In a Better World

Dear Eugene,

How hard it is for a person to change!

(I feel stupid already for what I said just now because it is too obvious, too trite for the words to be even uttered.)

And "born again"?  How elusive an idea, how utopian a dream, how unfeasible a proposition!

I hate this rain and wind.  I absolutely detest driving in the dark in this rain and wind.  It could have been a much more reasonable affair if people are to be reasonable about their own life and others', to not dress in deep dark colors wearing headphone and sometimes thumbing their phone while on the road.

But I can't change even my own kids.  It is not fashionable to dress bright.  It is pathetic to wear a flashing light.  I hope they don't look at their phone but I doubt my hope.  There's always something coming through the phone that they have to answer to.  How does one jump out of what is expected of him and look at life anew?

The world is killing them softly if not finally adamantly with a crash.

When unchangeable people insist they're on the right side of God's ledger, they must choose between hypocrisy and superficiality.  Though I think they are one and the same option, symbiotically feeding off each others' garbage.



When you hear these lines from the Jackson Browne song, what do you think?

I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song playing right in my ear
That I can't sing I can't help listening

I am sure many Christians would say to Browne, "Well, that's cos you are Godless.  Believe in Jesus and you'll not go to hell."

People asked a genuine question and expressed a deep yearning.  Not only we can't answer; we don't even intend to answer in good faith.  We trivialize, we mock, we belittle, we judge.

In the end there is one dance you'll do alone...

We ourselves are dying and letting the warlords run rampant with their killing fast and slow, abrasive or persuasive.  We claim to be "born again" and wonder why the world doesn't wake up to our wonderful nothing.

Browne's song is tentatively hopeful and tangibly despairing, like all great art is.

Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily, it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Like you said, the Gospel is served.

Yours, Alex

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