It is a Pope Mobile

Guess who is using my pope mobile? 

A few weeks ago, I shared a picture of my pope mobile to which someone piped up - "It's a golf buggy".  Well, here is the proof.  This is no golf buggy.  It surely is a pope mobile. 

The papal visit is well and truly over.  It is now the week before Christmas and the shutting down of another year.  It all happens so quickly that one's year deserves a time dedicated to review and reflection.  Otherwise, we just get lost in the rough and tumble of life, rolling on without a stop, not knowing what is what.  Life is what you make of it but first you have to be aware so as to be able to make it for yourself.

So I will try to capture in some simple way my 2019.

Monsignor turns 60. 

Balloons flying for a beloved home of faith that turned 100 in 2019

History of a church turning 350 years.

Where we came from

Marathon for a cathedral turning 100

How the early church recorded its history

How the church first got here

A fun temple shared with a special visitor

Refugee children enjoy fun in the pool

A Grand Palace shared with a special friend.

As I look at my pictures of 2019, I see two key themes. It has been a year for celebrating people and history that make up my life.  As always, there have been the difficulties and challenges but they do not capture 2019.  Rather my year is defined richly by significant people and significant events that speak to who I am.  All the rest is part of life that neither limits nor confines me.

I am reminded that I am part of something much bigger than myself, seeing many different and interconnected parts making up a whole.  It highlights the many interconnections that make up any of us.  Whether my focus is Church or friends, it is Thai and Australian and much more.  I am part of a universal reality.         
  

Loy Krathong wiles the slate clean for another year. 

As I decided for myself at the start of the new Church Year, 2020 is for living less burdened and letting go for the sake of life and what really matters.  I will get there.  After all, it is a pope mobile even if someone else thinks it is a golf buggy.

Above all, Christmas is here.  Ho! Ho! Ho!

And Christmas does come every year.

Tis the Season to be Jolly.

Season to be Jolly or Silly? Or are they the same type?

I have always held that control never works.  Well, it has never worked for me.  I am saying this in a land where control is such a key factor in everyday life.  The people are both highly controlled and controlling.  At the end of the day, I have to say that, as I look around and experience everyday life here, control still does not work.  End of story for me.  Let me share a recent true happening that may best illustrate my point.

I come home around 7.30pm after a couple of Friday beers with a fellow from church who wants to have a chat.  We are on his bike and he drops me off at the driveway into my apartment building where there is a coffee shop and food stand run by a young, hi-so, Thai woman.  She has two young Thai guys helping her.  Well all seems quite normal on my arrival except that one of the Thai guys keeps speaking loudly at me in a rather stern voice to move the bike and park it.  I keep saying that my friend is going home but the Thai guy keeps at it, while I keep trying to explain.  Eventually, I said in a good natured tone - "Thais are supposed to be relaxed and so relax."  Bad move.

This made the Thai guy incredibly angry with me.  He told me in a very angry tone that I was not wanted in Thailand and that I should go home.  My goodness!  So I went over to him to make a point about their food stall being ill placed and blocking the way.  He then pushed me to which I said - "You pushed me.  Where I come from that is assault and I would call the police."
He said to go ahead, to which I replied  - "Not here as the police are all corrupt."

While I reacted to the guy's anger and arrogance and his drastic ways of dealing with me, I did not lose my cool. I just ultimately said to him -  "You are not going to get me angry"; and walked away.   He was not going to control me. 

As I walked away, I saw the guy's point as there was a taxi trying to get into the driveway.  It just was that I never saw it as the focus was the guy's 'control tantrum' and the guy never said it was there.  That was not his point.

His point was giving an order and reacting badly when it was not obeyed.  This led to some aggressiveness, which was all pointless in achieving anything except to try to make a statement about who is in control.  The better way to go would have been to make some reasonable request in a reasonable tone.  A helpful result could have been the outcome but not to be.  So for now, I walk a mile away from the hi-so woman's coffee shop outside my building and avoid any eye contact.  All thanks to control gone bad yet again.

Best thing to do was what I did.  Move on!  And Ho! Ho! Ho!

Waiting

Welcoming Nee to her new job - a "hands on" experience. 

Om, my great friend, has a sister Nee who, having finished her studies, started her career this week with the Thai government.   For this joyous occasion, Om asked me to join him in welcoming his sister to her new position.  So I happily went along, not realizing the whole impact of the day. 

Unexpectedly, I was introduced to another aspect of Thai culture, a culture so family centred.  So what happened?   

Nee was joined by her family and associated friends in Bangkok on her first big day at work.  What unravelled or unfolded featured a high level of family ritual.  It entailed accompanying her to introductions with local government leaders as well as to her workplace.  It centred on lunch, paying respect to the Buddha and settling her into her new desk, complete with gifts.  It was all done together with great respect and a good sense of fun.  For me, it was an honored experience for a foreigner; another insight into the gracious side of Thai culture.  

For me, it all unravelled as another key part of this Thai experience was that nothing goes according to a schedule.  You just go and when you are there, it all takes time.  For a good westerner, what arises is impatience as there are so many other things to do.  From experience, this time I told myself just relax, go with the flow and do not react.  In doing so, there naturally arose for me a real revelation.  

It was a revelation into waiting.  On the day, we were ever waiting - getting ready, traffic, government meetings, buying gift and food.  I was asking myself - How good am I at waiting?  I was thinking all the time I hear people from outside, even the Pope, talk of the gift of the East to the West as being meditation.  That means stopping.  What hit me this day was that it means more - stopping and waiting - two things we are not good at in the West, or I am not. 

My experience with my good Thai friends told me why the East is so receptive to meditation.  Simply put, the people here know how to wait and be with each other.  Where I come from, we do not like waiting.  Waiting is the key to being with which is at heart of meditation. 

And, of course, I discovered that, in waiting, I was fertile ground for learning from the experience.  

What stays with me is a comment by Om about his other sister, Nuch, who joined in the day.  She was there from the beginning and just spent it by Nee's side, literally. Om said, "Nuch is being such a good sister by being with Nee."  Therein lies the key for meditation or a meditative approach to life - wait and be with.  Simple but not easy.