanent dangerous concern. Dangerous not because like a person madly in love, I'll live in the future or like a fellow desperate in love, I'll live in the past, but dangerous because I may become frustrated, caring about neither the future nor the past, and accept this present world as my last homeland.

I'll be tempted to seek for the infinite in the merely finite and absolutize the merely relative.

I'll be tempted to prefer adorning the golden ox to worshipping God and getting back to the slaves' land to eat onions and garlics to continuing the journey to the Promised Land with Manna as food on the way.

Still there remain lots of other dangers.

But my soul, believe in God! He is beside you. He understands you. He loves you. He can rescue you. That's all that you need. O Lord, every beat of my heart is a call to You. Every breath of mine is a love word I send to You. I wish to give you a lot, to offer You everything in order that my heart may be light, carrying You only and You'll bring me to heaven. I know the journey isn't easy. There are days without sunlight. There are nights on which one cannot see the dawn. There are even months during which I've to feel my way in an endless tunnel. I walk there by myself. There is only faith and love to guide me. Behind me is the hell where there is merely suffering without love. Ahead of me stands the paradise where there is merely love without suffering. On the way I'm travelling there is both love and suffering. So please be so kind as to grant me much more love so that though in pain I may still love You and can love You forever though having to suffer. Keep me going, my dear God. It's You who are evoking in me the thirst for my heavenly homeland, where You'll be my wonderful happiness.

Most Rev. John Baptist Bui Tuan, Talking to Oneself
Translation by Đan Quang Tâm