Change is as good as a holiday

Nothing like a change of scenery to clear the air and that is what I got his week.  No, I was not off to the beach.  You can see that from my photo, I was in a hotel right in the middle of my Bangkok.  The surrounding skyline for my week could make you think you are in the middle of some big American city.  Such are the big cities of Asia!

What I got was a sideways move for the week to attend a conference but still refreshing.  So what was refreshing?

I have to admit that I enjoy the change of scenery and the change of pace and routine.  These conferences are held in hotels which have the facilities and space needed for such an event, and along with the hotel comes the lunch which is an ever welcome bonus.  Yet the experience is about much more.  

The occasion this week has been the Caritas Asia conference.  This brings together people from all over Asia.  Yes, they come from the exotic places like China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, places where I have never been and just picture in my mind.  I wonder what the Church is like there; I wonder what life is like there.  Then I meet and hear the priest from China.

His view on the Church and China is that it is okay and what is needed is for the west to change its mindset on China.  He points out that the west is focused on China opening up but he says it is already open to the world and has been so for 30 years.  The western Church, he holds, has the wrong focus of working for sending in foreign priests.  He notes this is impossible under the law in China and that it is the people as well as the government who view the Church as foreign.  His appeal instead was that the Church send in good and capable people of the Church to work with the Chinese Church on social development, helping Chinese Catholics who will receive through such partnerships good witness, a healthy and wider vision of  world and Church, and a good overall education in being Church.  His focus is what the people in the Chinese Church need so as to be better Church and it is not a simple clerical focus.  Take a fresh approach is his message.

So such a week shows me new horizons through meeting and listening to new others in my life, coming from such different environments and settings from my own.  Such new people in my week gift me with an added stimulus for life.  They refresh me.  Yes, a change is as good as a holiday, and it is not just about going to a Phuket or a Koh Samui.  It can be right in the middle of my Bangkok.