I don’t know what it is about Thailand, but it seems like everyone here is CONSTANTLY taking pictures of us. It may be our stunning good looks, or perhaps our amazing fashion sense, or maybe our gregarious personalities, or perhaps our exotic nationalities, or maybe something else altogether, but it is impossible to spend a day without being photographed by at least five different people. As a private person who shies away from being documented, and specially from being photographed, I think that this constant request for “teacher, selfie” may be slowly driving me insane.
This issue came to a head last year during our Christmas play, a play that was once staged perfectly in my mind, rehearsed multiple times, and presented as mostly improv. After this madness was over, all manner of things broke loose, and there were impromptu Christmas Carols, Santa and Santy costumes (I’m not quite sure what a “Santy” is, perhaps a female Santa), pose for a million pictures, and throw candy at the adoring public, I mean, the highly educated students, of course.
While all of this was going on, parts of me were cringing and resisting the urge to slink away slowly to the backstage. Parts of me wanted to celebrate all this madness and frolic in its glorious and perfect chaos. Parts of me were just dealing with that bittersweet emotion of relief and joy and nostalgia that always comes after the end of any production. Parts of me were dealing with the grief that comes from knowing that you’re going to be leaving soon. Parts of me were just happy that in this unusual way, we were all celebrating the best gift ever given to man. However, most of me was just trying to keep up with everything going on, trying to capture all the sensory stimuli and remember this particular Christmas morning. As all these thoughts went through my head, I awkwardly stood in center stage in my wise man’s beard and skirt, not knowing what to do.
Still reeling from the experience, trying to process it all and ask what it meant, a few minutes after it was over, one of my squadmates asked, to no one in particular “when are we ever going to experience Christmas morning like this again?”. In my head I cleverly retorted “never, if we’re lucky”, but immediately afterward, I repented from my silent heresy, and amended my thought to be more reverent and read “hopefully not on this earth or the next, God willing”. But then, the next thought in this logical sequence was, “what if this is what God wants for the rest of your life, would you be willing to submit to this”. Horrified, I recoiled from the notion of constantly living in such a blur of chaos, and all at once, I realized that this is exactly what Jesus did for us when He came on some long-forgotten summer night long ago.
The gospels clearly record that Jesus did not live a private life, He was constantly being pestered by thousands who sought His touch in their lives. Ironically, my prayer coming into Thailand six weeks ago, was that we could walk as Jesus walked and attract people to Him by the way that we walked. As per usual, God answered my prayer in the exact way I wanted Him not to, by making us a sort of mini-celebrity group. But, instead of going slowly insane, Jesus answered by transforming lives and seeing the individuals that made up the crowd. Therefore, for the last day of ministry, my new prayer is to respond how Jesus would respond to all of this, with grace and loving kindness, and so further bring glory to the Father.
