The poor Thai junior soccer team that just lived through a two-week underground nightmare are having their heads shaved and temporarily becoming novice Buddhist monks in the interests of "spiritual cleansing" and "for their own protection" in some way.
They will spend 9 days praying, meditating and cleaning the temple(!) in various different Buddhist monasteries (not even all together). Apparently, this is a common thing for young Thai men to do, especially those who have suffered adversity, but somehow I have a suspicion it is not really what the boys would like to be doing right now.
The 25-year old coach - you know the one that got them into the mess in the first place, but who was then instrumental in helping them survive- is also serving out the religious sentence, but as a full monk, not a novice (having spent some time in a monetary previously). But then he probably does have some penance to serve...
It just seems so typical that religion gets dragged into the story, and my heart goes out to the boys. One boy has managed to avoid the monastery stint - he is a Christian - one of the rare cases where Christianity seems positively sensible, at least by comparison.
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