Lest we forget

This week, I am sharing my experience of being at Hellfire Pass in Kanchanaburi for the ANZAC Day Dawn Service.  ANZAC stands for the "Australia and New Zealand Army Corps".  

On 25th April, in 1915, the joint forces of our two nations landed at Gallipoli in Turkey, to embark on what became our first combined campaign in war.  Historically, it turned out to be a disastrous campaign with heavy losses and no chance of winning the battle.  However, defeat was not the end of the story, for courage and camaraderie in the face of great adversity won the day.  This became known as the Spirit of the ANZAC, with Gallipoli becoming the defining moment for the founding narrative of what it means to be an Aussie and a Kiwi. 

So April 25th became the day when we remember our war dead and all those who fought, served and suffered in defence of our peoples and beliefs.  

Hellfire Pass is the ANZAC memorial in Thailand, for here is a particularly harsh section of the railway built by the Japanese during World War II, using Prisoner of War and Asian slave labour, of whom ANZACs were a part.  This place stands as a living memory to how cruel we as humanity can be to our own kind.  But more importantly, it stands as a living memory to the strength and courage of the human spirit in the face of all adversity, ultimately winning the day.   

The experience of the day overcame me emotionally, an experience that made me deeply reflect on what it truly means to be human in the sight of God and our fellow men and women.  Lest we forget!  May peace ever reign for all!  

Hellfire​ Pass​ on​ the​ WWII Thai-Burma Railway -​ ANZAC​ Day 2022

Resurrexit sicut dixit!

This past week has seen the coinciding of Easter with Thai New Year, two central festivals in my present life- one of faith, the other of a nation and its culture.  Both are key to giving meaning in life - one locally, the other universally.  .  

The Latin proclamation, "Resurrexit sicut dixit", was the cry of the early Church.  It proclaimed to the world, "He is risen as he said".  It proclaimed that, through Jesus' resurrection, we know once and for all that life has won over death, light over darkness.  This matters for it proclaims hope ever real and never vanquished to a world that continues to know too much war, too much destruction, too much hunger. too much poverty, too much injustice.  Despite all the suffering our world bears, this central proclamation of the Christian faith rings as true today, as it did 2,000 years ago.  It is needed as much today, as it ever was.  

Two simple gestures of kindness, shown towards me at this time, profoundly touched me.  Chocolate is the gift of Easter back home, a gift that I have not seen in my 16 years here.  Then this Easter, two people gave me chocolates from Australia.  These two, simple gifts provoked good memories in me, showing me the care and goodness ever offered my way by so many.  Life is good.  People are kind.  That is the end of the story.  

Despite all that burdens us, we are here.  So the journey continues.   We are not held back.  We keep getting up and moving on.  This is what matters.  Resurrexit sicut dixit! 

We become how we live.

 

At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.

Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.

The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter "written" by the doll saying "please don't cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures."

Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka's life.

During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.

Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned to Berlin.

"It doesn't look like my doll at all," said the girl.

Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: "my travels have changed me." the little girl hugged the new doll and brought her happy home.

A year later Kafka died.

Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:

"Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way."

4

"My week ended with my spending time with the two most vulnerable people I presently know in my Bangkok.  You don't need to know who they are.  Just know that they are broken, fragile individuals in need of good and decent care.  On their request, I reached out to them on Saturday.  Their wounds were gaping wide open.  Their journey, seemingly going nowhere, just meanders on.  There I am with them, overcome by own sense of inadequacy, of my going nowhere in helping them.  This is life."      

This was my introduction I had prepared for today's entry.  It was going to lead me along a philosophical path of reflecting on consolation, not comfort, as the way to go in approaching life's woes.  This line comes from a book I have started to read.  The point of the writer was that consolation is about hope - no hope, no life.  So, no matter what, we offer hope.  

Then I read the above post on Facebook shared by a good friend in Dublin.  It immediately pushed all the right buttons for me at this point in time.  I thought, "This is it!"  What more can one say in facing the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" in life at the beginning of Holy Week? 

Thank you, Brian.  Thank you, Kafka.  

I can"t. Really?

I have no wish to get into the fray over the Will Smith slap at the Oscars.  Having said that, I was impressed by a line Smith used in explainig himself.  He said, "I am a work in progress".  Aren't we all a 'work in progress'?    

In this age of a pandemic and wars, the cry of too many around me is defeatist.  There is no 'work in progress' thought alive in their mindset.  Rather I am hearing far too often people seemingly overcome by the 'I cannot' cry, which appears as a cry of this age.  

I appreciate that many are suffering terribly and hurting deep down.  I so feel for them in their plight but we cannot just stay there, as where do we go then?  This cry is the cry of ones seeing no hope, leading nowhere, except to a dead end.  Its path is one of self-destruction.  What purpose does that serve for anyone?  The 'I cannot' cry will ultimately become the 'I will not' cry.  The cry of hopelessness thus becomes the cry of lifelessness. 

Such a cry is the very opposite of the gospel cry, which is a cry for hope, a cry for life for all.  Its cry has a longer title but that is okay, for nothing worthwhile is simple.  It may read as                                        'I can and I will with the help of God and in solidarity with my neighbour'.    

Isaiah 43.

Pope Francis is talking to us of building the culture of social tenderness.  This challenges the world to move from a culture driven by fear, exclusion and domination to a culture driven by trust, fraternity and care for all.  This demands a cultural shift, which is a huge demand, but we can and we will with God's help and in solidarity with each other.  The cry for our new era is not 'I can't', but 'I can'.