Anniversaries

Last October saw my being in Bangkok for 10 years.  I did not realize it then but this has meant many other anniversaries to follow.  In January, I had been with Caritas Thailand 10 years. This September, I will have been living in my apartment for ten years.  So the list goes on.

It all makes me think about life and its many momentous dates. One could spend ten years in one place and waste their life.  I see it.  There are guys living here who spend their days sitting at the same table each day with the same ones, just talking and drinking beer.  After ten years of that, I wonder how you would look back at life.  Maybe you have solved the world's problems.  I don't know.

I look at my ten years and think only now have I really found a place and a voice here.  It has taken this long to get to know some of the Thai clergy and become friendly with them.  It has taken this long to be established and recognized in my pastoral and leadership roles in Caritas.  It has taken this long to establish my pastoral feet in a community at the cathedral.  It all takes time and then the real work begins.  It has taken this long to build up my name and confidence in a foreign land.  I still continue to question so much of what I experience here and many mysteries do remain even after ten years of here but these ten years mean that the questions and mysteries do not chase me away but sit with me and make me think and challenge me about life and humanity and me.

Ten years is a long time in one place for me but it is like I just got here.  Anniversaries do matter as they remind me of the journey of where I have come from and where I am now.  So the journey continues.