I thought about it hard last night and decided it was time to get rid of some of those highlighted photos on my blog showing the phsyical results of political strife in Thailand. It is time to move one. Still I did leave one photo as a symbol that the troubles, the unrest, the issues are not yet resolved. 2011 will see ongoing political and social turmoil in a society that is experiencing rapid change and its effects for better or worse in a globalised world.
For now, it is Christmas and it is time to highlight the season. Even at Christmas, the paradoxes of our life continue, or maybe they are just highlighted even more due to the nature of the season. I mean - Bangkok may have a singing tree but Abu Dhabi has a $US11million, diamond tree. How gross!
Well, my two photos of Christmas highlight the paradoxes of my life. One shows the bright lights of Bangkok at Christmas. The other features our Vietnamese Santa at the Bangkok Refugee Centre striving to share a bit of joy with the children of urban refugee families in Bangkok. Life for them is hard. It is even harder at the moment as many of them are the victims of a current police crackdown on the urban refugee population within the city. One wonders why. Not all the reasons are due to the wish to uphold law and its due process. It is Christmas. Only if we could let everyone know what the season is really about, and not just through bright lights and those flippant, good humoured songs we all know for this time of the year.
Happy Christmas!!!!
I am John Murray, an Australian, Catholic priest of the Order of St Augustine. I live and work in Thailand and have been here since October 2005. I have many stories from my life journey and would simply like to share some of them. So hope you enjoy and go away sometime with a smile or a helpful little insight.
We gather
to give thanks for my 25 years.
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