Dear Eugene

Dear Eugene, We talk about the doctrine  Sola gratia , Grace Alone, that we could comprehend God's saving act only and entirely as a favor unmerited, a mercy undeserved, a gift given out by the Holy Spirit according alone to Jesus Christ's redemptive sacrifice. But isn't it also true, as I looked around even within just the small confine of my study room, about everything else in God's creation?  What have we done to deserve our next breath? The other day I was walking through a big mall--I like to park far away from the library to make every outing a pilgrimage (and give myself an excuse to excurse to the bookstore)--and I saw couples walking hand-in-hand, some lovingly, some habitually, some reluctantly.  Many held together with only a weak magnetic pull, not enough for touching each others, good enough for acknowledging there is an other . And I thought, How many of us swaggering man could swagger no more if not for the women who are there for us in spite of...

Dear Eugene, Today is a very special day.  I took the skytrain to meet up with a friend with whom I had a kind of fallout since last September. The "fallout," which I doubt either of us had given it such official label, was all the more regrettable because only a month before that we had a sort of breakthrough in our relationship, that after years of being "friends" we were able to probably for the first time speak heart to heart. A "kind of" fallout.  A "sort of" breakthrough.  Everything is so tentative and tenuous when it comes to breaking out of the self to relate to the other .  Like an under-rehearsed dance recital with angels looking on.  Somehow it feels like we are meant to fail and the angels are bound to sigh. The "fallout" was unexpected, by either of us, I suppose.  My friend was growing increasingly bitter towards pretty much everything and everyone, and I gave him a few words harsher than even the usual, perplexed...