2013 - unravelling the next part of life.

These are the words in a New Year's message from a mate back home as he reflects on where we both are in life following the two of us having lost our parents.  When your parents die, I find that you lose a key connecting pin in your life.  It is like you lose a key reference point for your life that has provided some sort of stability or security.  There is no longer the chance to call home for a consoling ear or to get the birthday or Christmas card with the $100.  Nor is there the one around anymore who totally believes in you and understands you.  Funny, while they were alive, I tended to focus on the negative of having them around with their overwhelming and somewhat controlling ways.  Now they are gone, I tend to focus on missing the positive of having them around.  Without this pin, this reference point, my experience is that you have to reinforce your supports and re-establish where you stand in life in a new way.  Maybe this is about transition, maybe it is about unravelling the mystery.  Whatever the case may be, I can see this is a key task for me for 2013. 

Well, guess what family in history really had to unravel where to next.  I wonder how they coped.  They had a little help from shepherds and visiting Wise Men but really what was it all about?   To work it all out must have taken them time and a keen sense of observing and reading their experience of life. 

For now, as the sign in front of the cathedral here says in Thai: 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.