Secrets Blog

Here's a news flash for Lambeth Palace from Thailand: Anglicans can find each other and get on quite well despite our differences - all without a Covenant.

It seems many of us know this already, and maybe - just maybe - Lambeth is learning this important lesson.

The news about Rowan's early retirement and move back into Academia has reached the status of a huge yawn here in the Land of Smiles. The news of the death of the Coptic Pope has at least made the local papers. No one here really know - or much cares - about the Archbishop of Canterbury.

There's no Anglican (much less Episcopal) Church in Pattaya and the one in Bangkok - Christ Church - doesn't recognize (or pray for, either) The Episcopal Church or Canterbury as having anything to do with them.

Thailand is part of the Diocese of Singapore and the Province of South East Asia. I'm told that, after the tsunami hit Phuket in 2004, representatives of The Episcopal Church came to Bangkok with a really large (in the neighborhood of $500,000 US) donation to help the recovery efforts. The good Christians at Christ Church sent them back after a few day - along with their money - saying that they didn't want to take anything that had been "tainted by homosexuality".

So, there it is, then.

From what I understand from the very few Anglicans I've met here, the rector at Christ Church is a bit....well...."odd" would be the kind thing to say I suppose.

For example, he determined this year that there would not be any distribution of ashes on Ash Wednesday. "Too Romish," he declared. And that, as they say, was that. No "Ashes to Go" - or stay - in Bangkok.

However, there will be palms on Palm Sunday and the Church Ladies will be helping the children make palm crosses again this year on Good Friday. Or, so it has been decreed by Himself+.

Rob absolutely refused to take me there the first Sunday I was here. A few years back, he went to Christ Church with one of his dear friends, also an Anglican. He was so excited by the possibility of being part of a Christian community again, he began thinking he might even make a twice a month commitment to attend and was already figuring out the pledge in his monthly budget.

He was a bit surprised that the priest did not wear vestments - not even a stole - when he presided at Eucharist and mentioned it to him at the pleasantries on the way out the door.

"No vestments, eh?" asked Rob.

The good rector pulled himself up and said, "No, and if you're expecting them, don't come back."

Rob said he got into his friend's car and cried the whole way home.

And this from a place that fancies itself "an oasis of diversity".

Ah, the love of Jesus incarnate in His priests!

Despite all that, we did meet up with an American journalist - an Episcopalian, mind you - who is living and working in Bangkok. That's a picture of us at the beginning of this post. He and his wife and daughter came down from Bangkok to visit with us. We had dinner together last night and then met up on the beach at Jomtein this morning for a bit of a late breakfast and coffee and conversation.

Actually, his wife is from Burma and is Baptist. Their daughter attends Baptist church and is very, very bright. Her English was absolutely flawless and she hopes to attend private school in USA this coming September, where she and her mother will live with relatives.

We share much in common in theological perspectives but, being Anglicans, we have our differences as well. It didn't matter. We all share the love of God as we know it incarnate in Christ Jesus. We have a common religious language to share and created our own "oasis" in the midst of The Land of Smiles.

We don't need an Anglican Covenant to help us understand what it means to be Anglican. Neither do we need a piece of paper to define the "relational consequences" of any action that gives "offense".

Indeed, we don't even need the institutional church or one of her buildings to have us a little "church" in the midst of all the Wats and Spirit Houses and statues of the Buddha.

Perhaps Rowan, in his "retirement" and return to academia can continue to think Very Big Thoughts about the nature of Anglicanism and the role of the church and the need for community. I'm sure his thinking will have greater clarity when he doesn't have the Nasty Evangelical Boyz nipping at his heels and buzzing hateful things in his ear.

Once he's out of the inner workings of the institutional church, my hope is that Rowan will discover what some of us already know: 

Being an Anglican - like being a Christian - is more a matter of the heart and soul than it is of the mind.

Then again, ensconced as he will be in academia, he might miss that opportunity as well.

Perhaps the next Archbishop of Canterbury might take a page from this statement from the Bishop of Liverpool. He said:

"When we are in Christ we are in Christ with everybody else who is in Christ, whether we like it or not - or like them or not."

Now, that's my kind of Christian.

And, the best kind of Anglican.

Naga at the steps of a building in the Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok

St. Patrick Day festivities are in full swing here.

There's a Very Big parade on Beach Road and lots of restaurants and bars are offering green beer and there's "Irish Stew" on lots of menus. 

Beach Road was MOBBED with people! I couldn't get close enough to take very good pictures, but I'll salvage what I can and take some more later on tonight at the Irish Show at the Bondi Pub at Jomtein Beach. It should be memorable.

At first, I found the merging of the two cultures a bit jarring. I simply couldn't get my head wrapped around how the Thai culture could accommodate St. Patrick, so I spoke with my doorman earlier this morning when I went out to do me laundry.

I have found, no matter the culture or country, if you want to know something about any topic, look for a man in a uniform who is wearing a big wad of keys on his belt. I don't know what it is, but be it a security guard, a postman, an electrician or a plumber, the uniform coupled with a big wad of keys will almost promise a veritable font of seemingly unimportant trivia which can sometimes proves very helpful. It's no different in Thailand.

I wanted to know what the Thai people think about snakes in general and the story of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland in particular.

Cam - my security guard, the one with a HUGE wad of keys on his belt - told me that snakes in Thailand are called "naga" - or, the feminine "nagini".

In Buddhist tradition, the nagas are the servants of one of the Four Heavenly Kings who guards the western direction. Buddha had his own naga to protect him. They have the ability to take on human form because they are rumored to have both snake and human qualities and characteristics.

Reminds me of Slytherins in the Harry Potter series.  They were the most cunning and ambitious of the four houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Sorting Hat almost sent him there, but he ended up at Gryffindor, with the "brave of heart".

Cam told me the story of the Naga prince "Sesha" and how he came to hold the world on his head. It begins when Sesha appeared before Brahma as a dedicated human ascetic who was apparently practicing a hard penance as atonement for sins. Cam didn't know what sin, exactly, but he thought it was "Very Big".

Sesha's hair is knotted and he is dressed in rags. His flesh, skin, and sinews are dried up from fasting and praying in the hot sun "many, many long year".

Brahma is pleased with Shesha, and entrusts him with the duty of carrying the world. At that point in the story, Shesha begins to exhibit the attributes of a serpent. He enters into a hole in the Earth and slithers all the way to bottom, where he then loads the Earth onto his head.

"Be very careful snake," says Cam. "No trust. Delicious in curry, but can bite. Dead."

Garuda, the eagle King, is the natural nemesis of naga. They were, I think cousins but something happened and the Naga enslaved the Garuda and would only free him if he stole a magic potion that would make them immortal. Garuda apparently accomplished the task but something else happened - I had trouble following the story because Cam became very animated and spoke more rapidly so it was hard to follow - so Garuda tricked the snake and didn't give the Naga the potion. From that point on, Garuda no longer thought of them friends but as food.

I asked Cam what he thought about St. Patrick and why he thought St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.

"No trust snake," he said again. "Sometime very bad. Sometime good, but can be very bad. Snake for farang (I'm assuming he meant St. Patrick and/or the Irish people) be very bad. Send out-out. Good for him. Good for country."

So, it would appear that the myth and legend of St. Patrick does make the cultural translation quite well. I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised.

As I listened to Cam, I thought that Jung's idea of the "collective unconscious" makes more and more sense to me.

In Sunday's Gospel, Jesus reminds Nicodemus of Moses encounter with snakes, alluding to the serpent in the Garden.

"Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3:14-21)

Just in case you missed the point, Jesus adds what Martin Luther called "the gospel in miniature, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."

As famous as John 3:16 is, I wish we would not forget v 17: "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

Not to condemn the world but to save it. The same way Garuda did not give the naga the magic potion for eternal life but dedicated his life to removing the naga from the world. The same way St. Patrick rid Ireland of the snakes by driving them out.

Interesting that scripture tells us that "Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole, and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live." (Numbers 21:4-9) Interesting as well that The Buddha got the Naga to guard the palace as the Four Heavenly Kings got them to guard the western direction.

I suppose those are two ways to deal with the idea of evil in the world: Run it out or make it work for you.

No matter your country or culture, your creed or religious practices, the Problem of Evil exists. How you deal with it - and not succumb or be overpowered by it - is the question that cuts across all of our cultural and religious differences.

I don't think I'm ever going to be able to celebrate St. Patrick's Day again without thinking of Garunda and the Naga and The Problem of Evil. Or, the image of smiling Thai people wearin' the green.

Child sex trafficking in Pattaya

The gay community here is all abuzz.

"Eddie" was caught in the bathroom of the local McDonald's with a 12-year old boy. Which is stupid on more levels than one has time to enumerate.

In the first place, sex - any kind of sex - is amply available here in Thailand but especially here in Pattaya which has the dubious distinction of being a "destination location" for those looking to participate in the commercial sex industry.

The same is true in Cambodia, Laos, Viet Nam, Tokoyo, Singapore, India and most of Asia.

According to one news report I read, of the estimated 20,000 commercial sex workers in Pattaya, hundreds are children who are either lured from their villages by the idea of opportunity or by criminal networks.

Pattaya has a multi-billion dollar multinational sex industry with links to drug trafficking, money laundering and an expanding regional cross-border traffic in women - especially from Russia and Ukraine.

In Thailand, trafficking is a 500 billion baht annual business, which is 50%- 60% of the government's annual budget and more lucrative than the drug trade.

You want sex? Man? Woman? Anybody? No problem.

Why, then, have sex with a child?

Because, apparently, you can. And, for the most part, get away with it. Unless, of course, you are dumb enough to frequent places like the bathrooms at McDonalds where everyone knows there is CCTV (Closed Circuit Television). Men's or women's facilities - you can't miss the CCTV signs on the door as you enter.

From what I understand, "Eddie" is from a little town just a few miles north of Liverpool. Father left the family around dubious circumstances. Lived alone with his mother all of his adult life until she died about three years ago.

He reportedly has an older brother who is married and lives and works in Liverpool, but Eddie has inherited the house. Been living and traveling off his inheritance since Mum died. Due to retire in May.

He's been coming to Pattaya three or four times a year for the past three years. His family thinks he's coming for "the women". Which, I suppose, was okay. "Normal" you know, especially for an older "life long bachelor" who is about to enter the ranks of an old age pensioner.

But, of course, he's been able to satisfy his fantasy having sex with Thai "lady boys" who are men but look like women who look like they're 12 years old but they are 18 and so "legal".

The local press is all over the story. Apparently, it's important to the Thai government to let people know that child sex trafficking will not be tolerated here. Offenders will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, which here means that he will be in prison for at least a few months and then he will be deported to UK. There, he'll spend additional time in prison and be on the sex-offender registry.

No one is quite sure what will happen to his pension. The consensus among the Brits here is that he may well be denied it because he has committed a sex crime and is registered as a pedophile and has brought disgrace to his homeland.

The Thai prisons are notorious for being more like the 7th rung of Dante's Inferno. There is no food or water except that which is brought in by family or friends. There are 25 or 30 men to a cell. A hole in the ground as a place to deposit one's bodily waste. No showers or sinks. No fans or anything to move the heavy moisture laden air around.

The reaction from the gay community here has been fascinating. Everyone feels sad for their friend when they are also outraged by his stupidity and the way it makes all gay men look bad.

No one is talking about the 12 year old Thai boy.

Frankly, I don't think "Eddie" is gay. He's a bit "slow" intellectually. Some have described him as "simple". They say that, when the cops brought him to his apartment to get his passport, he could have bought himself off for about 5,000 baht each policeman. Why he didn't, they say, is evidence enough that the poor lad doesn't have both oars in the water.

He's also a "loner". Doesn't hang around much with his British mates. Sleeps until past noon, comes down to the pool where he mostly drinks Chang beer all afternoon - one after another, sometimes with a beer in one hand and a glass of gin in the other - and then lumbers off around 1800 hours when the rest of the crew either goes out or goes home for their supper. He isn't seen again until the following afternoon at the pool when he drinks his way through another day.

I suspect - and it's only my speculation - that "Eddie's" father's disappearance from the family has something to do with his inability to form relationships with anyone as well as his attraction to young, under-aged Thai boys.

Not that it ultimately matters, and I'm not saying this to excuse this heinous behavior, but I'm betting solid money his psychological profile will include sexual abuse when he was about 12 years old. I think this is a pretty clear case of "arrested development".

Conspiracy theories abound. Everyone is convinced that it was a set up. That, the young boy had been caught before and, as part of his penance, was used by the Thai police to set up a European man so that the Thai people - and the whole rest of the world - would have evidence that Thailand does not tolerate child trafficking. The child, they say, was probably back out on the streets turning tricks that same afternoon.

It's all rubbish, they say. This sort of thing goes on more than anyone is willing to admit. Just not in places where there's closed circuit television.

So, I ask, this is the boy's fault?

Well, they say, it's just the culture here. What can you do?

Ah, I ask, so this is like in the US or UK or most places in the 'civilized world' where women are still payed 65 cents compared to every dollar made by a man? It's just the way it is? Or, perhaps, it's rather like when women wearing short skirts who are raped are really to blame because they were "asking for it."

I was met by stone cold silence and pained looks all 'round. I'm not making friends here as long as I follow this line of thought and ask these kinds of questions. It is, after all, a man's world.

The sadness of the day "Eddie" was arrested moved into anger the next day and now it's just fodder for gossip and dish. Apparently, "Eddie" has been moved to a prison closer to Bangkok where it is surmised he will stay a few months - through the worst of the summer heat and oppressive humidity, no doubt - until the Thai and British consulates work out the arrangements for his deportation to UK.

That is, if he doesn't either off himself or is killed in prison. Folks here say that the odds are greater for that happening than for him to return to UK.

Or, perhaps, that's wishful thinking on their part. It would simply add to the drama and the dish.

I'm still outraged. I'm not buying the bit about the culture or the attitude about sex as some sort of permissive factor in all this. We're talking young peasant boys and girls who are taken from their families on poor farms in the north who don't think they have any other options to put food in the mouths of their children than to sell off some of their children.

THAT's what needs to be changed. At the very least, the money being made by the government from this "industry" ought to be channeled into improving the lives of the peasants in the North, until it reaches a point of diminishing return.

I wonder if anyone has thought of that? Probably not. Then again, no one has asked me. I suspect some of the social service agencies that are here are working out strategies to end child trafficking. None of them really seem to be working.

As promised - me on ZaZa the elephant with my mahout Cam

You can only go so far shoveling the pollution out of the water in front of you. You have to go upstream to see what is polluting the waters and work on solving that problem in order to have fresh water to drink where you are.

It's hard to remember that I'm on vacation and probably ought not be thinking about these things, but it's hard to put this "incident" of child trafficking on the shelf.

Having been this close to it, however, is closer than I ever want to be again in my life. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather be celebrating Thai culture and riding elephants.

The poor, said Jesus, will always be with us.

You may not be able to 'push the river' as the Buddhist say, but you can certainly go upstream and clean it up. 

View from my apartment balcony - Pattaya, Thailand

No matter where you are or who you are, anxiety is simply a part of the enterprise of being human.

Jesus knew this, which is why he talked about it in one of his sermons. "Consider the lilies of the field," He said, "how they grow."

Worrying won't change a thing and yet, we all do it, don't we? No matter who we are or where we are or how much we have, we all worry that it won't - there won't, we won't - be enough.

Folks here are still all in a twiter (and, I'm not talking about technological internet chatter) about the fact that the fee for the 'songthaew' - which is a pick up truck type of taxi  affectionately known as the "baht bus" - from Pattaya to Jom Tien Beach very recently went up from 10 baht to 20 baht.

100 baht is about $3.35 US. As the Brits say, "Cheap as chips."

Lord, have mercy! You would think part of the sky fell down.

Everyone is still all agog. How will anyone be able to afford it? Well, we could protest by walking to the beach, but, who could walk in this beastly heat and humidity? We'd all have to walk about with towels round our necks and umbrellas over our heads and wouldn't that be unseemly.

Mind you, these are citizens of the US and UK or France, Germany or Holland who get in salary or even pension what most of the Thai people will not earn in a year. Some of them, in their entire lifetime.

And, this conversation is taking place 'round the hotel pool where some pay 30 baht to "rent" a towel and a lounge chair for the day.

And yet, the anxiety is thick enough to cut with a knife.

I've been trying to keep my mouth shut and just listen, but I must say, it's getting pretty old.

This...THIS...is why, in part, I blog. I can say things here I wouldn't dare say to someone else's face. Well, not the people here, anyway, and they don't know about my blog.

Mind you, the Thai people have nothing much to say about this, themselves. Those who would be most deeply affected by a 10 baht increase in fee wouldn't be able to afford the original 10 baht in the first place, so, what's the point, really.

Near as I can figure, the biggest anxiety for the people in my neighborhood with whom I engage in conversation - such as it is in my poor Thai and their English - is about being able to afford whatever it takes to look more Western.

Skin lightener. Hair design. Clothing. Shoes.

We all seem to want to be something we're not.

My new best friends, the monks at the local Wat (Temple), seem to be a bit ahead of the curve on this. They practice "detachment" in order to practice "abstinence" from longing or craving.

Here's the basics, as I understand them.

 Suffering (dukka) comes up in everyone's life.

This suffering is caused by craving (tanha).

We can stop suffering by stopping craving.

To stop craving, follow Buddha's Eightfold Path - which consists mostly of living a moral life, avoiding harm to others and following a spiritual practice based on meditation.

These are called The Four Noble Truths.

This may simply be my Western mind's way of imposing my beliefs on Buddhist thought, but I have come to think that craving is a form - or expression of, or perhaps, the result of - anxiety. It's probably more complex and challenging than that, but that's where I've landed. At least, today.

It has to do, I'm told, with 'anicca' (I think that's how it's spelled. That's how it sounds).

Anicca is, as I understand it, 'impermanence' which means that everything that exists (including - gasp! - God, but more about that in a future post) is in constant movement, constant flux.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, remains just what it is.

So, for the Western mind, being is all the thing. And, for the Western mind, "I think, therefore I am," is a penultimate truth, which doesn't necessarily lead to the belief that "I am what I think," but sometimes does. It may even lead to the illusion that "I am what I think I am."

For the Buddhist mind, not being but becoming is all the thing. To 'be' is to 'become' and one can only 'be' if one is in motion.

Which is to say that, to the Buddhist, everything changes because everything is interrelated.

Everything comes into being and continues in being through and with something else - which begins to sound more South African, doesn't it? It's also Bueber's "I and thou".

So, for Buddha, we are not selves but more non-selves. We are not human 'beings' but human 'becomings', or even more to the point,  'becomings-with'.

Here's the thing, as I understand it: no one can control this process.

"You can't push the river," I'm told. Trying to do that is not only futile, it will cause anxiety which will cause cravings which will lead to suffering of self and others.

This does not eliminate - much less forbid - the enjoyment of other persons or things. The Buddhist monks just warn against trying to hold onto them or to think we own them or that we can change anything for anyone else.

Up to you, see?

Which is not to say that Buddhist don't experience anxiety or cravings. Not everyone is "Enlightened" or has achieved "Awakening" - even the monks. Everyone is just trying to get to 'Nirvana' which is not a place "up there, out there, somewhere" you get after you die, but can happen right here and now.

Self-actualization, it's called in some psychiatric circles.

Perhaps the greatest anxiety I've experience here is much like other places in the world: It's around money. Like many non-Western countries, these folk enjoy a good 'haggle' over the cost of some things. I think it is a bit of a game - a way to reduce anxiety and detach from what you think is yours.

But, once the price is negotiated, you stick to it. Or, if it has been negotiated up front - like a menu at a restaurant. To try and haggle after the negotiation has been settled causes great distress and anxiety.

What I've discovered is that humor and laughter are not only a universal languages, they are a wonderful way to reduce anxiety, which is not lost on the Thai mind.

This morning, I made a bit of a mistake in the bill for my breakfast - two poached eggs, two pieces of toast, a slice of ham, two slices of bacon, a glass of juice, a cup of tea, and a small biscuit = 110 baht. Cheap as chips.

I also had an iced coffee after breakfast - it was already hotter than the hinges on the gates of Hades at 0900 hours at Jom Tein Beach - which brought the total up to 160 baht. I should have just gotten out two one hundred baht notes and gotten the change. Instead I fiddled with the paper money and thought I had a 10 baht coin but it turns out that it was, in actuality, a 5 baht coin.

The waiter looked a bit anxious. What was foreign to my eyes was instantly recognizable to him and he knew I had made a mistake. Or, perhaps, I was trying to get something for 150 baht when it was really 160 baht.

I'm sure he felt his English was not good enough to explain the whole thing to me and he began to be anxious. There is no haggling over menu prices in Thailand. Clothes? Shoes? Maybe. Not menu.

I read his face and quickly put together that I had made the wrong selection in coins so I reached into my purse, fumbled round a bit while he kept saying, "Madam not right," feeling my own anxiety begin to rise. Finally, finally, finally, I produced the right coin.

Mind you, this was about 5 baht. Peanuts to me. Lots of money to him because it has to come out of his pocket to make up the difference in the mistake. There are mouths to feed. Rent to pay. Whitening cream and jeans to buy.

I can't even begin to express his relief when I  handed him the 10 baht coin.

His face instantly registered the flight of anxiety. I demurely put my hand to my mouth the way I see Thai women do, and said, "So sorry. Not your fault. Farang lady ding dong" - which meant, essentially, "I'm a foreign woman who is an idiot."

He deeply appreciated my self-effacing humor and laughed along with me. He then put his hands together, bowed reverently and said, "Farang lady nice lady, Sir".

We're all just birds on a wire, aren't we? 

We're all just holding on for dear life while the winds of change blow us about.

We resist mightily, I suspect, because we do not know that we can fly.

We do not know that we can fly because we have not detached from the wire, thinking it provides us a modicum of safety.

It's just a place to perch, is all.

We are not meant to perch our whole lives. We are meant to detach from the wire and fly. We can come back, if we want, but we will be much less anxious if we spread our wings and step out in faith and into the understanding that we are not so much human beings as human becomings.

What we have to decide for ourselves is whether the anxiety of holding onto the wire is better than the anxiety of what we think will happen if we let go.

No one can decide that for you except yourself.

Or, not.

Up to you.