Dear Eugene

Dear Eugene, "So this is Christmas, and what have you done?"  There asked John Lennon , then a few others, but none with more moralistic authority than Celine Dion . The tune is ok, but I'm sorry, the question is wrong, adds itself to an all-wrong world. Not that it's not a worthwhile question.  Only that there needs being asked a few others, in fact a series of more fundamental human questions before we could arrive at a humble place--ourselves humbled, that is--to genuinely seek the true answer--answer in truth, that is. To begin with, Why should I do anything about anything?  If there's something wrong with this world, it's a wrong ongoing: it doesn't take a special season to sermonize ourselves into acknowledgement. And what if I acknowledged all along this world is wrong?    Still , what can I do about it?   It's hard to not read this question as pure cynicism, but really, just say the plain six words and try to answer:  What ca...

Dear Eugene, Tonight I recalled something I've been recollecting over the years, bits and pieces, all revolved around the something that I recalled yet again tonight. It was years ago during my early teen years in Hong Kong, in a church camp of some sort, for youths or for everyone I can't remember, and there was this young leader--how young?  Again I don't know, wasn't old enough to care about facts.  What I am seeing now is what I saw, that in my eyes then he was obviously young er than other church elders in his look and being more accessible to "kids" like me. I remember his face mostly for his high cheeks bones, deep dark eyes, almost all black with no sclera (is it even possible?), and his mouth moving constantly, all the time, always with a grin like he's sharing with you where he's hiding his treasures.  He prayed like an adult churchgoer, all serious, self-conscious, by-the-number-evangelical, but with a grin like God's love, stea...