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.