What happens to you when you are wounded!

I saw this pigeon one morning, perched in a tree in a busy residential locality in a metropolitan city. While other pigeons were flying and fluttering around, this one was still. I watched it through the binoculars for a while. I could not see one of its legs. I was almost certain that the pigeon was injured and was therefore not mobile. 

That very afternoon I happened to listen to a family, who told me all about their lonely experience, when their son was sick with Meningitis at a hospital. They found it extremely difficult to take care of their elderly parents, attend to their daughter who was in the midst of a university exit examination. One of the parent was refused leave, due to the financial year ending in his office. I do come across such stories frequently during consultations with children and their families.. 

Wounded people often live lonely lives! It is too much for others to cope with the needs of a wounded person. The Good Samaritan story is a good illustration of this.

When I came back to the room in the evening, the pigeon was still sitting in the same place. It seemed  a long wait and journey for the pigeon for any respite. However, there was another pigeon perched in an adjacent branch of the same tree. When I got up next morning both the pigeons were sitting in the same place, I saw them the previous evening. 

Wounded people can be lonely and helpless. But we have a message from the pigeon- take note of the wounded ones! There are more people than ever before now-a-days, who are emotionally wounded, and hurting with pain in their inner life. 

A school going child told me, that every time the teacher scolds him, he feels that he had not existed! Such is the intensity of dejection and self pity! 

A neighbour told me that instead of watching TV for three hours, which he used to do for years, he recently started visiting people in the neighbourhood. He said, 'I no longer miss the TV as people's stories are more life giving than media stories'. 

Let us draw near to the wounded and hurting!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)