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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