Dear Eugene

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, "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...