There are those loose ends

Well, I hope Santa reached you and left some good cheer under that tree.  As for me, I am simply once again touched by the kindness of people at this time of year.  Family and friends from near and far have been most kind to me as have ones here with whom I am involved in my ministry.  All I can say is that people I know from Bangkok, Australia, wherever have been so kind to me and I think how good people are.  This is a good way to finish the year but this was not the way it was only last week. Then I felt much more tired, defeated or stretched in life. 

On my last day at the Caritas office on Christmas Eve, I went away thinking how much unfinished business I was leaving behind.  There were important tasks at hand but I could not finish them as they demanded the attention of more people than just me and in one way or another they were not there.   So as I approached finishing 2014 last week, my 'task oriented' mindset told me that I am finishing the year with many loose ends left undone.  Ho, hum! 

Then along came Christmas and I name it as my focus changed to my 'relationship oriented' mindset and my experience has been so much more positive.  So this week, I approach finishing the year with a healthy appreciation of humanity.  People have been good to me over these past few days and they have left their mark on me for the better.  My overwhelming sense is that I no longer feel tired, defeated or stretched. 

I wonder how to put these two mindsets or experiences of my life together.  I don't believe in compartmentalising life.  I also don't see that one mindset can be ignored while the other becomes dominant and rules the day.  The two I am sure speak to each other and go hand in hand.  There are the loose ends in my life but that does not take away from the fact that people are basically good and life has so much to offer. 

Maybe these two roads in my life come together through reflecting on another experience in my Bangkok.  It is Christmas - New Year and people flock here from the Australias of our world because they have found their bit of paradise, escape or just place of fun.  For them, here can be their El Dorado for now.  For me, this is home.  It can be anything but fun and my internal response to encountering these people can be a simple internal yell - Please!!!

Here is my place of work and daily struggle, it is my place of daily achievement and striving, the place where I meet people and friends on a daily basis.  As I reflect on life from this approach, I think good Pope Francis has something to offer me.  I need to have more fun and exercise that sense of humour.  I must not overemphasize the task focus in life at the expense of the relationship focus.  Life may have become too serious and in the process I just don't stop enough and enjoy the goodness of people around me.  As they say, I need to smell the flowers more. 

Yes, there are the loose ends but they don't really matter.  They are a part of life and the task will always remain undone.  What really matters is life itself and to savour and enjoy it, to savour and enjoy the people around me.  What matters is balance in life.  The task focus in life cannot take over from the relationship focus.  Both are important and have their place.  What, I would say, has primary place is relationships.  Never let the task lose sight of the people, never let the negative overcome the positive, never let the world's woes hide the world's joys and possibilities for goodness and greatness.  Good Pope Francis is right.  A healthy sense of humour is essential in life. 

I wonder if Santa has any loose ends at the completion of his annual tour of duty.  Well, loose ends or not, he knows that Christmas has to keep rolling on. 

Ho! Ho! Ho!  Happy New Year!

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

Christmas recital at Holy Rosary church. 

Holy Rosary church is a lovely, old Catholic church in Bangkok near Chinatown and on the river.  It was built some 200 years ago as the church for the then Portugese community in the then Siam.  The Portugese were some of the Europeans living here in the kingdom's history for the sake of trade, diplomacy and business. 

I was at Holy Rosary Monday evening for a Christmas recital by the Bangkok Voices.  It was an uplifting experience, listening to the Christmas songs while looking around at the inside of the church with its many statues and symbols and wonderful sky or heavenly like ceiling.   

It was a good way to enter into Christmas week.  Their last song was particularly moving.  It was "The Prayer".  Celine Dion does a version as does Andrea Bocelli, or they sing it together.  I heard the words and felt they had a real message and here it is: 
"Let this be our prayer.  When shadows fill our day, lead us to a place, guide us with your grace. give us faith so that we'll be safe. 
..............
It's the faith you light in us.  I feel it will save us."

Merry Christmas!!!

What's the hurry?

On Sunday, I met with a great friend who is a Filipina and working here as a Director of an NGO.  When talking about being a boss here, I was amazed to hear her use the same line I use in dealing with Thai staff.  She simply said how they show no sense of urgency.  She sees all their work just building up, with so much being left undone until the very end. 

How true!  Nothing here is done quickly.  Many things are ongoing and just left unfinished.  Then the classic experience is seen when Thais want something done immediately in their time frame after leaving the same task go unattended for so long.  There is then a great rush and a demand for immediate action. 

Here there is no great sense of urgency amongst the general population and life just goes on and on and on.  I am reminded of this approach to life by the picture of last week of the two girls sleeping at the bus stop.  That is such a typical scene.  I am coming on the bus to work this morning and there are two school girls sitting together and both are sound asleep.  You wonder if they will ever wake up for their stop. 

It is a week before Christmas and this time of year has its own sense of urgency to get things done and be ready for the big day.  It is all go!  None of that here.  Life goes on at its own pace.  Nothing will move the people unless they want to be moved.  There is a general complacency, a certain laissez-faire among the population but there is much more to them than that.  This is not the whole story for you don't want to disturb them or disagree with them without expecting a backlash.  Like everything here, it highlights how complex the culture and the people are.  Nothing can ever be dealt with by a short essay.  Rather any understanding demands at least a chapter of a major thesis.

For someone like me, it keeps me ever awake and ever thinking on what is really happening and how best to approach life issues. 

Merry Christmas!

It's a tough time of year

Thais have the gift of sleep.  They can sleep anywhere.  It is a precious gift they have.  These two are sleeping while waiting for the bus for school along a busy street, and guess what?  They won't miss the bus. 

Maybe sleep is needed as we get up too early or maybe because the diet is not as nutritious as it could be or maybe it is the climate or maybe it is a docile approach to life or maybe it is just a good escape from a harsh reality.  Like everything here, I just don't know.  I will just speak for myself. 

Living here, every day I face the same dilemma encapsulated by the same basic question - what is happening here?  I receive a work communication and as I try to deal with the difficulty presented, I ask myself what is really happening here.  We are given a notice at work and what is it that is really being said.  I go out with Om last week to a grand community celebration and when it comes to going home, it is why are we still here? 

I am eventually told that, as a member of staff, he needed to stay back late and help clean up.  He never told me that.  Truth is that if I am told the score, I can deal with what is given.  However, time and again I am not told the score.  So what am I to do?There is nothing personal in this as it is just part of being here for all of us from outside.  We never seem to be told the score.
 
It makes me ask why aren't we told what is really going on around us.  Is it lack of trust, is it the way communication happens or fails to happen, is it lack of thought or is it the way it is planned?  I just don't know what it is.  All I can say is that it is part of being in Thailand.  So maybe sleep is the answer to what you can't control.  It is better than getting upset as that serves no purpose, getting you nowhere other than to destroy your day.  When times get tough, go and take a nap. 

We need each other

Early last Sunday morning, I was going to the cathedral for mass and I came across this whole team of women cleaning the footpath.  There were so many of them on one simple task.  They were working along Silom which is a major street.  With all of them on the footpath, you had to revert to using the road to walk.  What first struck me is that this is how Thais best operate - doing things together.  So I took the photo thinking that this so typifies the Thai approach to life. 

What I did not realise was that this was a precursor to my week which featured a three day regional workshop run by UNHCR.  It is because this workshop was all about partnering - partnering between UNHCR and all those agencies and others helping refugees.  The bottom line presented was that the refugee situation throughout the world is at a crisis level with UNHCR acknowledging that it cannot go it alone as it lacks a budget and resources to meet the need.  So they now turn to their partners in a special effort wherever and whoever they may be to work closer together for the good of the world's refugees. 

The ideal of working together remains the optimal way to go in all things as it shares resources and more importantly builds up relationships.  In our world ideals often become more a reality when the bottom line tells us that something is wrong and something different has to happen.  Our world can be so short term focused that we sacrifice good ideals which then come to the fore only when needed. What is worse is when I see ones using ideals as a way to get their own message across.  What I hate is the boss who proclaims teamwork but then acts to divide the team to get his own way.  I see this in church so often.  Working together is hard work and demands commitment and patience.  It is the way to go as I know only too well that I can't do it alone.  That is the truth. 

As I met ones working with UNHCR and other agencies from throughout Asia responding to refugees, I was struck by their simplicity and humility and their passion for a population in dire need.  In this group, there was a lot of skill and goodwill.  I was impressed. 

I look at the Thai women in this picture doing a simple and menial task and I can see how they have a real message for me.  Being there, I knew they were enjoying doing their work as they were doing it together.  They were getting the job done with a degree of enjoyment.  There is the lesson.  Whatever we do, it is more enjoyable and rewarding and more productive, when done together.