Ciao!

As a teenager, I went with my sister, Theresa, to my first concert to see Liberace at Festival Hall in Brisbane.  It was great fun and so entertaining.  I remember a line he had -
"Never say Arriverderci!  Always say Ciao!"
I loved it as it means never say Goodbye but always say See you!

So this week I am in Rome for a short sojourn to go to a two day meeting with Caritas.  The other big reason is to see a good friend again who lives there.  Both tell me that as always what matters in life is people. Keep the focus while on the journey.  So this is a week with a difference.  Ciao Bangkok!  Ciao Roma!  How I love Rime. How I love my friends. How I love helping people. They all give me life.

Home, James!

The only way to go to church - driven in your Bentley.

I visited a Bangkok parish for a friend's birthday and there I was waiting for the festivities to begin after Sunday evening mass and what do I see drive in front of me?  A Bentley, no less. Wow!  Somebody goes to mass in a Bentley.  I stood back to watch a young Thai couple get into their chauffeur driven car to head home after mass.

It makes me think.  There is money in this country, but not only in society, also in its national Church.  The disparity seen in its society is merely mirrored in its Church.  The elite are not just out there but here with us in Church.  Yes, they are loved by God as much as anyone else.  That is not an issue.  However it does make me think how we all tick.  We live in the one society but we are not all treated the same, nor do we treat each other the same.  That is what happens continually throughout history.  Society is ruled by elites - maybe benevolent, maybe not.  In part, that is how societies run.  But then in Church? 

We are part of the one Church and hear the same words about love but we do not seem to hear the same message.  Society is one thing but Church is more specific with a firm purpose set by our following the Jesus of love and mercy.  Maybe the one focal purpose for Church may be named by the question - In knowing and accepting God's love, how do we respond to our neighbour? 

In grappling with that question, I cannot answer for anyone but I do see what I see and cannot deny my experience.  Like any society, here people are people and the mass of people are ordinary citizens living everyday life.  There is nothing extraordinary about that but what is different here is the degree of social pressure exerted to maintain the status quo through using strong social control mechanisms and a rigidly conservative education system.  This social control is exercised in most subtle but direct ways such that the ordinary citizen is not adversely alerted to what is happening to act against their own right and interest to self-advancement within society.  What Sunday reminded me is that Church also acts as a control agent for maintaining the status quo which favours not only the social elite but also the Church institution, or so the hierarchy think. 

So the Church is not an active voice for the voiceless here.  It does not openly question injustice.  It does not stand up for the gospel.  Seemingly, the Church more than mirrors the realities of its society.  It benefits from these same realities, or does it?   The ultimate question is - who does benefit out of all of this?   

Time for a Reality Check

Hard to see in the Bangkok pollution but you are looking at Icon Siam.  

 Icon Siam is the latest addition to Bangkok's shopping malls.  This could be named the mother of all malls.  It is huge.  The architecture is distinctly unique.  The cost of up to US$2billion matches the size of the complex.  No doubt at all, this is yet another mall for the wealthy but this one takes the cake, at least for now.

The home for construction workers in the shadow of Icon Siam.

While I am looking at Icon Siam from the platform of the nearby, local skytrain station, I look down to see another typical sight in Thailand, makeshift housing for construction workers.  The contrast between the two sites in front of me is stark and striking.  It reflects the reality of life in a Thailand - the huge gap between the "haves" and "have nots".

There is huge wealth here.  You see the the new and high condo buildings; you see the luxury cars; you see the fashion.  The reality though is that too much of this wealth lies in the hands of a few, an elite class who enjoy more than their share of the fruits of this land.  Thailand is named as the country with the greatest disparity in wealth in the world.  The pertinent report named that 1% of the population owns 69% of the country's wealth.  Of course, the government was quick to go public, deriding such statistics as ridiculous, but that does not take away from the reality. 

True, by far this is not the poorest country in the world.  Still this does not take away from the harsh reality defined by ownership of wealth.  Beyond this reality, what really concerns me is a mindset that supports and sustains it.  This mindset says it is okay for the few to own so much at the expense of others.  The few do not care.  They lack a sense of the other in their community.  The lack of solidarity, the lack of any interest in others, the utter sense of entitlement and being overcome by pursuits for self-aggrandizement are what concern and overtake such an elite set in society. 

The concentration of wealth and power are the fruits of such a narrow and self serving mindset which acts to allow such a social wrong to continue.  An elitist mindset is for the good of the select few and not for the common good; it serves the status quo and not good change.  It acts not only against the good of society but ultimately against the good of the elite themselves.   I say this as the basic question ever remains - what is it to be human?  And forever, it seemingly will remain unanswered in a world ruled by elites. 

My world is too small

Even in a big Bangkok, I experience how small our world is, or maybe it is better to describe it as how limited our world is.

I am sitting in my room and there is a familiar knock at my door.  I know that it is one of my neighbours and I know which one.  I am thinking - "Oh, no!" - as I know how long he can go on for.  Well, in he comes for a serious matter.  And what is it?  He has come to accuse me of calling him a liar, which I didn't.

This arose out of a conversation I had with another neighbour in my building, a friend.  The friend was describing to me how a person I know has had a brain tumour.  When i worked out who he was referring to, I just said he doesn't.  When next meeting the guy, my friend confronted him with this, asking why he said he had a brain tumour when I had said he didn't.  The guy took this as being confronted with being called a liar.  So off to my room, he stormed.

Well, I never called him a liar and this all arises out of hearsay.  I am clear that I do not want to get involved in the small world of my building and all its talk and dramas.  This is not why I am here but I know very well that such smallness is part of Bangkok for many guys who come here and have nothing to do.  In the end, what transpired was that the guy was upset that my friend did not remember who he was and that he never told my friend he had a brain tumour.  So why am I having to entertain this visit?

The point of sharing this story of my week is not to vent but to share a real life example of how small or limited our world can be and how much energy we waste on things that do not really matter.  The trouble with a lot of western guys who come here to their paradise to retire is that they have nothing productive to do and so become bored.  Boredom leads them into mischief and so they get into various dramas and troubles.  It would seem they have lost sight of there being a whole world out there that demands and needs our attention.  Challenge is refocus and put your energies where they are best placed and not in narrow self-interest and entertainment. 

There is no photo this week as how do you picture a limited, narrow world held by so many?  I am sure we all have our own picture which we can place before us. 

Let 2019 begin

Fly free as a bird  

Over the Christmas break, I was taken to Ban Pu, a seaside spot just outside of my Bangkok.  While it is in easy reach, it is ever so removed from my every day experience of living in this somewhat overwhelming metropolis.  There I happily was by the sea in a setting so calm and so open, full of seagulls flying freely.  What a pleasant escape from a city full of concrete, bitumen and cars.  How freeing to know that such a place even exists so close to me. 

As I approached the end of 2018, I felt overcome by a sense of loss due to the deaths of three significant friends and the ungentlemanly manner of my undoing in the workplace.  Thanks to the joys and celebrations of Christmas, I realize that, for the last six months of 2018, I had felt held back by what could be.  Now, as 2019 begins, I appreciate it is to time to fly free for what will be.  Let 2019 begin!  Thank God for Christmas!