I am glad I grew up in a culturally Christian society and was nurtured in an Anglican family. I would have found it very difficult to make my choices in a secular culture which left me to make every decision myself without some moral framework.

A heavily law-based religion and culture would have been a challenge as I rebel against rigid norms and expectations. I remember the house-matron at school saying:

“Why can’t you be more like your brothers! They were such nice boys.”

My brothers were older, more accepting of patterns and expectations, and were clearly thought nicer!

Yet while law-based religions demand too high a degree of ‘fitting in’ certain forms bestow some freedoms to mildly rebellious souls like mine.

There are problems for cultures in which everything seems to be ‘up for grabs’; in which the ‘I want doesn’t get’ of my childhood is replaced by ‘I want must have’; where the moral fashions of the day must always be accommodated.

Although not conformist I found great advantage in school uniforms and clerical dress. I did not to have to decide what to wear. Even now I have, by choice, a limited wardrobe. Some rules seem to free us.

To have no framework at all would make daily life and moral decisions fractured and exhausting. Too much uniformity is crushing. ‘Moderation in all things’. 

Perhaps, for the gently rebellious free-thinker Anglican, Christianity offers a welcome balance of obligation and ideal.

I have been pondering, for my own satisfaction, what, if anything, we human beings have in common. I doubt that there is a universal morality. Yet C S Lewis and others suggest that at no time and in no place has selfishness been admired. Surely no one has ever said,

“I really admire ‘N’ who is without question the most selfish person I have ever met.”

I suspect that we have come to forget, or at least downplay, the reality that we are animals. It is a long time since I heard an elderly relative say in hushed and disapproving tones, “He gave in to his animal instincts” –  And yet we still do because they are still there.

We are certainly able to reason and we are a species that can choose. However the idea that we are entirely rational beings does not seem to me to be born out by what we see and what we are. 

Rather than being rational beings who from time to time behave irrationally I suspect we may be animals with a rational ability.

This leaves me with a lot more thinking to do and that I must pause before I assume that others will be what I consider reasonable – or they me.

Tuesday was Saint Anselm’s Day. St Anselm, who lived from 1033 to 1109 was a theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury. At St Agnes, where I go most mornings – it’s an easy walk, we were reminded of his words, ‘I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand.’

On Wednesdays, there being no morning service at St Agnes, I go to Borough Market for some serious food shopping. It’s an easy journey door to door on the 133 bus. Yesterday I bought coquelet, French, and early season strawberries, English, which made the basis for a delicious dinner which I shared with a friend.

For much of January, February and March I was away from London. Three days after my return I had arranged to go, with friends, to a lecture at Christie’s in King Street in the heart of St James’s.

I caught the 159 bus outside Kennington Post Office and then travelled down Kennington Road, over Waterloo Bridge past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, up Whitehall, through Trafalgar Square to Lower Regent Street. Then I walked, unhurriedly, I had given myself plenty of time – it’s a family trait, back down Regent Street to Pall Mall past the various clubs on one side and the art galleries on the other to Crown Passage before getting to Christie’s.

As this journey unfolded I became aware of just how spacious central London is. The streets are wide. The buildings, apart from New Zealand House, are generally low. There is space.

My first impression being back in London was of this space. I loved it. I love Bangkok. However, apart from deliberate visits to Lumpini Park, there is little feeling of space there. I realised, back in London, that space is very important to me and that it is not just physical space but also the space silence gives and the space of stillness. Space matters.

It was wonderful being away from London’s cold, damp, grey days and it was wonderful being looked after at the Rose Hotel in Bangkok. Then one of my daughters asked, “Are you pleased to be home?” I hadn’t made my own bed, done my own laundry or prepared my one meals for more than two months! Pleased? Well really!

However, “Yes!” I am very pleased to see her again and the rest of the family in London, and friends. It is family and friends that matter most of all.

Patpong is Bangkok’s Red Light Dustrict, it’s London’s Soho. In the daytime it is simply a wide street between two major roads with nothing much going on. In the evening, as well as what a Thai friend describes as the ‘Hanky Panky Places’ on either side of the street, the street itself is transformed into a night market selling fake designer goods of every sort. There is also a food market with stalls and tables and chairs where you can sit and order a beer or soft drink and eat the food you’ve bought from the stalls.

Patpong is across the street from my hotel and, when I have been out with friends a in the evening, I usually pause there, sit at one of the tables, order a beer, and watch the world go by. It is one of my favourite occupations – people watching – and there are plenty of people, locals and tourists, to watch in Patpong.

The other evening as I watched it occurred to me how visually prejudiced I am. There was a middle aged couple who walked towards me and as I observed them I knew they were right wing, bigoted, disagreeable and probably American. I thought I could tell all that from what they looked like – both were overweight, she in inappropriately short shorts and a low cut top that showed her midriff, certainly dyed hair and a down turned mouth. He was in shorts too and wearing a baseball cap back to front. I could tell they disapproved of everything and everyone.

As they passed my table he said something to her, not in English. Her face lit up and for a moment she looked beautiful. She took his hand, he laughed, they went to the fake Gucci handbag stall and bargained cheerfully with the stall holder. They were not the people I had decided they were at all.

Then there was the beautiful young man who sat, with his back to me, at a table in front of me and to the right. He spent his time examining his face in the mirror of his camera. He inspected his skin for spots and found none. He smoothed his eyebrows with a finger and slightly rearranged his hair. He examined his jawline and seemed satisfied by what he saw. I knew he was a totally self absorbed narcissistic young man.

And then a frail elderly couple came to sit at the table next to him. The table directly in front of me. The young man leapt up to help them with the chairs. He called a waiter on their behalf and then he patiently listened to them, total strangers, as they asked him questions about what to do and where to go in Thailand. I was wrong again.

I realised, on reflection, that of course we all make judgements based on what we see. And so we should. It is when I make the negative, condemnatory judgements that I’m in danger. I remember a priest saying to me once that it is not the prejudice that is the problem. The problem is when we cease to allow that we may be wrong.