Dear Eugene

Dear Eugene, Rain this morning.  Finally, again, after a good run of dry spell. Again. Why again ?  Who am I to say this morning's rain is comparable to the last rain I've experienced?  Who am I to say they are the same ? God gives us discernible patterns for us to make sense of life and finally to know him more, but with the underlying, imperative caveat: You can't pin me down . Of course we say, Well, I don't do that.  When did I do that? When we say this rain is just like that rain.  This person belongs to that group of persons (so to justify my disdain).  This view can be lumped into that agenda (so to nurture my hatred).  This action of yours reminds me of that awful   memory of mine (and I hereby serve you a death sentence at Hello, without you even knowing). When we say this  very morning is just like every other previous morning, and I see no reason to greet it any differently than the way it has always been working for me hitherto.  I am

Dear Eugene, I certainly didn't expect to watch Daniel Day Lewis' final movie (I hope he is wrong about his retirement decision) last night and find out it is about exactly what I wrote yesterday morning . What does it take to break down a man so that he could break through his little Self? All our life we've been taught to think for ourselves, to build a house that would welcome our favorite memory, people, and things, and shut off unwelcome guests, suffering past, present, and future.  Why would we then now want to do things any differently? Why do we want a "breakthrough" when things have been working well so far, that after all these years we seemed to have "found ourselves" in our little house-building project, a place we could finally call "our own"?  At last we have wrapped our head around ideas to juggle demands big and small, figured out a way to reduce people and stuffs to manageable size and trivialize or even trash those

Dear Eugene, This is how you pray , Jesus said, Father, your will be done . I wonder how this works exactly.  Some mornings I seemed to know what it means, others I was not too sure. Actually most mornings I was not too sure.  Like this morning. Wife working from home half-day, taking son to specialist appointment in the afternoon.  I woke early to boot up her computer, and was greeted by a grey screen.  I rebooted it a few times and found online it's call "The grey screen of death."  Blood shot through my brain when I heard that name.  (Not that blood wasn't shooting through my brain always, but such was a moment that you actually heard the Whoosh! ) All of a sudden I am a computer technician.  All of a sudden. Just like how I became a roofer: The roof leaked at night-->Alex became a roofer the next morning.  All of a sudden.  Just like that.  Clear logic.  Kids sound asleep.  Water dripped from ceiling.  I placed a bucket to catch God's blessing

Dear Eugene, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." The Lord's Prayer, we all know these words.  But what are they saying? They are saying, God, I want what you want.  Please help me to live this very day in my very life circumstances to know what you desire and desire it.  Right here , right now , I long for what you long for.  Not tomorrow, not later, not after I retired, not after I got my roof fixed, my trees trimmed, not after I got my morning coffee, my hearty breakfast, confirmed tonight's restaurant reservation, not after the World Cup, not after I made my first million dollar, passed my next exam, came back from next week's vacation, got my stable job, moved up the ladder, got married to the right person, set my kids on the right path, changed my flat tire, burned the amount of fat I desire to burn daily, got the recognition I deserve from my friends, spouse, colleagues and boss, figured out where I shoul

Dear Eugene, Poetry is....many things. A lot happens in life, most of it sad, an occasional happiness, and sometimes you have no choice but to play the clown and laugh on the outside,  even though inside we feel less than failures So writes an immigrant child in US lockup . Poetry is, like, What else is there to say but these words? My son had said to me more than once, "Do you ever stop talking?"  In a way he wasn't fair to me, for I rarely talked at home.  In another way I understand what he meant; the words were not the ones he wanted to hear, even if I was to distill them into poetry (and I often did).  His head might nod to the words and sincerely so, but his heart speaks. Genesis 1 is poetry.  We, Christians, nod to the words but in our life we say to God "Do you ever stop talking?" If we really do trust (believe, "have faith") in God and his speaking through poetry, we would know why we could respond to the immigrant child&

Dear Eugene, I usually don't hunt for stuffs to write about and they'd just come to me when I walk up the hill with Sumi.  Nothing in my head is that interesting compared to all the things happening out there. Like this morning: There was sun; there was breeze.  Then the breeze became wind and the sun no more, and with that came a sudden shower.  I tried to connect the events and misunderstood--the shower was from a lawn sprinkler.  Sumi grunted. Always be wary of a man who thinks a world only out of his head and means it only out of his heart--even his whole heart.  He's a magician; he shows what seems to be interesting but hides what's even more interesting.  Soon he forgets where he hides his truly interesting things and becomes a true illusionist. " First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see ," your translation of the very first words in the Bible. The words are not giving us a "scientific" account.

Dear Eugene, I asked my friends this question: Are we aware of the story that we are painting ourselves into? Of course we could ask it in a different way, such as Are we aware of the story that the world is painting us into?  But this is to neglect we are freewill agents, active participants in the "story," even by omission, even in acquiescence. Every morning we reach for our phone, for our many screens, to look at news and text messages, trending topics and social media updates, proclamations made to humanity at large and to us at least. What are we looking at?  What are we looking for?  We can't say we turn on the various screens with no expectation. I suppose we are checking what has been gaining or losing ground during our sleep, our daily rehearsal for death. Those with a bigger heart might wonder if the world has gained ground in being a more habitable place since we last died, or a bit more hell-bound to make a mockery of our morning resurrection.

Dear Eugene, Every new thing gets old the moment right after it happens. The moment we grab hold of a new thing and say we can now then live the rest of our life under the new light it sheds the moment its life-anchoring power slips through our palms.  To unbox a new phone is to forget where I put the box, a womb opened in zeal, a coffin misplaced for a quick burial soon needed.  To fall in love is to begin to fall out of love. Yet every once-new old thing in our life matters: tradition, habit, history, back-end language, tribal handshake, the comfort and joy to know what to expect, the burden and sorrow we can't undo. I'm going where the sun keeps shining Through the pouring rain Going where the weather suits my clothes Banking off of the northeast winds Sailing on a summer breeze And skipping over the ocean like a stone If only the sun can stay new, hot but not too hot, warm, warm enough, for me.  If only I don't need to share the sun with anyone who we

Dear Eugene, Do you think we will be surprised after we died and finally know what is on "the other side"? (To say there is nothing beyond this life is as wild a guess as saying there is.  So let's be an equal-opportunist and go with the latter to play along.) I imagine whatever we are going to "know" then is going to be strangely familiar, yet unlike anything we've ever "known" before. Less than a week ago I declared myself a failed father.  I said I have not done enough to engage my kids in a life of giving and now they are growing up with not the DNA of sacrificial generosity in their blood.  My bad blood flows in them, and it is squarely my fault. I was right, and I still am--from the perspective I chose to know myself. But this past weekend God revealed the fuller truth, something I knew all along and have been clever enough to pass myself off as living under its light. You are a failed father because you have not loved enough

Dear Eugene, Last evening after dinner I was working on my lawn again.  The shrub hedges around my backyard can now be properly called trees.  I am no arborist but I know if I am to ask a little child she'll point at them and call them "big trees." Well, it's too late now.  I know I will need to hire someone to do the cutting.  My Green Bin can't contain the fell of even one cut and my green thumbs are getting old. Yeah, I felt old last night.  When a heart is tender the limbs go with it. This past weekend God broke my family down so to grant us a breakthrough.  Now we are entering, opening up a new field that is strangely familiar, if we have only taken a glimpse of it in our dream individual and collective, to recover a lost memory.  Things are righted but there will still be wrongs.  It got easier and it will get harder. You, Jesus , I said, the Master of everything .  Even of irony. Cynicism and stoicism are the two main roads we take to come t

Dear Eugene, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." Such is the most well-known translation of 1 John 4:8.  It's pretty direct and succinct, and I thought who can translate the words any differently? But this is your take of the text:  " The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love ." You've drawn out the implication of a statement, a proposition, that could be quite abstract and thus not energizing. Still, back to the three words: God is love .  Everything that has ever been spoken about God comes down to these three simple words. The three words close many doors and open a new one every new moment. They don't say God loves to love.  They don't say God would rather that we love or love more or love better or love the right things or even love our enemies.  These might be the implications of the three words but the t

Dear Eugene, Last night I rode my bike to the library.  I think my legs, weak as they are, are getting used to the biking motion.  I've found a new rhythm that works better for my aging body. I stopped halfway to look at a little league of little children playing soccer.  My son was once there. He knew not it was about competition then, and in fact we the parents and coaches did our best to say it is really all about health and character development.  Treacherous was too big a word then to describe the water they were called to navigate in. Soon enough in hassling and ruffling the ideas of competence justice and conquering would find their way to come out of our pores like blood sweat and tears.  Soon enough the parents would get across the sideline to join them in the ring. My son lost too much and got fed up and that's when he quit.  We move on to find new turf that we can finally call our own, a reign we deserve, small as it might be. You get them used to work

Dear Eugene, Today I am too tired to write.  I think I am going to steal. Here I want to share with you what Mike Higton wrote about the "difficult Gospel" in the theology of Rowan Williams.  It is so rich that I don't think I should add another word to it. We are, all of us, precarious creatures. We live in environments we cannot control, and are hedged about by limits we cannot overcome. We face frustration, we face competition for scarce resources, and we are jostled in a confined space by the egos of others. There is only a limited difference that we can make, and we have only a limited control over even that difference; our actions are inevitably shaped by what others have done to us, and they mix uncontrollably with the actions of others and the unpredictable resistances of our environment, and they escape us.  Our unavoidable dependence on and involvement with others is distorted by their selfishness, and the inevitable dependence of others on us and th

Dear Eugene, Last night during her birthday dinner my daughter dropped her phone and gave it a good spider-web crack, a split-second tragedy with lasting and irreversible consequence. My initial response was to look for a new phone (and indeed I did, the easiest thing for this father to do), but finally I decided to put boxing tape over the web and asked her to live with it and find meaning right where it hurts. "Many girls your age, and I can even so confidently say, a vast majority of human living right now shall wake up to a new morning of old brokenness, yesterday's loss that they-- no one --will ever get used to the losing." Years ago, my daughter's birth-year to be precise, the year of 9/11, Rowan Williams said the following: "Islam has a wonderful vision of divine majesty, generosity and glory, and its demand for unreserved loving obedience has great nobility.  But it is a faith that cannot readily find room either for the idea that God longs

Dear Eugene, How much do we have to lose before we lose ourselves? It's one of the questions I ask myself daily, usually half way up the hill.  When everything is happening around you, doing is mistaken for being, you don't pause and you don't ask.  You are too busy and occupied to afford an answer. Any answer. I suppose for some it takes no more than a wrong cut on his sideburn for him to go thermal-nuclear on his trusted hairdresser and with that years of friendship and countless words exchanged about life individual and the state of humanity collective. Life is one heck of a tragicomic situation in search of a fairy-tale ending . Imagine one day walking on a big street, big enough to contain all the people you've ever met in your life, with the ones you know the most (or you think know you the most) walking closest to you, and suddenly you just drop dead in front of everyone. Thud. Everybody turns around.  None surprised, for a person does drop de

I came by myself to a very crowded place; I was looking for someone who had lines in her face. I found her there but she was past all concern; I asked her to hold me, I said, "Lady, unfold me, " But she scorned me and she told me I was dead and I could never return. Dear Eugene, Beauty. We try so hard to write ourselves into her story.  Our story becomes one to try not to be written out from hers. Saturday I was in downtown looking at a Tiffany billboard.  She speaks to the world what beauty should look like, how and what we should desire.  Then she scorned me for being too serious and sent me off to a midnight from which I shall wake to find myself further from her, not for anything right or wrong I've committed from dusk till dawn, but for simply emerging from darkness to another day of inevitable decay, slip sliding away, gently written off and finally whited out. Sometimes not gently. Last night I was at home to the hospitality of a couple of ver