It's the end of the year

Yes, it is.  I have not been drinking nor am I high on anything.  Truth is that, for the Church, this past Sunday was the last Sunday of the year and next Sunday is the first Sunday of a new year.  So the years go on.

As I offered a reflection at mass on the year that has been, I unpacked the bag we had packed a year ago for sustaining the journey through 2019.  How did we go?

Our bag was packed with goodies from Luke's gospel.  As I unpacked it, I recalled how we wanted just the necessities as we travel light.  These necessities were:
-Care as we want and need to look after each other;
-Solidarity as we are all in the same boat and need each other;
-Compassion as we are all weak and vulnerable;
-Love that meets the challenges of the journey;
-Faith that nourishes the journey;
-Hope that sustains the journey.

As we unpack the bag, we now need to repack for another year as the journey continues no matter what

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I am a Refugee in the midst of a Papal Tour

Yes, the pope is in town this week.  Given my true and deep admiration for the man, I would have thought I would be out there enthusiastically waving the flag and getting right into the swing of things, but not so.  Truth is I have no wish to go anywhere near this visit. This is not about the person but the visit.  My position has arisen naturally out of my fulfilling my responsibilities in the Thai Church.

I have many stories through my work on this visit from an organisational side but the defining one is my discovering that Thai police would cover the pope's public mass to target foreigners without proper visas.  So what is this about?

To go to the papal mass, everyone needs a pass and ID.  Understandable but foreigners need to show their passport and visa page as Thai police will be checking for foreigners without a valid visa and with a criminal record.  This acts against refugees who cannot get a visa and migrants with visa restrictions attending.  These are ones I know and help.  I have to stand by them.  That was it. I now had a cause for which to stand and which enabled me to affirm my already held decision.  No going back.  Just boycott the events and watch the visit unfold from my coffee shop.

Neither category is criminal.  They are not murderers or bank robbers but people seeking rightful opportunity and security in life.  For this, they cannot even attend the papal mass which for the Catholics among them would be a once in a lifetime opportunity.  This police action acts against their right and freedom to worship.  It stands against the Church tradition of offering sanctuary to refugees.  It goes against the very grain of being Catholic.  It is an action that goes against the pope's strong stance for migrants.  "They are us", he stresses.

I can do no other but follow my Pope and be them for this visit and stay away.  That is my option with the marginalised and excluded.  I do this for me as I am one of them.  I am sure even the Pope would approve.  Viva il Papa! 

Yes, it is next week.

For the misinformed, this is not just a golf buggy but a Pope mobile.

I had the most fascinating encounter at church this past Sunday.  It made no sense but it happened.  I would not believe it myself except that I experienced it in reality.

At mass, I had shared information regarding the Pope's visit to Thailand next week and then afterwards a woman came to me to argue that it was not next week but much later in time.  Huh?  The answer is simple.  Just look at the calendar!  What got me was how insistent and belligerent the woman was about the visit not being next week.  Just impossible!  Or so it was for her.   I did not get it.  What was this about?

Then on the same day, I faced other big and unexpected challenges.  I needed a new phone and so finally bit the bullet, made my choice and bought it.  I used my credit card from back home  which had the unexpected outcome of my being bombarded with email messages from my bank back home, telling me that there were suspicious purchases on my card in Bangkok and as a result my card was stopped for verification. 

What?  Suspicious purchases?  This was not using my card at some shady bar.  Targeting Bangkok?  This is my home and has been for 14 years.  Where else do I use my card when I need to?  Just because I use my card to buy a phone at a major shopping mall, I suddenly come under suspicion of being the victim of criminal activity.  I do get it but what is this really about?

Whether an individual or a huge business, what is at play I will name as profiling and in both cases, due to no fault of my own, I become a victim of others' profiling about what they expect because of who, what and where are involved.  I believe this is a basis of unfair and unwarranted discrimination with resulting actions that accompany it.  Once again, you become a victim because of the views and beliefs held by others which they apply as they choose in their own sense of reality.

It is like the message of this week's photo.  On Sunday, I was so excited to see the Pope mobile ready for next week's visit, just sitting in the grounds of the cathedral.  So I jumped in and got my photo taken.  What was for me the Pope mobile was for someone else on seeing the photo something completely different.  The person's big question absolutely floored me - What were you doing in a golf buggy?   What is one person's Pope mobile is another's golf buggy, and you go from there.

Countdown

How cute! 

It is countdown to the big visit, with the arrival here of Pope Francis on the 20th.  As the time gets closer, I can feel the emotions, out there and in here, rising.  I see and feel the excitement of people.  I also see the flawed nerves as ones push for what they want in getting their tickets for the papal mass and their spots on the day. 

What I see and experience around this visit astonishes me as I would never have thought that a papal visit was reduced to hysteria and pandemonium.  People vent anger because they miss out on a ticket or do not get the service they expect.  Others are on and on about arrangements and making sure that everyone knows.  It goes on and on.  I just stand back and think I am so happy that on the day of the mass, I will be sitting at my coffee shop watching from afar.  I just cannot get into all of this.  Maybe it is me.  I wish that I could see and feel the other side, but I can't.  What is it? 

Disillusionment? 

I think so. Disillusionment, arising out of my experience which arises from both institutional and personal levels. 

At the institutional level, I see business being done and money being made and spent, with agendas to be supported and furthered. 
At the personal level, I see people losing a sense of perspective, reacting emotionally and irrationally, thereby losing the plot and even getting angry when they do not get what they want. 

This is my experience.  I do not deny it nor do I try to put it onto others. It is just my experience leading to my held position on a papal visit.  I recognize that my position does not adhere to the held norm within a Catholic community but then that is why I judge it worth writing it up.  For one who sees the present pope as a hero, it is not a position that I would have expected but it has arisen naturally, given my standing in the Thai Church - a standing that I would never enjoy back home.  I guess I am too close to the action and I see what I see. 

So my bottom line concerning a pastoral visit to this country by a great man of world and Church is that a pastoral visit by Pope Francis, proclaimed as one of peace and love, has much love because of the man himself but little peace because of all that surrounds the visit.   

Despite all, may peace and justice truly reign under the blessing of a man of true love and humility. 
Viva Papa! As it says on the local souvenir scarf.  Bring on the double expresso.