What must i do for eternal life?

As he was starting out on a trip, a man came running up to Jesus, knelt down, and asked “Good Teacher, what should I do to get eternal life?”
“Who do you call me good?” Jesus asked. “Only God is truly good. But as for your question, you know the commandments: ‘Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not testify falsely. Do not cheat. Honour your father and mother.”
“Teacher,”the man replied, “I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was a child.”
Jesus felt genuine love for this man as he looked at him. “You lack only one thing,” he told him. “Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this, the man’s face fell and he went sadly away because he had many possessions.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for rich people to get into the Kingdom of God…but though it is hard for humankind, God makes everything possible...
I assure you everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property for the Good News will receive now in return, a hundred times over, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and property…For the great shall be the least, and those who are considered least here will be the greatest…

27 May 2007
I have just had a two dollar haircut at Tang Tang studio. I emerge, a new man. The sky is rumbling. I must get home. There are draft laws to write, parties to go to, church services and souvenir shopping. However, I cannot force myself to hurry. I loiter through the lane.

There is a little girl here, like a Christmas tree, red blouse and flowing green skirt, skipping with a piece of yellow packaging tape. Her little brother is nestled against an old lady lazing on a stool. The naked little boy peers up at me with uncertain eyes. Nearby, a colander of rice is drying; flies buzz above. Peering through the open doorways I spy a tv set which is blaring Khmer karaoke. Some workmen are doing construction on a house. A girl rings her bicycle bell as she squeezes pass.

At the first turn, two men sit on the ground, playing chess with wooden pegs and stones. A shaggy dog spectates, scratches an ear and lounges in a doorway. On a raised wooden bed a clutch of women are gossiping. One of them is in pajamas, chewing something and absently clipping her toe nails, but 50 metres away from where two fresh faced young Americans give specific instructions for their Khmer pedicure in Tang Tangs.

A charcoal fire emits smoky smells of grilled fish. A woman, swathed in her krama, is breastfeeding in a courtyard. Men squat and viciously slap down cards on asphalt slabs which are all that remain of what may have once been pavement. A saffron robed monk with ubiquitous yellow umbrella is getting astride a moto. Two kids are kicking thongs in a modified version of marbles. The younger ones in the cluster of terraces outside my front gate are counting down for “red light”. The midget woman is working industriously on her sewing machine. The young Chinese-Khmer man at the cramped corner store just downstairs from my house, is on his beat up computer, playing solitaire. A sneaky feline scampers up my house steps and hurdles the barbed wire onto a corrugated iron roof.

Old Sanah, who lives across the lane, has come back from giving a lesson and lowers Jojo, her fluffly grey puppy (panting from a run in the park), from the basket on the front of her bike.
"Bonjour! Ca Va?"
“Oui,” I smile, and struggle “ca va bien merci. Et tu?”
“Bien..blahblah le blah blah yadda je yadda le petite monsieur fromage frog, jambon, je suis…”
“Um…sohm to (sorry)” I switch to Khmer. “Min yul (I don’t understand)”
“Ooh, at Pisa barang. Pissa khmer…blah blah nung ai, jah jah, blah yadda…”
Umm.. I’m lost. Smile again and shrug my shoulders and hang my head in shame…if it helps I know the automated recording on the motos that cruise around town: “Bong moan angh psong krung pissa, mien rul jeet chnu chnam” (grilled chicken egg with special ingredients, has flavour that smells good and taste delicious!)
Sanah is ashamed of me too; she reprimands me by tut tutting and slapping my arm. As she unlocks her door, she is no doubt saying “don’t follow his example” as she speaks to Jojo in French…

Across the main road is the park, which will be rain logged in a few minutes. Squatters inhabit one corner with makeshift tarps strung between trees limbs. Next to it lies the Royal Palace, sparkling gold and silver and clean lemon meringue walls and barefoot 7 year olds selling books from baskets half their seize and amputees with no hope of a job begging for 100 riel (2 cents) from tourists who turn their noses and walk on by..

This is where beauty lives…brothers and sister, mothers and fathers and children….