Little Gods of Mercy

This is a three-minute introduction by documentary filmmaker James Lingtree to the slum Catholic priest I write about in the nonfiction book, The Gospel of Father Joe: Revolutions & Revelations in the Slums of Bangkok. Today I travel and speak about this man's ecumenical work in the squatter camps of Bangkok.

What Father Joe taught me, more than anything else, was that God is NOT "something out there." Rather, we have the Holy Spirit residing within us, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Yogi, Agnostic, Atheist, etc.

We express this magnanimous energy (or not) in our minute by minute, hour by hour decisions, thoughts, words, actions.

In the last three decades Father Joe's Mercy Centre charity has thirty-two preschools, four orphanages, two AIDS hospices and much more. He was able to do this by putting aside his religious differences and working hand in glove with the slum's Buddhists and Muslims. The mutual religious respect there is awe inspiring.