It's the passion, isn't it?

Here I am on the annual retreat with the Marist Brothers' ad Gentes teams from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.  The theme is discernment.  I am no expert on the topic but my personal experience tells me that central to discernment are the two P's - passion and prophetic.

If one has no passion for something worthwhile, why do it?
If one is going to make a difference, why just go along with the crowd? 

Then I hear one of the brothers voice a concern about basing decisions on passion as is this not about restricting decision making to the personal?  Is this the old 'he's doing his own thing' criticism which becomes the great tool for repressing creative individuals and creativity generally?

I am beyond such a criticism or concern as experience tells me that such a path leads to repression of the individual endeavor and commitment that is needed for ones to make their mark.  It also denies the other side of the coin as the communal dimension can serve as a barrier to stepping ahead to where we need to be and be a force for mediocrity.

To make a discernment in mission, one has to be in touch with the prophetic, with the passion - doesn't one? 

As a PS, I talked with one of the Brothers and the issue may not be whether or not passion but too much passion which has become a bit overbearing. 

Retreat with the Marist Brothers and Associates

This week, I am away with the Marist Brothers and their Associates from Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam from within their ad Gentes programme on their annual retreat.  The theme for the retreat is Discernment.  Today a German brother asked that we look at this word within the other languages of the group and see how this term is approached in other cultures.

So I looked it up in Thai and found  ควๅมฉลๅด which means 'wisdom', 'savvy', 'ingenuity', 'brilliance'.  Once again, I see how an ancient Asian language is unable to grapple with western theological, philosophical and spiritual terms or notions.  Neither, maybe should the language be expected to deal with such. 

Still this raises two questions or issues.
1)  Be aware of this when trying to approach these deeper notions and issues within the local culture. 
2)  In a globalised world and Church, we face the challenge of how we communicate at the deeper level and on the deeper issues. 

Women are buffalo

I read this incredibly confronting book on the life of a young Thai woman in the sex trade, called Only 13.  From the age of 14, she had spent ten years of her life as a sex worker, hating what she had to do but did it because she was poor and uneducated with a financial duty to fulfill towards her family. 

It was confronting because her account was so honest.  She named a key basis for her being led to this trade not of her choice - it was how women are devalued within her culture.  She cited an ancient Thai maxim that she experienced as still being current in 21st century Thailand - Women are buffalo, men are human. 

Yesterday, we celebrated Assumption at the cathedral.  I shared how can we glorify the strength and beauty of Mary, when we don't glorify the strength and beauty of all women?  I shared what I had read in a book that touched me. 

Good theology is lived and where it is lacking, it challenges us.  Mary was no wilting wallflower.  Neither are we called to be, if we are to be good theologians.  So the feast of the Assumption challenges us as theologians to see that all women are valued as equal human beings and not just in Thailand but everywhere for this story of the young Thai woman is replicated in the life of so many women throughout the whole world.  It is not just Thailand. 

Then after mass, I talked with a young Thai woman whose story was so like the story of the one in the book.  There she was before me so grateful to be at church with her husband, to hear her story shared and respected, to experience Jesus with her in her pain, to know a life that is much more than what she had hoped for in her previous life.  I can't express the experience adequately as it was so powerful and I won't betray any confidences.  I will say that it left me teary, knowing that if today was for no one else, it was for this woman before me.  I thought - Thanks mum as you helped bring me to this today. 

Then what did I see on my facebook today? 
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway."
Who wrote it?
Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Strong women - so many of them - have taught me so much and inculcated in me a faith that is real and alive.  They have given me so much.  It is from them that I get my love of Mary.  I am thankful for strong women in my life and for what they give our world. 

Moody? Who wouldn't be?

Yesterday, I was at the Bangkok Refugee Centre.  I went to the administration to ask about one case.  On being given the information, the Thai officer commented that he is that moody person.  Well actually, this is referring to two years ago when he got angry over an issue and blotted his copybook for ever with Thais who brand non-Thais who get angry as being totally uncouth and as ones to punish and avoid.  I just thought to myself  that if I was in his situation of being a long-term refugee, I would be moody too. 

During the week at the same place but with another Thai staff, I mention another one of the urban refugee population, naming him as a good guy.  The automatic response was that he is an angry man.  I wondered what happened here.  I then named him as a good man who gets angry.  I then heard the story.  When I heard what happened, I replied that he had a reason to be angry but the reality is that he, like the rest of them, does not have the luxury in his situation to express his anger.  If he does get angry, he just earns the disrespect and judgement of such Thais. 

Why? 

Basically, it is because there is a strand of Thai that looks down on outsiders who show anger.  They just see them as being ungrateful for help they receive in Thailand and as being ungracious and even dangerous and so to be avoided or put to the side.  Yet anger is a human emotion.  It is part of life.  The issue becomes how you express it.  With the urban refugee population, you need to see here a wounded people who need direction and to be challenged in good ways, not a people just to be judged and dealt with as if they were the bad guys in the story. 

A Shake of the Head

My latest posted photo is a shot of the new Parish Pastoral Centre for Ruam Rudee Parish in central Bangkok.  It sits behind the historical parish church.  The parish is run by the Redemptorists and their new centre is to be opened next month as part of their celebrations in becoming a new province in their Congregation.  The centre is much too huge to capture in one shot with my little camera.  It is worth USD10million.  It is like - what more can I say? 

I know no parish in Australia that could afford or even contemplate such a project.  Yet this happens in a national Church that is but a small minority within the country.  I just wonder what it is saying; what is this about.  This project is but another addition to the many other wealthy, powerful institutions that exist in this little Church which is full of big and wealthy schools and hospitals.  I have my theory about why.  I figure it is about status which is so importnat in the culture here and  I am told that is rather common in Asia. 

Maybe a story from Sunday could best present what I am trying to express. 

One of my young Sri Lankans who is a rather entrepreneurial urban refugee approached the parish priest at Ruam Rudee on the weekend to ask for money to support him in doing a six month English language course.  He approaches the parish priest as he is part of the parish and involved in its outreach work to the poor.  Yes, it is a bit of money - 42,000baht (app AUSD1,300) but it would be most advantageous to his getting ahead in life and doing something productive. 

I asked him what was the priests'e response.  He just said that all the priest did was to shake his head.  I understood but then I looked at this huge parish centre worth 300,000,000baht and it was my turn to shake my head. 

The Big Questions

This Sunday's gospel puts me in touch with facing the big questions in life.  I have to ask myself firstly - Do I face the big questions?  I do and I don't.  It is often easier to escape them but that gets nowhere and just leads to mediocrity and wallowing.  With the death of mum and dad, I can see that brings forth big questions or changes in my life, maybe subtle but still big.  They don't go away by not facing them.  They stay there and eat away at me until I deal with them.

I meet on Thursday with Duncan from Australian Catholic University (ACU).  He meets with me to finalise details of starting the ACU online university course for three students from the urban refugee population here in Bangkok.  It is a great opportunity for them.  I negotiated this course for this population.  I value it but boy there are some hard issues for me to face like where to find classroom space for them, an illegal population in Bangkok under the care of great bureaucracies.  The issues won't go away.  I have to face them and I will.  Best to start facing them now and go step by step.  Otherwise, they just eat at me. 

Not facing the big questions means avoiding risks and means getting nowhere in particular.  Facing them leads somewhere.

PS  I jus followed my own advice and faced this issue about classroom space by contacting a school principal I know here.  He is right on side and emailed me.  In a Thailand, the basic question is the WHO question and that leads to a response.  

A consultant's role

Today, I had breakfast with my great American friend here, Carl - better known as Khun Carl, Big C or simply Carl Baby.  Carl is retired and lives between here and his hometown, Chicago.  We share stories, advice and laughs in Thailand.  In his retirement, Carl, being a businessman, does his own consultancy work.  He shared with me a line that hit home for me. 

Basically, he said that, as a consultant, you offer your advice and it is up to them whether they take it or not.  Either way you get paid.  I thought of a role I have in Caritas Thailand where you offer advice on how to do the work or manage a task but for ever they keep doing it their way and seemingly keep getting nowhere.  I then worry as why don't they just do it like I said?  Carl's line hit me as I have done my bit in talking straight, offering a bit of advice or doing my bit of work.  It is up to the others how and if they take up what I have to offer.  That they choose not does not matter.  What matters is that I just do my bit. 

We all need our Carls to survive a Thailand. Thanks Carl Baby.