The Meaning of Lord’s Prayer: Thy Will Be Done
Chapter 4 Thy will be done… (Understanding God’s Will) In the Book of Luke, there is a curious statement about God. Luke quotes the prophet Isaiah as saying that through Christ (the Lord) all mankind shall see the “salvation of God”.1 Considering the ham–fisted way that Jesus’s twelve apostles (not to mention the Pharisees and Sadducees) often handled Old Testament scripture, we might be tempted just to pass over this comment from Isaiah. But that would be a mistake. Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, has been inspiring prophets since the beginning of the world. 2 Jewish scripture, like all...
The Lord’s Prayer: On Earth As It Is In Heaven
Chapter 5 On earth as it is in heaven… (Understanding God’s Divide) In the last two chapters on the Lord’s Prayer, we’ve established that our entrance into the kingdom of heaven depends on our sense of wonder; our ability to think and love; our patience; and our acceptance of will as a matter of choice—a choice shared equally with God, the Father. We’ve also learned that the kingdom is filled with potential, and with treasures that can be experienced today and every day. Unfortunately, we often lose sight of this. Even those who have dedicated their lives to preaching the Word of God often remain just outside...
Lord’s Prayer: Give Us This Day
Chapter 6 Give us this day… (Gathering the Moment at Hand) Up to this point in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus has been laying a foundation—one that establishes our relationship to God and his creation. When we recite the beginning of the prayer, we are thus engaging in an act of grounding, reminding ourselves that at the core of our existence we remain rooted in Christ.1 With the foundation complete, Jesus moves on to what many of us think is the business of prayer: asking for things. But as we mentioned in Chapter 2, prayer isn’t about asking for special favors. In fact, it isn’t even about “asking” at all—since,...
Lord’s Prayer: Our Daily Bread
Chapter 7 Our daily bread… (Gathering Our Inheritance) Knowing that we can claim ownership of our inheritance in the living hour is one thing. But what are we supposed to do with that knowledge? The childhood keys of wonderment and immediacy help unlock the door to the kingdom of heaven, but they don’t have the power to usher us across the threshold. To cross into the kingdom and gather our inheritance, we have to move beyond the carefree world of the child and into the care-driven world of adults—to expand our concerns beyond the “me” to include the “us”. We can begin by recognizing that although the spontaneity...
Lord’s Prayer: And Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Chapter 8 And forgive us our trespasses… (Removing Our Hindrances Part II) We’ve just described our journey toward a life in Christ as a rising. But the act of “rising” (such as rising above petty arguments and concerns) can sometimes get us into trouble, especially we Christians. The reason is that when we rise toward our divinity, we often look down on others with a misguided sense of superiority.1 Jesus condones none of that. He knocks us off our pedestals by insisting that we wash the feet of others if we are to have any part of him.2 To keep us grounded Jesus also teaches that our rebirth in Christ is owed to both...
Lord’s Prayer: As We Forgive Those Who Trespass
Chapter 9 As we forgive those who trespass against us… (Removing Our Hindrances, Part II) Removing the hindrances that block the coming of Christ involves more than just seeking forgiveness. It means giving forgiveness, too. And that can be pretty tough sometimes. As Christians we often think that unless punishments are meted out swiftly and severely our communities will turn into modern day Sodoms & Gomorrahs. In America this fear fuels our continuation of the death penalty, world record incarceration rates, and overflowing court dockets. There is not a lot of forgiveness going around—to put it mildly. Christians know (or...
Lord’s Prayer: Lead Us Not Into Temptation
Chapter 10 And lead us not into temptation… (Overcoming Our Pride) Having led us through forgiveness, the Lord’s Prayer turns to temptation. Jesus approaches the subject from a curious angle. He asks us to pray that the Father will not lead us into temptation. This inevitably causes us to ask: Why would an all–good God lead us to the devil’s doorstep? If we believe in the Lord, does he not reward that faith by leading us away from temptation? Before answering those questions, we need to remember that we are partners with God in this life. Although he regularly grants us blessings in the form of our “daily bread,”...
Lord’s Prayer: But Deliver Us from Evil
Chapter 11 But deliver us from evil… (Overcoming Our Egos) When pride is overcome, we cure a symptom of our separation from God not its root cause. We are like the frog born at the bottom of the well, who is unaware of the larger world that exists beyond the walls of his home. These walls are what psychologists have come to call the ego, and the well itself what Jesus (lacking our modern lingo) called the pit, where the fire (i.e. our desire) is never quenched.1 It is what some have called our “original sin”. Yet “sin” is the wrong word. For sins are connected to choices. And we did not choose to be placed in the well—although...
Lord’s Prayer: The Kingdom, The Power, & The Glory
Chapter 12 For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever, amen. (Understanding God Time) The Lord’s Prayer began by grounding us in our relationship with the Father, and it ends now by solidifying our faith in that kinship. We have already talked about how the kingdom, power, and the glory of God are played out within the living hour; but most of us are not satisfied with this daily bread. We want to know that there is a divine plan, with a definitive beginning and end, that’s been arranged by the Father. Our desire to see the culmination of God’s plan is what led Jesus’s early Jewish followers to...
Teach Yourself Thai Language & Have Fun Learning It!
Certain subjects require a level of seriousness to learn, but when it comes to Teaching Yourself Thai it is the fun factor that matters most. The vast majority of adult language learners quit after a few weeks or months out of boredom or because they find the language too difficult. This is not the case though when Thai language learners supplement their study with LivingHour.org. Having fun is where our easy Thai language books outshine all others. Our Learning Thai e-books and books are filled with material that you will have fun learning from and enjoy using. Fun isn’t the only reason why our Thai language books are so popular with...
Easy Thai-English Cognate Dictionary: Learn Thai Fast!
The Original Thai-English Language Cognate Dictionary & Learning Tool is loaded with entertaining easy Thai sample sentences and figurative + literal English translations that will quickly get you speaking the Thai language more like a native speaker and less like a tourist. Available now in paperback, eBook, and a workbook version for Thailand residents. There are a lot of Thai Dictionaries and phrasebooks for sale for foreigners. Some are quite good; others not so good. But the drawback that most Thai-English dictionaries share is that they do not have sample sentences, thus they are not really good as tools for learning Thai. In...
Carpe Diem, My Captain?
Oh, Captain, My Captain! The film The Dead Poet’s Society inspired a generation of young creatives with its refrain of “Carpe Diem” (seize the day). Robin Williams (aka Professor John Keating) urged his students to make your lives extraordinary while standing memorably before a school photograph of alumni who had long become “worm’s meat”. Yet most of us live decidedly unextraordinary lives, while licking the wounds of our would-be greatness. Why does this happen? Well, it’s because life is not the brass ring at a merry-go-round. It can’t be seized and pulled to our breast, to have and to...
Follow Your Bliss?
Thanks to Bill Moyer’s excellent 1988 documentary of Joseph Campbell, called The Power of Myth (likely available at your local library), the scholar Campbell became a myth-guru famous for his dictum that we should “follow our bliss”: If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. On the surface this sounds like good advice. Indeed, many people have adopted Campbell’s words...
Easy Colloquial Thai – Thai Slang Dictionary – Idioms
LivingHour.org is pleased to announce the publication of Learn Thai Language: Generation Next (Slang & Colloquial Talk). This fun and useful bi-lingual book is for all students who are learning the Thai language and wish to better understand and communicate with Thailand’s younger generation. Not a dry Thai textbook or simple dictionary of terms, this is one easy Thai language book that you will enjoy reading and using. If you are a Thai language student looking for the latest Thai idioms and slang; a tourist looking for a Thai language book that’s not filled with the same old stuff; or an English teacher struggling to...
Al Franken & Daily Affirmations
Back in the late 1980s, the comedian (now U.S. Senator) Al Franken created the memorable character of Stuart Smalley, a mock self-help guru with a show called Daily Affirmations. Franken lampooned the self-help craze and affirmation trend of the ’80s and early ’90s with such classic lines as “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” The problem that Franken saw with affirmations was that they are, in a sense, a kind of brainwashing. It just may be that right now you are not smart enough, or good enough, or likable enough to achieve your goals. That doesn’t mean you can’t...
M. Scott Peck’s Road Less Traveled – Life is Difficult
The late M. Scott Peck begins his wildly successful bestseller The Road Less Traveled with the following pronouncement: Life is difficult. This is the great truth, one of the greatest truths–it is a great truth because once we see this truth, we transcend it. Peck’s train of thought finds its lineage in the Buddha’s 4 Noble Truths, the first of which is: all life is suffering. Although Jesus and Buddha share much common ground, on this issue they diverge. Jesus’s gospel does not teach that “life is difficult” but rather “we MAKE life difficult” both for ourselves and others. Jesus praises...
Learning Easy Thai Language: Heart to Heart Talk
The mini-ebook Heart to Heart Talk, the 2nd book in our Easy Thai Top 40™ series, is now for sale. Whether you are an expat or a tourist in Thailand, Heart to Heart Talk will be an essential language resource for making the most out of your stay in the kingdom. Like our Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary, each easy Thai entry is complimented with a colloquial sample sentence that will help you better communicate with the Thais that you meet during your trip or those who are part of your daily life as an expat. While there are hundreds of heart (jai) words in the Thai language, only a small percentage of these are commonly used...
Links of Interest
The following sites may be of interest to visitors of LivingHour.org: Thailand Websites: Directory Read More →
Rewriting the Book on English Teaching in Thailand
The Ysaan Institute & LivingHour.org continue to rewrite the book on English teaching and education in Thailand with the release of student workbook versions of its popular paperbacks Generation Next (Slang & Colloquial Talk) and The Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary & Learning tool. The workbooks are for English students in Thailand, as well as expats learning the Thai language. The release of the two books follows the Ysaan Institute’s production of two online Thai Scholars English Reading Programs that take science and liberal arts students from a 3rd grade reading level to the college level over the course...
Workbook: Learning Easy Thai & English Idioms & Slang
If you are a Thai or English language student in Thailand who wants to speak more like a native speaker, then the Generation Next workbook is the resource for you. Written by the Ysaan Institute & Sam Kittayapong, this easy workbook version of our popular paperback and eBook includes common Thai and English slang, idioms, and colloquial talk. This easy Thai book is supported by hundreds of colloquial sample sentences and each page is illustrated with a cartoon. The book is organized by the phonetic spelling of common Thai slang words spoken regularly by Thailand’s younger generation. This word is then used in an easy Thai sample...
Ysaan Institute: Learn Online Courses in Thai & English
LivingHour.org is pleased to announce the establishment of the Ysaan Institute, a cyber learning center for students, scholars, and teachers in Thailand and surrounding countries. Our mission is to enhance the curriculums of schools and universities with unique online educational materials which can be integrated easily with existing courses of studies. We are currently accepting proposals from university instructors who would like Ysaan Institute to host their courses, tests, quizzes, readings, videos, audio books, or other educational materials. We are particularly interested in proposals from university teachers involved in the fields...
A guide to the perfect Thai idiot (แนะนำคนไทยไร้ปัญญา)
On May 26th, a rather remarkable essay appeared in the Bangkok Post. Titled “A guide to the perfect Thai idiot,” (แนะนำคนไทยไร้ปัญญา) it is written by Dr. Sawai Boonma, a former economist at the World Bank. The essay is remarkable for it is the rare instance of a respected Thai citizen speaking candidly and critically of Thai culture in a public forum. Such frankness and self-reflection is necessary now more than ever for Thailand. As with any opinion essay, there are omissions in “A guide to the perfect Thai idiot”, as well as statements which are worthy of debate and further...
Learning Easy Thai for Lovers: Flirting & Making Out in Thai
Due to popular demand, the new edition of our Easy Thai Top 40™ series is For Lovers & Friends: How to Flirt in Thai. In this book you’ll quickly learn 40 easy Thai sentences that can be used to flirt with your Thai girlfriend/boyfriend or close friends of the opposite sex. What you won’t find is “dirty talk” (or Thai sex talk) that will get you slapped or perceived as a tourist with bad intentions, just playful talk about the heart. Flirting (or Making Out) in Thai really is no different than flirting in your own native language. To do it successfully (and without potentially offending the other person)...
Easy Thai Top 40: How to Speak Thai Like a Parent
Learn how to speak Thai the way Thai parents do in LivingHour.org’s 3rd installment of our Easy Thai Top 40™ series: Family Talk: Speaking to Thai Children. In this edition you’ll find 40 common and easy Thai sentences which parents speak to their children – sentences that cover situations in the living room, bedroom, bathroom, and dining room; upstairs and downstairs; inside the house and outside the home. These are the kind of sentences left out from other Thai phrasebooks, language books, and online learning lists, which spend most of their time dealing with the needs of tourists and not those of expats with Thai families....
Thai-English Translation & Editing Service – Free Quote
LivingHour.org provides outstanding Thai-English and English-Thai translation services for corporations, small businesses, and private individuals at competitive rates. Every project is handled by a native Thai fluent in English and a native English speaker who can read and speak the Thai language. LivingHour.org’s experienced staff has consulted with and edited material for such large Thai advertising agencies and corporations as Young & Rubicam, Dentsu, King Power, East West Siam, and Blue River Diamond. Whether it is a commercial script, press release, brochure, website, or private correspondence, you can be assured that...
Join the Living Hour Thai Affiliate eBook Program
Good news for those looking to make extra cash from their websites. Thanks to our relationship with e-junkie, we are happy to be able to invite international and Thailand-based bloggers and website owners to become affiliates of LivingHour.org and earn 50% in commissions on the sale of our Learn Thai Language and SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) ebooks. If you operate a blog or website dealing with Thailand, Thai tourism, Thai culture, Thai language, Thai teaching or a related topic you can earn 50% commission on the sale of our new Thai language learning tool The Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary and Generation Next (Thai Slang...
Thailand Expats: Special Offer on Easy Thai Language Books
LivingHour.org would like to make a special offer to expats, teachers, and retirees in Thailand who wish to take advantage of our Learning Easy Thai language books and ebooks. We know how difficult it is sometimes for expats to acquire credit cards in Thailand, or sometimes getting Thai credit cards honored when ordering online with foreign businesses. Therefore, we will be happy to accept ATM payment transfers from residents in Thailand. 180 Baht Special Offer* For a 180 baht ATM payment we will send you: 1) The Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary & Learning Tool eBook 2) The Learn Thai Top 40: Colloquial Language Expressions 3)...
English-Isaan (Isan) Dictionary
Here at LivingHour.org we have several new Thai language books and eBooks in the works, in addition to our new Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary & Thai Language Learning Tool. One such book is the first handy English-Isaan Dictionary. Isaan (sometimes spelled Isan, Isarn, or Esarn) is the name for the Northeast region of Thailand. Home to over 20 million Thais, it is the largest region of Thailand. While few Western and Asian tourists ever make it up to this part of Thailand, more foreign retirees are finding the Isaan area a quiet, simple, and beautiful place in which to settle down. The Isaan people share much in common with...
Call for Manuscripts: SBNR & Thai Language
LivingHour.org is currently issuing a call for manuscripts. We will consider SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) books that involve Progressive Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, or Islam. For a manuscript to be seriously considered it must be in keeping with the perspective of the material that you see posted on LivingHour.org—so do spend some time reading the website to make sure your submission is appropriate. We appreciate works that are both literary and accessible, books where the author exhibits a sense of humor about themselves and the world around them. We are also accepting submissions of learn Thai language books that are original...
Learning Easy Thai: How to Speak Street Thai
When it comes to learning easy Thai, the biggest obstacle is how to speak Thai. That is, how to speak the Thai language without sounding like a Thai phrasebook, how to speak Thai more naturally like a native speaker. One of the problems with many Thai language books is that the Thai editors or co-writers are Thai academics who feel compelled to teach the student more formal Thai, even if they claim that the language is “colloquial Thai“. The sample sentences tend to be too wordy, lack common Thai particles, and use word choices that the average Thai on the street would not use. On the other side of the coin, we have young...