New Again


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 wears different clothes and has a different ideal temperature.  If only the northeast wind, the summer breeze, the kind that I like, isn't affected by climate change.  If only I can forget I changed climate, that the often toxic human atmosphere circulates air I took in and breathed out.  Or that any skipping stone eventually sinks.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"

Everything old is new again.

Now if this is true, Jesus, I prayed, help me to live in the next minute that will soon become old only to be made new again in the one after that.

 Yours, Alex

Comments

  1. KartiniJune 16, 2018 at 3:01 AM

    Dear Eugene,

    “Every new thing gets old… To fall in love is to begin to fall out of love.”

    In 2013, for my first time in over two decades, I returned to my birth town in an under-developed country after 16 hours of flight & airport transfers from the U.S. I brought along my Mom & my daughter, whose lives straddle between the new & old generations. Upon arrival at our destination, we soon learned that the old airport would be transferred to a new site for expansion to meet new needs in place of once-new old demands.

    This town of 2.2 million residents, some of whom lived in glossy towers while many more dwelled among shacks, seemed to oscillate between the old & new. On this land, my parents once reared me in the conventions of by-gone eras where cycle rickshaws were among the preferred modes of transportation & wedding feasts typically comprised of homemade delicacies. With the advent of modern technology & construction, traditional outdoor markets swelled into super-markets housed within shopping centers; grasslands transformed into colossal structures reinforced by concrete & steel; pedestrians vanished to re-emerge as super-sized drivers in gridlock. Against the contemporary silhouette, poverty rampant in older districts remained visibly glaring to the naked eye.

    One of these impoverished neighborhoods became the focused site of a local outreach event in which I had joined as a guest volunteer. Our team coordinated efforts to care for a special family in need: a middle-aged, single mother who lived with her teenage son in public housing. On the day of our visit, we reviewed a sketch of the compound layout & identified our target area at the periphery of the property. As I followed my teammates towards the family’s quarter, I was nearly suffocated by the relentless heat & humidity. The ground, layered with a colorful assortment of trash & spilled sewage, challenged my every step. How could anyone have claimed this place as home?

    By the time we reached the family’s home, our limbs were numb with fatigue. Someone knocked. The door opened & the mother invited us in. I could barely breathe. We gathered within the most compact living space I had ever seen firsthand. Plastic bags dangled from the ceiling to maximize storage space. Cardboards elevated on wooden crates became beds. A miniature television set was the single observed item of luxury. No chairs were present. Pots & utensils scattered on the floor. All bodies & objects were enclosed within these blistering walls without a reliable fan in the year-round tropical heat. Then my eyes opened to the most astonishing discovery in this visit: the mother was blind. She still managed to work by washing the neighbors’ clothes.

    To this day, the imagery of the mother continues to haunt me. Why do I deserve to be here & not there? Have I become too dependent on new, shiny things which are decaying in my home even as I write to you now? How should I live in this old-new creation if I were to say that I have fallen in love with Jesus, and would I begin to fall out of love for Him?

    Yours, Kate




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