Dear Soo Tian

I do not have much time to write presently, but I would like to take these few minutes I have to put down a reflection or two on the Introduction.

Peterson writes that a letter, personally addressed, is the first piece of written material that gets read by him, i.e. Number One on the priority list.

Indeed, even I have had fallouts with my parents on the subject of priorities, and I must admit that most of the time, I am in the wrong. Sometimes I am so connected with the 'Christian' world I know, the blogosphere, etc, that I end up spending hours at the computer, or hours out of home, visiting someone or attending some event. They want me to spend more time resting, and I cannot disagree.

When I think about letters, I realise they are subversive in almost every way. Existing since the time of the Ancients, they stubbornly refuse to succumb to extinction in our modern, instant world. They can disappear into a folder, between sheets of paper, and suddenly pop up when you least expect them to. There is equal capacity to ignore them, and to ignore everything else but them.

In a world of e-mail, instant messengers, the telephone and SMS, letters are a novelty at best, and an antiquity at worst. But in the last few months, I have experienced writing and receiving letters like never before; they summon all of me, and cannot be read in passing. Letters demand full concentration, and somehow bring about a unity in communion between the writer and the recipient.

I wonder, why is it that the New Testament contains so many letters, but hardly any theological papers? Could it be that the letters we write to one another will have more value than the countless books published by theologians?

As far as I'm concerned, I believe it's because letters, more than anything else, arise out of real contexts; letters alone among others, cannot be produced in a vacuum of thought. Oh sure, isolate a theologian in a monastery, or an archaeologist at a fossil site, and they'll produce hundreds of pages of thought. But letters are too connected to people to be written with any less than 90% of thought devoted to the recipient.

They are more brutally honest and open than anything else, and can encourage as much as they can scar. In either case, there is neither idolisation nor disparagement of the other party; letters hold one another in greater esteem than even the most thoughtfully written books or carefully preached sermons. It is because of this colossal mutual respect, that letters are at equal liberty to pierce and praise.

Peterson's letters to Gunnar, as profound and candid as they may be, did not come close to moving me as much as those personal letters I'd received in the last few months. This illustrates, not the weakness of Peterson's writing, but the fact that letters can only serve their full purpose within the contexts in which writer and recipient find themselves, as we established earlier.

Indeed, the very phrase "Dear so-and-so" determines how much a letter affects someone. "Dear Gunnar" will never mean as much to me as "Dear Ben." And that is why, when I write to you, the greeting is phrased "Dear Soo Tian," not "Dear Eugene." (But of course, we all know that, heh)...

Still, there is much thought within the pages, and I will go through some of them prior to my next post. (Just a reminder here: we have until the middle of July to finish Peterson).


Ben

p.s. Pardon the seeming disconnectedness and lack of coherence in this letter. I am not in my usual frame of mind right now.