Dear Eugene

Dear Eugene, I worked from home mostly, but once in a while would go to my office, sometimes for a longer stretch for whatever necessary reason. I would walk to work or take the bus, and if I was to take the bus, like today, rainy, there would always be this face sitting at the exact same spot anytime of the year, at least for the days I was there, which I took as statistically significant. I call the face Bitter.  It might be unfair for me to close the book on a face with one adjective, but it would be even more so, I think, if I were to start to describe her.  She's often staring at her screen, probably some sort of social media where usually not even an intelligible adjective is needed to paint on our face-book. I suppose she hopes for change.  But change what?  At her age, probably same as mine, any change is likely a bad change, unwanted irruption that calls our attention to decay, and that is for sure statistically verifiable.  There might be interruptions, seasona

Dear Eugene, My dog Sumi got better, visibly better to my eyes, since yesterday.  I don't really know what's actually happened to her since last week.  I think it is a combination of innards issue and hind-limb tissue.  I've experienced only the sacraments of a deep reality in her. I told her yesterday, "Well, Zum, if one day anything is going to happen to you that I will need to cut you open or pay a lot of money to simply give a name to what's happening to you, I think I will just let you go. To begin with I don't want to cut you open, not in a major way anyway.  It might not kill you but it will kill me.  I can't have salt water covering my face 24/7 without suffering skin issue.  You know I am superficial.  In any case I will see you in eternity so it's good to know you will be all of one piece when we meet again.  Don't ask me for the theology of that and if someone is to offer you any please just chew it up and spit it out.  Don't

Dear Eugene, How much of myself do I have to lose before I can see God again? Sometimes I feel like I don't know Him at all.  And if I did once know Him, I have effectively unlearned what I once knew about Him one smile of confidence at a time, cover-up to not let on that I am just a hollow man. How much bullshit is this God going to take from me before He points out the obvious, that I am not that sincere in pursuing Him, not that serious about life, and most of all, full of self-deceptions that I will forever rely on to sway my body this way and that to wiggle out of situations and crawl through life? I am all for His giving and forgiving, giving me so much and asking so little of me, now so little of me I am willing to give, not just for Him, but for anything, other than excuses, loads of them, which truly showcase my creative resourcefulness.  God gives me a tongue and I use it mostly to lie. Eugene, you know, it doesn't take too much to rattle me.  That says a

Dear Eugene, Feels like Sumi has not been herself forever but it was only two days.  She dragged her steps and the days with them.  She certainly slowed me down to reconsider things. More than once I thought about taking her to a vet.  There's money in the bank.  If they are going to charge me too much then let the too much be grace I offer however reluctantly.  Peace is costly, bankrupts an unpeaceable soul.  It's ridiculous I was mostly thinking about money.  " In my ignorance and bewilderment, I am fairly representative of those who go, or go with loved ones, to doctors' offices and hospitals ." That last line, my hero Wendell Berry said that. There's a passage from the same iconic essay that I would recall every time I am in a hospital, even just as a volunteer, seeing no patient and just giving a new coat of paint to some benches.  That world would just slow you down and drag you in.  At least that's how it is to me. At times you can

Dear Eugene, "I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business," you taught me . "Do what you will need to do and I am here for you," that's what I said to Sumi this rainy morning when she was wandering on dark lawns among thick leaves, searching for something I didn't know what, her way to find healing, I hoped. It's easy for me to say.  A bit more patience to do, but totally doable too.  She's just a dog on leash. There were chains so I hastened to behave There were chains, so I loved you like a slave It's not so easy if she is to do something harmful to herself or to others.  Like what humans do.  All the time. And then whose business would it be to stop the bad and start the good? The autumn sun is easy but life is not.  It seems to me life is all about taking care of business, my own business, others' business.  If I don't wipe away the little speck of mud Sumi brought in after t

Dear Eugene, Sumi has a major stomach upset this morning.  Even now she is not eating, not even drinking.  I put on my nylon track suit and pants so that her shed hair won't turn me into a sasquatch when I held her tight for a long time, probably the longest ever, my face on her back, two fetal positions formlessly entwined, and it's in this unexpected stillness that I thought about her birthday and tried hard to not miscount her years.  On my lap she wasn't looking out the window like usual, the disturbance within shut off that from without.  Then I walked her again, every step tentative, mine matched hers so, and led her to the two most untidy lawns of the block where she could feed on annual meadow grass to induce a vomit and gave out two and that took another hour.  Thank God for using even an overgrown of bad element to create and save.  Thank God for no rain this morning and the sun actually came out now and Sumi bathing under it after the third walk and her firs

Dear Eugene, Last night I received an email that I've been praying for, hoping for, but also dreading its arrival.  You know how it is, a Jesus prayer: pray like you really mean it, run for your life when it's actually answered. I volunteer at the neighborhood house of my local community as a literacy tutor, mentoring people with various levels of illiteracy.  A while ago I asked the program director to send a second tutee my way.  I pressed Send and hoped the email would go to her spam box.  And for a couple of months that little anti-Jesus prayer seemed to have been answered instead of the one before that. Then last night, a reply, giving me what I asked for. Well, all over again... Trying my best to connect with a complete stranger...hard work, not necessary, different lifestyle, different worldview, too intimate for comfort, not a very good use of my time and energy...there must be something less painful out there, touch-and-go projects for me to be an easy mes

Dear Eugene, I wrote you this early morning, as you were " navigating the thin and sacred space between earth and heaven ."  And then I went out there, tried to see what you were seeing.  There were specks in my eyes, dark wooden beams, too big for me to see anything.  But I trust your report , that there is joy in that space dark to me now, off-screen to me now , off-limits to me now, until the two beams, an uncrossed crucifix, are finally taken away by the only one who could bear them faithfully to the end. When I took this picture earlier today, before I learned the news of your passing, a deep sadness laid hold of me.  I'd like to believe your leaving explains the sadness, but like my tears now it explains nothing.  "Nothing is explained. It is a plain fact on wood," Rowan Williams once said about the "Good News" we tell.  The news of the death of God is also the news of the life of God.  The sad news of the death of you, today, my pastor, m

Dear Eugene, Dropped off my daughter at school, an extra early day for her, and went for milk and banana. At the grocery check-out I overheard a lady saying to a staff something obviously about the past weekend's municipal election, which way she leaned I didn't pick up, it doesn't matter.  She was talking about something bad that's bound to happen within five years and she would rather not see it in her lifetime. I sure hope I won't be around by then , her words. The thing is she's not that old. The thing is if she is to go to her doctor today and the doctor is to give her five years she'd roll in mud and curse high heaven.  Not fair at all , she'd wail.  Yet she had prophesied the fairness of her not having to suffer with anyone else.  Let alone for . Yesterday morning a brother in Christ took us for a prayer walk before Sunday worship.  We walked a block, and then another.  Forget it Alex, it's Chinatown.   Nothing will make the smell

Dear Eugene, This morning I woke up to a regret and I didn't know what it was. A general regret. Roughly speaking I am satisfied with my life.  Roughly feeling I know there is something more and I haven't done my best to live my best. Yesterday I was talking to my neighbor, probably only the third time since his stroke  (as compared to biweekly before), and he spoke again these final words to close the conversation, as if it's only proper: "Life is precious."  Again tears welled up in his eyes, those good humor, heaven-can-wait eyes of his.  I can see how he could score with only a look when he was still playing hockey. When he was still... Here I am still.  Still longing to be a wonder child. Yours, Alex

Dear Eugene, Whenever I thought about what happened last summer  and the public lynching that was done to you and lingers on still, bile rose from where bile sat in me and I was ready to pull a sword on your arresters.  I am ready even now. You really didn't need to give that interview .  Not when you were 84 and had a massive legacy to lose by making one wrong move, one needless mistake.  Not when you were 48 and had a massive amount of asses to kiss to keep your spot in the holy of holies.  You allowed your interiority to spill open, a most tender part of you that is reserved for Jesus but Jesus asked you to open that up too and let the world do what they have always intended to do and shall do often without blinking, to vandalize, to smear, to kill kill kill kill. Carry that damned thing to your grave , they said.  I'll be damned if I do , you answered. " The people of a congregation are not abstractions, they are people, and a pastor does a disservice to the

Dear Eugene, Smoke in the morning Out of the same window Every 6 o'clock I saw it not by sight Someone must be waiting for life to happen... And before that A cigarette is good enough Who would smoke 6 o'clock in the morning? Maybe there is one Maybe there are many Government sanctioned a decree: Let things be For good or for bad For recreation or re-creation Let My People Go Up in smoke Good smoke, bad smoke Let the numbers speak Desecration of sacred we don't say Distraction of smoke we study Tell me, oh, learned men and women What is good enough for a slave like me 6 o'clock in the morning Every first moment Of my brilliant nothing Yours, Alex

Dear Eugene, Sometimes life feels like one big distraction. You move to B to get away from A just to learn C might be the better answer which looks awfully like A.  The very big might-bes in life make us move around enough to forget we are dying, dying to truly live for even one moment, to touch the one true thing for even once.  Since we know full well that moment has not and might never come, we play the game of Let's Look Busy . The most distracted person wins but he has no time to shake your hand cos he's somewhere else again already.  His success is in perpetuating an illusion of success but that is better than failing which in this world means sticking around for too long that everything comes out of your mouth in any and every social setting is to justify why you're "going nowhere." "So what have you been up to?" Absolutely nothing I can do without, we can't get ourselves to let on.  To plunge right into the next distraction is

Dear Eugene, Today I want to live differently.  I want to see new things.  I don't want to presume what I think is going to happen is going to happen.  After all each morning is resurrection time. Surely the surest sign of Godlessness is ungratefulness, a grumbling spirit.  To take things for granted and expect God to do nothing new in the here and now of his world is to say Jesus I know where you are and I won't be there with you .  We might want to excuse ourselves and say we don't know where Jesus is, but that cannot be true.  All we have to do is to turn around and go against even oh-so-slightly our natural path and something new is bound to break through.  Repent.  But we don't want to do that and we have our good reasons.  Not today anyway.  Tuesday's all filled, busiest of the week, like every other day.  Grumbling. This morning walking up the hill I was praying to God and ended up talking to my dog.  I tried to tell her what is going to happen today

My dearest pastor, You are almost there .  You have always been here , fully present, and now, and for that, you are ready to be there. "I feel good about that," you said.  About dying.  About being here till the end.  Not even dementia could take you away from where Jesus is. I was in the bookstore yesterday and you spoke to me. I picked up a book, a beautifully illustrated new edition of Hans Christian Andersen's famous Christmas tale about a young fir tree so anxious to grow up, to grow old, to grow into greater things, that he is always coveting after being there and never grateful about being here .  It is a tragedy about a few little illusions that grow into one big greed, branch off from the heart, dissatisfaction the path, disappointment the end, too many steps too confused to trace one's way back home. This book is going to outlast you, Pastor Pete , I said.  It is going to outlast me too.  The next Christmas is always a contingency.  One day

Dear Eugene, Mockery of the world.  Nip it in the bud, what we don't understand, looked but didn't see, listened but shall never hear.  Snuff it out.  Prescribe treatment.  Send it to specialists, learned elites, to dissect, to analyze, to make a case and categorize into predetermined abstractions.  When the folder of knowledge is finally filled with satisfying hypotheses we can at last give out a long sigh slam the book close and clean off the trail of flesh and blood on ground.  The show must go on. Rowan Williams once said in a sermon: "All this really comes to one thing: the terrible threat of knowledge without love.  Is anything in human relations more frightening than that?  And how often has the Christian picture of God concentrated on His knowledge in a way that is totally oppressive?  ‘O Lord, thou hast searched me out and known me. Whither shall I go then from Thy presence?’  That can be a cry of despair; we have no privacy before the terrible omniprese

Dear Eugene, On our bus ride back from church camp this weekend, someone led us down memory lane to sing along to a well known Cantonese TV show theme song .  Part of it goes this way: 愛你恨你　 問君知否 似大江一發不收 轉千灣 轉千灘 亦未平復此中爭鬥 It is a memory that I don't have because when I was a child I didn't watch TV and the show was before my time anyway.  That I actually know this song speaks about its speaking power.  Let me try to translate--or, more like, paraphrase, like what you did with the Bible . Love you, hate you I don't know which Do you know any? A torrent once unleashed turns no tail Bent a thousand times Wended to a thousand shores No score settled The deluge rages on I don't think I am doing a good job and maybe no one ever can.  There are a thousand words for hate in the Chinese language and this one as I see it cuts like a little knife to inflict on a thin space and you might die from it eventually but not quite yet cos that would be too easy.

Dear Eugene, " The Truth must dazzle gradually... " Sumi wasn't eating last night.  I gave her the food, normal food, same food for years and for years she loved and loves still.  My daughter said Go and then I followed up with a couple of the same syllable and still she looked another way, out the window, as if at something faraway not visible to us, something she lost. We worried.  I panicked.  Then theories abounded.  Toothache?  Maybe the dog-sitters did feed her something different against our instruction after all while we went away for camp this past weekend and now she's sick?  My wife said Sumi looked a bit different before dinner, moved a bit slower she said. I went to her and knelt down to pet her a bit and asked What's up?   She again looked away from her food and out the window.  So I petted her again and encouraged her to eat.  Finally she started to pick pieces of food out of the bowl, spat them on the ground and slowly ate from there t

Dear Eugene, So, a long weekend church retreat, the first since...I don't remember when. Or where, or what, about the last one. Or how old I was then, how I saw myself and others, how I felt about God and religion. How I fitted in or didn't.  Likely didn't. And if I didn't, what did I do with myself, with my fingers.  Did I tap them on the dining table in order and repeatedly like the steps of a marching band meal after meal and for what purpose?  Did I hide one hand in the pocket and show only the one that I needed to use, to hold a fork maybe? How did I detach from the intimacy around me and make a legitimate case to keep looking in from the cold and still find reasonable satisfaction even when straining my neck?  Somehow I was never tall enough to reach the bottom of a window, to get decent enough a view that at least makes some sense.  And the bottom was often fogged up anyway if I could reach that high. This weekend I played floor hockey for the fi

Dear Eugene, I must write this down.  I was thinking about writing something else, but this I must chronicle. Last night something showed up right in front of my home, on the narrow path between the house and lawn.  It looked like a dried leaf, probably wet through and desiccated many times over, I thought, over a number of years maybe, and now finally emerged from a hidden, neglected corner of life to make a statement. To me. It is very withered.  Barely recognizable.  In fact I named it a leaf only because I so willed it.  If I knew no leaf from before I would have called it something else.  In fact I knew many withered leaves and now upon a closer look-over I wasn't so sure anymore: the warping of the stem suggested a joint of some sort, a supporting structure beneath the surface, that as wizened, weather-beaten as it was it's not given over to brittleness, not the axil base, not the stalk, not even the remaining blade... Well, that's cos this is no leaf at

Dear Eugene, "The glory of God is (wo)man fully alive."  So said an early church fathers Irenaeus . I don't know Latin, but I heard it is a bit of a mistranslation.  What he actually said is even more controversial: " For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God. " I am sure the full glory of God is more than the living man, but what Irenaeus said has a context and he's talking about a vision of God most fully available to (wo)man as we experience this life.  A refined statement, yes; a rarefied theology, no. I am a coarser man so my way of saying the same thing is to ask what I believe to be another essential human question: "How can (wo)man be given so much and end up losing it all?" A yet coarser man Nicky Santoro, the Joe Pesci character in Scorsese's Casino , is even more passionate and particular in his articulation of the human trouble: "It should have been perfect...but in the end

Dear Eugene, "No one can do to us what we are not already doing to ourselves."  I've been reflecting much on this proposition lately. Do you know who said this?  I don't.  I am sure someone said it.  I am sure many people said it sometimes.  I am sure not many people lived it.  I am sure if one is to try it's usually short-lived. Because the alternatives are prepackaged, tried-proven-and-true, well priced for quick consumption readily available along the Costco aisles of life.  To blame is to gain what is not mine.  (I am sure this last line is my original.) But sure enough there are things that are done to us?  Slavery.  Sickness. Surgery? Like I am lying there and they cut me open and take stuffs from me in the name of salvation?  I might have a say in a couple of narrowed down areas before and--hopefully--after but during the cutting open I'm just a piece of dead meat.  Surely a surgery was done to me. If you say so, Alex. If we speak s

Dear Eugene, My dog Sumi is about half way done.  She finally catches up with me. Her hair is not as smooth and more white is growing out of her brown part.  I take these as signs of her aging.  I won't bother to Google and verify.  If you know please don't tell me. All my worries for her I'll only have to make a copy of them and repeat for the second half, like taking prescription, once in the morning, once at night. She's healthy now and sickness comes with aging; I know. But I've been imagining many times over her getting old and sick since the very beginning, a helpless ball of meat on my lap.  Of course it's different when it finally hits you, the real thing, but I've cried about her dying more than once before so I got my practice.  It takes only a cup of water to replenish the melancholy. And what else...? Yeah, I've seen her being run over by car, skinned by coyote, and together we've faced down many a bear.  I've got my rou