Buds, Flowers, fruits and Birds !

A garden yields and gives it produce as an offering !

The above photos of our garden during this week, brought an awareness of how the plants live to give!

When Anna and I went for a pre-wedding get together in a home in our neighbourhood, we noticed how the neighbours were fully involved in making all the arrangements. They were giving too !

The president of the United States of America is publicly proclaiming the language of taking- Greenland, oil from Venezuela and is governance, ruling of Iran....!

The nature lives a language of giving; some who inhabit the earth speak the language of taking !

Do the givers get exploited by the takers!

There is a local resistance movement in one town in north Kerala, where people resist the government taking over the land to build a large liquor manufacturing factory. The environmentalists have warned about depleting ground water when the factory goes into operation, which would affect people in the region who have only ground water to depend upon!

When the temperature has dipped to minus 34 degree celsius in Canada and the several parts of the USA is threatened by a cold wave with temperature of minus 23 degree celsius, and similar reports coming in from Europe, the climate change alarms the world! Have we taken too much from the earth and given too little to preserve its equilibrium!

A garden can be giving only as much as it receives to give!

A family thrives only as much as we give into its nurture ! A well nurtured family creates the ambience in a home for children to grow up receiving!  

I was moved to read the following hymn, by Miriam Theresa Winter of Medical Mission sisters (CMC hymnal 81):

" God gives His people strength.

If we believe in His way,

He is swift to repay,

All those who bear the burden of the day.

God gives His people strength.

God gives His people hope.

If we trust in His word,

Our prayers are always heard,

He warmly welcomes anyone who's erred.

God gives His people hope. 

God gives His people love. 

If we but open heart wide,

He is sure to do His part,

He's always the first to make a start.

God gives His people love. 

God gives His people peace. 

When sorrow fills us to the brim, 

And courage grows dim,

He lays to rest our restlessness  in Him.

God gives His people peace."

God gives us, strength, hope, love, and peace. That is the ground on which the pilgrims journey on...!

The giving God !

 M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Possessing to feed!

I notice that squirrels have a tendency to 'possess' the food before they partake of it. 

Its nature to have access to food privately is its habit !

It is not common to find squirrels being comfortable to co-feed with birds. 

There have been exceptions to this on some occasions when food is scarce in the garden and feeding station alone provided a chance !

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)

Garden space or war zone !

The evening round of the resident birds at the feeding station ! Two Bulbuls and one Magpie robin have got used to being together.  Strangers become neighbours !

A garden is a common place for birds. 

When they come to feed from a common plate, they begin their social journey!

I have noticed how bird behaviours have changed since they started to meet at the feeding station!

I meet some who come to the super market in our village regularly.  We exchange greetings and converse occasionally. A meeting place creates conversational and relational space !

What we saw at Davos, where international leaders of nations assembled for the annul business conclave, was division, polarisation and competition ! It became place of communicating to control and dominate!

Where do we go from here!

After the Second World War, the world was evolving to be a garden of nations, which initiated the globalisation and partnerships for common good. The Cold War had ended and trustful communication was becoming the norm. But in the recent twenty years or so, the carnal instinct of territorial ambitions and economic domination of some nations seem to have disrupted this process of fraternal spirit!

We have arrived to live in a war zone, creating wounded nations and hurting people, loosing the humanness! 

I wish some global leaders would rise above this and lead nations to reconnect and relate!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A searching Sunbird !

At day break today inner garden, a Sunbird was looking for nectar even before the flower was open ! Ready to fly away to the next flower to find nectar !

The open flowers have no more nectar left ! 

Is the Sunbird going hungry till more buds would open !

It reminded me of the stressful situations avians and humans face when there is an unequal distribution of resources because of which some receive enough and more and others less than their need or none at all !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The relational presence !

From being buds to become flowers, the desert rose plant needed about three weeks of time.  There is more still to look forward to in the plant!

This is a journey of fullness of presence !

All of us are growing into our fullness ! 

While being with a family yesterday Anna and I  noticed the becoming process of their children. The children receive instruction, clarification and explanation which upbuild their formative and developing process! 

The buds shall become flowers !

This becoming process is endowed in the plant life. A plant shall give forth a bud in due time and a bud shall become a flower, all being well in a protective and enabling environment. 

The becoming process is facilitated by multiple factors in the soil and atmosphere. 

Each of us is becoming a person !

In a conversation with a friend whom I knew as student is now overseeing the affairs of two large organisations. His becoming process from being a student to be in the leading role of two organisations during the last thirty years, has been a journey of transitions and transformation. His becoming process was simultaneous with an enabling process. His enabling skills have turned one organisation into a leadership role in health care in the last fifteen years! Now his initiatives to give a new momentum and purpose to another organisation, is already bringing changes and transitions in a favourable way.  

I feel encouraged by the message of transitional presence he advocates  through his being  and doing !

A plant to bud, flower and seed !

Life is for flowering and bearing fruit! 

That is the effect of purposeful presence !

The transitional presence and purposeful presence when flavoured with contemplative presence, the result is relational presence. 

Our relational presence at home, work place, and net work of engagements can become the  means of  healing presence !

"Make me a channel of Your peace 

Where there's despair in life let me bring hope

Where there is darkness, only light

And where there is sadness, ever joy

Make me a channel of Your peace

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

In giving to all men that we receive

And in dying that we are born to eternal life"

This prayer of St Francis of Assisi comes to my mind as our vocation in a world of distress and turmoil. 

When the 'Board  of peace' is  being formed for Gaza, under the leadership of one country, whose current president self advocates to be the permanent leader of the group, I feel even more disturbed by the conditionalities of peace. The strange thing about the board of peace is the way it is structured. Nations invited to be its member have to buy the right to be a member of that group by donating millions of dollars.as a requirement by force.  Who should have been initiating this peace process according to the existing international conventions? The UNO ! Here is now a sinister move to establish a parallel organisation to gradually reduce the role of the UNO. The country that is leading this parallel initiative has already exited from all the initiatives and subsidiary organisations of the UNO. 

The irony is that that the  Palestinian government has not been invited to be member of this Board of peace! This is the imposing presence rather than a democratic presence that the world was used to after the second world war conciliation process.  There is a shift of ethos to unilateralism from  bilateralism or multilateralism!

It is in this setting that we exist globally, because of which the  fullness of presence to be neighbour friendly, is even more critical to bring healing presence !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The state of openness !

The first two photos of flowers in this post are open but the centre of the flowers are covered. 

All the other flowers are fully open giving a full view of the inside of the flowers. There is a full self disclosure in these flowers. They are so open that there is nothing more hidden.

The state of openness can be partial or full 

We can remain covered by the external with no further access to be known any further. Or we can gradually grow to be open that our true self is made known as we really are inside !

That is a form of self disclosure whereby we live transparently integrating our words and deeds. 

It is when we discover more of ourselves and feel familiar with the innermost canvas of our being, we feel comfortable to reveal our true self!

Some of us live hidden even to our spouses and children! Some hide themselves for fear of being discovered. Some others live dichotomously being one person externally but different inwardly. Some others are like the latter group of flowers who live openly in full self disclosure! 

A human life is potentially like a flower which has enormous richness of colours, charm and fragrance. The sight of flowers makes an artist to paint, a poet to compose poetry, an environmentalist inspired to conserve and bees to come to them for nectar. The fully open flowers feed into the lives of others different messages of inspiration and movement !

We make ourselves known to others through our being and doing! That is one level of self disclosure. 

The other level of self disclosure is openness to receive others as they are. Most people with whom we live and relate are different from us in many ways. The differences can divide, separate or distance us from others. We see a lot of it in the public space. 

The nation of Singapore is often quoted as a nation of people who live in openness towards each other. The Singaporean nationality is composed of four categories of people of different ethnic origin: Chinese (74-76%), Malay (13-15%), Indians (7-9%) and others (1.8-3.2%). The Singaporean nationality is an integration of these ethnic groups. It is historically a nation of fraternal relationships between these ethnic groups. About 40% of the work force in Singapore comes from different countries and they live as non-residents. 

The best example of friendly neighbourhood relationships is seen among Singaporeans, who regard their ethnic diversity as a cultural richness and  strength!  

The key to such a fraternal and cordial relationships is attributed to openness, acceptance and ongoing dialogue to know each other.  True knowledge disarms a person of fear or anxiety! When wellness of each other is an explicit language of communication, there is comfort and peace within, which flows into the public space. The Singaporeans live with a sense of belonging and loyalty to each other.  It is a nation of an outstanding identity of human brotherhood. 

Being open involves a risk of rejection, envy and reaction! That risk did not stop Singaporeans to be open and be accepting of each other!

While visiting the Botanical garden in Singapore once in 1987, I noticed that some regular wakers in the garden and a cloth bag with them, into which they gathered anything on the pavement and footpath which had to be put in the trash box. They lived responsibly keeping the common good in mind. Anna while visiting Singapore on another occasion observed how people behaved towards each other respectfully and regardfully! 

The natural way of the flowers is to be open! The natural way of human behaviour is to be open!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The inner momentum !

 

The above photos of a pair of rose flowers are few of the pictures I have during the 12 days of blossoming from buds to be flowers. One on the left on the screen blossomed two days earlier, which is evident in the mild dullness of its colour. Both of them dropped the withering petals in the order they blossomed by the twelfth day. 

The picture below taken ten days later when the new shoots started growing from beneath the stalk of the earlier two flowers. I noticed the first sign of the sprouting of tender leaves when the earlier two buds were growing to become flowers. During the last ten days, there are two shoots, which hopefully would bear buds. 

This is the way plants live in the garden, bearing shoots, buds and flowers. 

I take this as a message worth as a call in life ! 

Accept the transitions in life, including the set backs, and carry on living the call to be fruitful!

The inner momentum is for growth and offering ourselves to others in service!

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)