It's time to get out

I have a very healthy philosophy for surviving My Bangkok.  Basically, it reads like this - Get out of the place regularly.  The reason is that this is a most intense place in which to live, and so, one needs to escape regularly for the sake of one's sanity.  My recent time home in Australia only served to verify this principle for healthy living.  Still, the sad fact is that I do not follow my own philosophy.  

However, I have a renewed commitment to live it, because I know how much good my time away in Australia served me, for I have not felt so relaxed for so long.  So, off I went to Nongkhai, for two days, and I did not go alone.  I went with good companions.   And where did I go? 

I went to Sarnelli House, which is a home for abandoned, unwanted children, started and run by Fr Mike Shea, an American, Redemptorist priest, here a long time.  There, I found a special place.  I found it in the children, who are given a home, and the committed volunteers.  Together they offer a centre of hospitality, a fountain of life, for all who come their way.    

The children are just children.  At Sarnelli, they are not labelled as unloved, unwanted nor sick.   They just do not have a family and need love.  They find both there, through being under the care of such good people, who love and look after them.  

There is Fr Mike Shea, but he does not stand alone, nor would he wish it that way.  There are the others with him, who care for these children - young volunteers from anywhere in the world and two married couples who work there full-time, plus many more locals.  They are all such good people, so committed to the children.  It is one of those many grassroots places in our crazy world, that restores our faith in humanity.  It is a seed of hope.  

For me, two days at Sarnelli House have been an experience of real church, at the grassroots.  Being there was a breath of fresh air.  This is where church is found and where it is most healthy and alive.  I see this theological truism yet again.  To meet and share with such lovely people, and to become friends so easily and readily, is an experience of life that is precious and life giving.  It may be said that I work at the centre of the church.  The truth is we find church at the grassroots, where good people are church, living it and giving witness to who we are.  

Thank God for a Sarnelli House, for church at the grassroots, for the people who make us who we are.  As I said at mass on Sunday: 

A cathedral does not make church.  Church makes a cathedral.