Do we know the way?

Today, I get in a taxi to come to work.  I tell the driver where I want to go and he gives a confident assurance that he knows exactly where it is.  Well, we only go some 100 metres for me to realise that this guy has no idea.  From there, I had to counsel him and direct him all the way.  This is not the first such occasion where the driver assures me he knows exactly where to go, while he just has no idea at all.  

We can so easily fool ourselves with a false sense of self-assurance, for the sake of looking good or getting the job done.  I am often struck by how we can happily be self-contained within our foolish, comfort bubbles, built upon foundations of fear, isolation and arrogance.  

In my apartment building, I have a neighbour who consistently seems to hide from me.  Whenever our paths may cross, he so obviously avoids me.  His behaviour intrigues me.  I recently, simply cried out to him, as he raced to his door - "Hi!"  His response was to quickly retreat from me. What is this all about?  

Such daily occurrences make me reflect on how disconnected we can be.  In such a 'bubbled world', how do we hope to build up relationships, let alone become acquainted and comfortable with the deeper realities of life that make us fully human?  How will we ever get in touch with our true, shared humanity?  Or do we just wish to maintain our individual, power stance, protecting our self-interests? 

Life is about so much more.  Don't we realise that the sacred is at the core of who we are?  We are worth so much.  Our relationships could run deep, offering satisfaction to our human search for true and fulfilling life.  In puirsuit of this quest, our creator puts us in touch with the transcendent.  As Erik Varden expresses it, "Faith enables us to interpret known experience in a supernatural light, making us at once more realisitic and more enlightened, in other words, more human".    

God shows us the way.  We just exit our bubble, letting go of our need to please and control. Unburden ourselves from what burdens us and be free to venture being fully human.  The way can be frightening.    

People do care

Stop explaining yourself to people who didn't want to understand you from the start.  (Koendanai)

Ronan Keating's song ever stands as a classic wedding song with the words - "you say it best when you say nothing at all".  Actions not words matter.  This is a good life philosophy.  

This past week, I came upon an article from Australia by a woman, in her 60s, who had been adopted.  Given my own life story around adoption, it grabbed my attention.  As I read it, I found that, even with a shared story of origin, her story was not mine and I just thought to myself, "What is her issue?".  Even on admitting that she was adopted into a good family, she was still demanding a public apology for being adopted without her consent.  Why?  Can't she just live with gratitude for the good life she enjoyed and get on with life, beyond all the trials she suffered along the way?   After all, the bottom line is that, to this day, people do care for her.  

I then read her write that any narrative of adoption may revolve around sympathy, or at least for some.  "No way!", I react to myself.  My response is: "Act on your life.  Do some good with what you have been given."  Then, at the end of the article, there is a plea from the editorial staff in Melbourne - "Support respectful conversations in a time of division".  Now, doesn't that say something!  

My considered reflection is to ask myself - "Who is apologizing for the genocide in Gaza or the evil of war in Sudan?".   I further ask myself - "Do some people expect far too much out of life?  Do people not recognize that life is primarily about giving, not just receiving?  Do they not recognize the care that they are already receiving and be thankful for that?".   

We may not see all that is good in our lives.  We may become too comfortable and nonchalant.  Despite all that we may or may not see and experience around us, there are people who do care for us.  

One great giver of care was Pope Francis, who died a year ago.  He shared with us a primary rule for life - the via caritas, the way of love.  His way challenges us to be ever kind and ever merciful, seeing beyond people's fragility, self-centredness and even lack of love or cruelty.  In this way, we uphold the dignity of life and live the vision of God.  Thank you my friend and good shepherd for you do care.     

Rules are made to be broken

"Rules are made to be broken".  That sounds somewhat radical or rebllious.  It speaks of me but, as I hear it, I wonder what happened to John, the rebel.  Hss he been lost?  Whatever happened to my favourite James Dean poster - "Rebel without a cause"?  I took it with me wherever I went, when I lived in Australia.  It both spoke to me and of me.  "Ever the rebel!" would be my cry.  I think it is time to regain my past. 

Why does this theme arise in my life just now?  Once I was told by a wise person not to think too much, but I keep thinking, trying to understand life.  That is who I am.  Am I simply too introspective?  Am I just a comfortable yet challenging thinker?  Karl Marx's dictum was that the task of philosophers was to change the world.  So hopefully I reflect on life and the questions arise. 

Life goes on and on, going where?  My life has a routine, getting the same results time and again.  So I think, is it not time to change something, especially if it is not working?  

I want to achieve so much.  So why don't I just go out and do it, before it is too late?  What holds me back?  

I guess it all boils down to asking if there isn't more to life than my everyday and where I find myself in it.     

I identify that I live life within somewhat stritly defined circles.  This is not me.  I don't know if that is anyone in the world, as control does not work.  Life needs boundaries but not endless rules and demands placed by outside forces.  

Rules have a purpose, they deserve to be respected, but they don't always work and they aren't meant to squash the human spirit.  Flexibbility is also good, allowing rules to be broken at good times and for good reasons.  For what purpose do we confine ourselves within tight circles, when we know there is so much more to life, so much more to give, but all we do is ever passively suffer the absurdities of life?  Why?  Thus have we made the world.  So let us change it.  

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The Lord may be risen, but I am tired

As it is Easter, I might be expected to be enlivened, energetic and positive in life.  Truth is I just feel tired.  I am neither pessimistic nor dispirited.  I am simply tired from ever trying to help people, getting nowhere.  I feel this after my latest attempt to help another western national in Bangkok.  In the end, nothing changes, but you can't see the person penniless, when alone and lost in a foreign environment.  

Still, this is where they chose to be, despite their issues and brokenness, which weigh heavily on them.  My friend of the last few days does not stand alone.  There surely are a number of westerners who are lost souls, choosing to live isolated in Bangkok.  They eventually get into trouble - money, health, misfortune -  and need a Fr John, going nowhere, except their harsh or fantastical Bangkok.  I often wonder what it is about this place.  

Their plight is endless, going nowhere.  They know where they want to be.  Whatever their reality may be, they want to be in Bangkok.  So helping is tiring as what do I achieve?  Help and their plight just goes on and on and on.  This same narrative is repeated time and again, helping any broken people, thus helping can be a thankless and tiring task.  So what to do?  The response is in the season.  I am asking the wrong question, for it is not about what I achieve.  It is about much more than my little world.  

Our world is transformed by the resurrection of Jesus.  Do I get that?  That new heaven and the new earth have exploded into our world.  Do I get that?  In approaching the mundane, the routine, the daily slog, I too easily lose sight of the transcendental.  Life is determined by much more than my concerns, achievements, successes, failures and feelings.  It is energizing to remember that I am part of a project so much bigger and much more important.  The project for life!  So keep going, don't tire.  .  

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Love explains it all

The full moon is the great symbol of Easter.  Maybe this is so because no matter what is happening on earth, nor where we are, we can all look up into the sky and easily see this sign of wonder and beauty, graciously reminding us that life goes on, even despite us.  

We can be a cruel lot, a selfish anomaly stuck in the midst of the beauty of creation, but none of that ultimately defines us, for we are defined by higher values.  Sounds good?  Some may simply say - Easter, so what?  Do I even get it?  To be honest, I get it so far, but then there is a huge gap in my understanding.  

I was just at yet another work meeting where ones think they are saving the world.  By this time in my life, I just tend to sit and watch, coming in at poignant moments of concern, thinking this is somewhat a theatre of the absurd..  

It is within this context of an absurd world, with all its divisions, conflicts and destruction, that it becomes challenging to fully capture and appreciate the ultimate goodness of the world.   What is this ultimate goodness?   I read it is love.  I agree, but surely not love on human terms.  

Of course, not!  It is love wihin the realm of the divine.  For is not God love?  Love for God is quintessentially expressed in creation.  So love creates, going out and making God's realm the realm of all, taking all into the embrace of the Divine.  So we are caught up in the love of God   Even in the midst of the absurd, love is all.  Love explains it all, at all times. 

Lent is over. Now, we get the full picture.

For anyone who follows my blog, there may seem to be a present lull, but that is far from the truth.  Rather, it is the opposite, as my life has been full of concerns and issues, arising in my everyday existence.  The individual issues do not matter here as this is not a forum for clearing complaints.  

In fact, in facing this time, I have kept in mind a motto posted by my hero, Pope Francis.  It basically stated - "Keep complaints outside my office".   This highlighted his focus was to keep an eye on the possible and moving forward.  

Well, present experience shows me yet again that we more easily deal with moving forward, when pressing concerns and issues, no matter how minor, are put behind us.  Keeping focus on the possible and moving forward is all good philosophy, when looking back in hindsight, but not so when one is caught within the seemingly overwhelming demands of the immediate moment.         

My easy submission to the trials of life appears at the very end of Lent, when our focus is on surmounting much graver matters of life.  I look around and I see a world overcome by war, conflict, suffering of all sorts.  So what of my little concerns?  Nothing, it would seem. Is not life about achieving much greater heights and dealing with real challenges facing humanity?   I am so easily pulled down by the minutiae, losing sight of the big picture, of what truly calls forth our shared call to greatness.  Life is meant to be transformative, not an exercise in survival.    

Whare has our Lent gone?

Haven't they been showing us the way?   This picture was taken at the beginning of Lent, at the Vatican.  It was the time when Bishop Erik Varden, a Trappist, was leading Pope Leo, an Augustinian, on a Lenten retreat.  For me, this could easily be the photo of the year for it shows two great men together in a most revealing pose, one of listening, of engaging in real conversation.  Isn't this a pose of leadership in a world where people just shoot from the hip, full stop.  

In his last reflection, Varden prophetically shared.  

"Christ calls us to communicate hope to the world. To have Christian hope is not necessarily to be an optimist. A Christian forswears wishful thinking, making a determined option for the real. Demagogues promise that things will get better. They claim demiurgical power to change communities within an electoral term, distracting the masses from felt disappointments by hand-outs of bread, tickets to circuses, and defamations of adversaries. 

How different are Christ’s words. He tells us, ‘The poor you will always have with you.’ He affirms that nation will rise against nation. Persecutions will come. A man’s enemies will be members of his own household. There is no lame resignation in these statements. The Lord obliges us, his disciples, to labour without respite for a new, healthy humanity formed by charity, in justice. He tells us to ‘cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons’. We are to enact the beatitudes, making the glory hidden within them shine. But as we go about this we are reminded: ‘Without me you can do nothing.’  

Christ is the light of the nations.  He alone, doing the Father’s will, acting in the Spirit, can renew the face of the earth. In him we put our trust, not in passing stratagems.  He can act through us if we consent to being patient. Lent shows us that God, suffering the wound of his philanthropy, is at his most active in his Passion. The hope he entrusts to us is not hope in a finally modernised, digitised, sanitised Vale of Tears. Our hope is in a new heaven, a new earth, in the resurrection of the dead.  

The time in which we live is hungry to hear this hope proclaimed." 

I read this and am left speechless.  What can I add to that?   What do I need to add?  Words are not needed.  It is time rather to continue our Lenten fast for time is left and there is much to ponder, much to do. Happy Lent!