I’m sat at the back of a church in Bangkok. We, my son and I, came here with our friend because we love her and we know it will make her happy. Which in itself is a very Christian thing to do. She’s here because it will make her Dad happy. I take pictures for proof of her attendance.
We arrive late and stand at the back feeling slightly uncomfortable as everyone sings hymns, the words in both English and Thai projected onto a pull down screen. There is a girl playing keyboard and a man on the microphone.
I am not religious. I used to say I was agnostic, and sometimes I am, as I like the idea of past and future lives, it’s nice to think one might get a second chance. But the older I get the more atheist I become. I’m also partial to the church of satan (if you don’t know their principles then google The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth) but on the whole I feel that religion has caused more harm than good throughout history.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Growing up, my grandparents let me know that religion is something you must respect that other people do. But if you’re educated, especially in the arts, religion doesn’t really work. “Life is more exciting than that”. My grandmother said, “But the art is nice”.
I attended a Church of England primary school where we would say prayers and sing hymns every day. We would attend church somewhere around the equinox’s. Harvest festival was always my favourite but I usually got thrown out or sent to the back for “being disruptive by dancing during hymns”.
I know the Lord’s Prayer by heart from having to recite it every morning for the year I attended private school.
Later in life I had a child with someone from an Irish catholic family. Although he-himself was a self proclaimed atheist and worshipper of satan, we still attended church for confirmations, baptisms, palm Sunday’s and Christingle’s (the boys would crucify their jelly babies and then burn them at the stake during sermons).
Right now the preacher is talking us through the gospel of Paul and discussing the things that make us “same same but different”, a Thai colloquialism. He is a man in his late fifties, charismatic. He has a lot of enthusiasm and fun energy and is a good public speaker. Unfortunately he is speaking in Thai and the interpreter in my earphones, who is also sat next to me, doesn’t translate the jokes. Maybe they don’t translate. Maybe she doesn’t think the information is relevant to the message. She waits for the laughter in the room to subside, the speaker continues and she gets back to business.
This attitude is generally my experience of church. Long boring sermons with no humour.
Although I did attend a funeral in Jamaica where the church was filled with the sound of steel drums and gospel singing. The walls adorned with swaying palms and beautiful stained glass depicting Mary, baby Jesus and cherubs with brown skin and African features.
Once in high school, at the school chapel, we had a priest come in and give a talk. He was witty, more like a stand up comedian. He spoke with a thick east London accent and encouraged us to read the bible insisting “it’s got the best stories ever written”. I remember at one point he even urged us to steal a bible if we couldn’t afford one, thus giving us the only loophole to the eighth commandment. “If god complains, refer him to me”. I’m sure he managed to convert at least a handful of students that day, if only for the shocked reaction of the teachers to this statement, and at least until the end of the afternoon. I recall a boy called Paul from my class being extremely taken by the ecclesiastical geezers’ words. Paul was from an incredibly poor background and a family history rife with addiction. I remember thinking at the time that that’s exactly who organised religion is aimed at. The poor and disadvantaged. And then concluding that that’s ok to a degree unless it insights violence.
Pictured on the screen now is the sign of the holy trinity labelled “Father”, “Son” and “Holy Spirit” where it would say “maiden” “mother” and “crone” in the earlier pagan decryption known as the Triquetra; a symbol linked to the Triple Moon Goddess meant to symbolise the fertility life cycle of woman, the feminine divine and female empowerment.
Whatever. I’ve stopped listening to the translation in my ear to write this. My son (who is thirteen) sends me dying in pain emojis and I point out to him that what we’re looking at is in fact an occult symbol.
“What, you mean the devil?” He asks excitedly. I sigh and say no and acknowledge to myself that I could’ve used the words ‘tribal’, ‘Norse’ or ‘pagan’ instead; no one knows how old the symbol is.
I wonder why Christianity won out over the old systems of belief in the west. Because the Roman Empire were the Nazis that won I guess?
I had an idea once that the bible was originally written in order to boost bread sales in Ancient Rome. The Roman Empire, at its height, consumed around 350 million loaves of bread per week making grain production and distribution critical to the empire’s economy and stability.
The word “bread” is mentioned 492 times in the Bible.
“Take the finest flour and bake twelve loaves of bread.
Arrange them in two stacks on the table of pure gold before the Lord.
Sabbath after Sabbath, the bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly. It is an everlasting covenant.”
Leviticus 24:5-9
I digress…
The service has finished and now it’s social time. I am suddenly reminded of the reason my friend actually brought us here in the first place. I was recently granted a digital nomad visa for five years with visa runs every six months. We’ve been in Bangkok for almost a month and I still haven’t found any work. Plus temporary accommodation via Airbnb has cost a small fortune. I’m down to my last thousand pounds and getting desperate. So to church. Not to pray for our destitute souls but to seek out contacts. So not so Christian in our motivations after all. If there’s one thing that religious communities have got going for them it’s community, something I find seriously lacking in a lot of western society today.
I am introduced to the preacher’s wife, a chirpy Thai-American. And a white American woman who works as a teacher at the university. If there was a picture for the definition of a primary school teacher this woman would be it. She looks exactly how I imagined Miss Honey from Roald Dahl’s “Matilda’ to look in real life. They are both incredibly welcoming and presenting as keen to help, although I wouldn’t expect any less of American Christians. Another English speaking woman with a toddler introduces herself and shares some Facebook groups on homeschooling and ‘’mummy clubs”, the latter I’m not particularly interested in and my son has an online tutor, but I’m grateful nonetheless; and it would be good for him to meet some new friends.
I exchange contacts with ‘Miss Honey’ and in a conversation about public speaking I am reminded that voice training is something I am trained to teach and an avenue I haven’t yet explored. At this point I’m also kind of regretting changing my Home Screen to Keanu Reeves as Christ which I thought was hilarious during the first hymns when trying to find an Asian depiction of Jesus. Now every time I go to search a recommendation or add a contact the person helping is faced with this kitsch mockery of their faith, but no one says anything.
After mingling and lunch we join the group for badminton for the rest of the afternoon. At the end of the day we get a ride to the closest station with the interpreter. She tells me how she studied meteorology in the United States for a decade before returning to her home city of Bangkok. She lives in a different part of the city but spends most of her time in this area because of “the church and community”.
My son and I agree on the train ride home that the day was good and despite going to bed way too late the night before it was worth the effort.
Having a sense of belonging, support, like minded company and people to share food with is what makes life worth living. And although I personally don’t share the set of beliefs followed by this particular group, spending an afternoon in the presence of kindness is food for the soul. Or for thought, or that part of us that longs to find our tribe and hasn’t but makes us feel glad that some people, somewhere have found theirs.
October 27 2024
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