Dying

Dear Eugene,

The world is supposed to be a different place since 6 pm last night.

Or is it?

Gospel is good news, not good advice, good alternative, or even good-to-know.  Something had happened, whether we like it or not, one way or another we will need to see ourselves and the world in different light.

Or do we?

Say, if my house is burning, everyone in it are bound to be affected.  A news would have been announced: "Fire!!! Get out now!!!"  One might not welcome the news, or might even resist believing it; but when the smoke gets in your eyes, you are bound to respond, regardless of your opinion or preference on the matter.

That seemed to be the case with Peter the coward.

Last night beside the fire he was looking from afar, half fearing if he was next in line to face the same merciless, humiliating treatment, half wishing if his teacher might just have another bunny in his hat, a "miraculous" act of vindication that would turn their losing into winning, for the world to see they were, after all, "in the right."  The teacher was known for pulling off surprise endings; like raising the beyond-doubt-very-dead Lazarus.

But it looked like Teacher is really checkmated this time.  "There must be some way out of here," he prayed that Dylan song. But no, there ain't none, the joker said.  This really is beyond endgame.   It really is Trump. The break-up text from your girl-friend really is from her.  That brown box really is placed on your desk by your boss. No point to whine. Flee if you need to. "Embrace" the reality if you are brave and magnanimous. Everybody by now has heard of the unchangeable news: The rebel has met his not-unexpected end. Rodent are already feeding on his feet. Vultures are eyeing the fleshy parts of what is remained of him. He is "dead" not just in the sense of a car's engine malfunctioning. The car was t-boned by a cement truck at high speed and rolled over five times before landing at the bottom of a ravine. It is less a car than a ball of scrap metal, fate's cynical work of art.

"It's over." The news is out. Everybody knows. Time to go home.  Been there; done that.  Happened before; bound to happen again.  Nothing major.  Rebel on a cross is a common sight.  It is the Power's way to make a not-very-subtle point.

Peter walked away from the fire.  Peter was dying.  We are all dying.

Yet in less than two months' time, Peter the coward would become a Good-News person who was so totally done with dying, that before anyone could come up with a name for this new movement he's involved in, an angel would just simply call it "The Life."  Before they were called "Christians," they were called "The Life."

The world has become a different place since 6 pm last night.  That a certain death has launched the beginning of The Life.

Dying to live, Alex

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