We are all in transition

Next week is a big week for me as I will be in Beirut for a training with Caritas International.  Imagine, Beirut.  For me, it sounds exotic, seems so far away.  Hints of possible dangers and adventure?  Who knows? 

Next week also sees the cremation of the deceased King of Thailand, King Bhumibol, who died a year ago.  He was the Thais' beloved King, the father of their nation.  In traditional Thai belief, the King has divine status.  Buddhist cosmology features a universe with the existence of heaven and hell.  The universe comprises of the centre, which is Mount Sumeru, surrounded by Mount Sattaboripan, the ocean and four continents where people live.  The highest place is heaven where deities stay.  It is believed the King comes to the earth for the sake of the world's peace.  When he dies, he returns to Mount Sumeru from where he came, the centre of the universe.  This centre of the universe is an abode of gods and spirits.  The King's cremation is fashioned around this belief.

So the King's cremation is quite a journey.  Mine might seem far away to an exotic place that speaks of  possible danger and adventure but it is nowhere near as final or complete. 

Teresa of Avila's last words to her Sisters on her death were - It is time to walk.  She was definitely a woman of action, a woman on the move, doing great things for Church and humanity. 

What is for sure is that we are all in transition.  Nowhere here is permanent.  We are all on the move.   In the words of St Paul, the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (and continues to do so). 

So see you after Beirut.  I will see what happens. 

My choice, not God's

I saw these powerful pictures in the weekly Catholic paper and had to share them.  They show a Catholic priest who had been freed by ISIL after being held by them for sometime visiting Rome to pay his respects to the Pope and thank the Vatican for their help in his release.  You can see the true respect between these two people brought together by chaos and suffering. 

As I began my week, an older French woman I know here came to me after mass to tell me her husband had died.  She has great respect for me thanks to our first meeting when she shared the pain of her life journey caused by the Thai Catholic Church as a result of her marrying a Thai Buddhist.  The Church, to which she has remained ever faithful, ostracized her because she married a Buddhist.  I was the first priest to tell her how her Church had wronged her.  For her, this was a powerful experience as it seemed to liberate her. 

So nowshe told me of her husband's death and much more.  Despite whatever the Church has inflicted upon her, she has remained faithful both to her Church and her husband.  She obviously has great love for both.  So, as she spoke lovingly of her husband at the time of his death, she described how life has been a great journey for her, a journey of her choosing, not God's. 

The priest through his choice of vocation and mission ended up as a prisoner of ISIL but was obviously never defeated in his love and hope.  It is the same for this woman.  She fell in love and made her choice in life but whatever heartache came her way, even from the Church, she was never defeated in her love and hope. 

We make ourr choices.  I live in a society that beleives in kharma and having your life mapped out for you because of a previous life.  I will not deny their truth as that would be cultural arrogance on my part.  I will just say that God is with us in our choices, no matter where they lead us.  God bless that lovely woman who shared so passionately and openly with me and gave me a great lesson in life in doing so. 

It is called free will

This is one photo of my Monday journey to work when for good reason I took a different route at a different time.  It meant joining in with the daily rush hour.  In Bangkok, I discovered that it not only involved the obvious car tarffic but also the people traffic. 

It caused me to make a social comment on my FB page - How much pressure can people take in urban life before hitting breaking point?  This led to my facing my time old dilemma arising out of my experience of here.  Does here in its culture and social thinking remain particular to itself and remain as is, creating the same unwanted results over and over again?   Or simply, like anywhere else, is it open to change for the better for the mass of people? 

Here has strong cultural forces and social structures for maintaining what is in society, creating a status quo that remains firmly in place.  This status quo favours the few over the many, remaining in place in part because strangely enough the masses agree with what may even discriminate against them.  All quite different here but maybe not so different as do people anywhere question and pay the price for needed and good change?     

As I struggle with this central question, I sit with two answers.  My head tells me - it will stay as it is as this is Thailand and no one acts to change what is.  Then my heart tells me - it has to change as people are people and we are all human beings, striving for the better. 

What I come to realise is that on this question I choose the answer that I need to choose so as to be true to myself.  As a western, Christian thinker and believer, I hold that change will occur even here as we are all human caught up in the ultimate human quest for the better.  To deny this is to deny a central part of what I believe as any people are not simply determined by any one particular culture or social structure.  Culture is a powerful force.  Any culture is powerful in one's life but no one culture, no matter how rich, has all the truth.  Rather cultures speak to each other.  Change does not come easily for anyone but it does come eventually.  A guiding principle I have learnt in dealing with organizations to which I belong is that you either plan change or suffer change. 

Then I took a risk on my pressing question, giving the last word to my daily reading from the meditations of Oscar Romero.  What did I find? 
"Redemption has been carried out on the cross. ... It is not conformity because conformity is not joy.  Conformity is a pessimistic person, a determinisitc person that believes that everything is imposed on him from above and that he cannot take any action.  This is a false concept of the will of God."