The birds who lost their home!

This was a common site in an education campus that I was fond of visiting whenever there was an opportunity. The palm trees were a home for Parakeets, Owls, Minas and Wood peckers. Now these palm trees no more exist in the same place. A new building essential for the use of students has come up in its place. 

During a recent visit to this place, I looked for the birds which were made homeless. The parakeets found another tall tree; the owls and others could not be found. 

As I walked along the criss crossing roads in the campus, a watchman, who knew of my interest in birds,  told me that birds used to keep him company at night with their cacophony. He was now finding it difficult to endure the silence of the night!

We are in a political climate, where the refrain is all about development. 

This development is to pursue human aspiration. The large environment of flora and fauna, and people who live in the margins of society, get lesser attention when development agenda is pursued. The agenda is set by those who can exert their presence and demands.

I returned from the walk, thinking of the displaced birds who had a quadrangle of forested area for themselves for scores of years. 

Humans seem to win in this struggle for living and other living beings seem to suffer.

When Anna and I came to live at our present cottage 18 months back, we did trim trees and cut a couple of them to give a ‘better look’ to our frontage. Immediately after that we noticed the silence in the mornings and evenings around the house… the birds had flown away fearing the unsafe environment for them! That is when we regretted cutting trees and made an earnest effort to plant more trees since then. Now the birds are back and we have some of them making their nest in the shrubs and trees.

So the pursuit of development needs to be integrated with moral and spiritual foundations!  We live in a created world, where harmony and relationship is the instituted order! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo) 

A gymnastic bird

As I watched this bird move its body  aesthetically and easily in response to sight and sounds, while pecking on the trunk to make its nest, I was more than surprised. 

It was the first time I watched such easily performed body movements by any avian species. I returned to the same spot to watch this bird, but could not find except three abandoned perfectly made round holes in the trunk of the same tree. As it was November and the breeding season for birds, I kept looking for it in similar tall trees with thick bark, only to be disappointed. 

I found that some birds have unusual flexibility and others adapt to develop depending on the need. The avian spinal column is suited for axial movements.

The nature is a repository of lessons for adult learning. As we grow older, we become more inflexible bodily, emotionally, socially and relationally. We get fossilised to our preferred ways with only marginal prospects to adapt and adjust. What a paradox! The mrs we know and understand the more we are to be flexible, tolerant and accommodative! 

As a teacher in a medical college, my challenge has been to exercise this approach towards medical students, even when they deliberately choose a path to harm their future! The more we know, the more we are to be loving, caring and forbearing!

M.C.Mathew( photo and text)  

Yet to feel retired!

Anna and I are on the second job after our retirement from the Christian Medical College Vellore four years back. Many ask us what are we up to after our retirement. 

After my cardiac surgery eight months back, Anna and I attended the sunday service at the  St.John’s church twice, during our visit to Vellore. It was the church which nurtured us for fifteen years and where Arpit and Anandit got married to Amy and Aswathy respectively. We felt at home at this congregation.

During the last visit, one of our friends mentioned that ‘we do not look retired!’. That comment struck me and made me think. 

How we are inside actually gets communicated even unconsciously. People read our minds, movements, activities etc. and  decide the attitude which governs our outlook. 

All of us have different seasons in our lives, which correspond to our chronological age. We are students for a season, in employment with changes in  job for another season, in retraining for better jobs, superannuation at another stage…all these changes affect our interior view of life!

The interior view of life is conditioned by our consciousness of , ‘whose we are!’. If we live with an awareness that we are followers of Jesus of Nazareth, to whom we belong as our anchor, then, life is a a passage through time with a vocation and mission! During the transitions, we still live beholding this mystery that ‘christ, the hope of glory,  resides within us’.

This consciousness give us energy and longing to live well and fully.

A student told me today after a lecture I took for a group of ninety medical students, that, ‘you kept us awake’. I was glad that I did not communicate self-resignation to retirement! I was glad that life is still ticking with fervour and enthusiasm. 

Let us celebrate the joy of life.  

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Art on glass !

One of my favourite objects of photography is glass paintings. Of late I have been clicking glass paintings in churches. This one in a church which is four hundred years old, looks fresh and brilliant in colour. It is fixed on the main window facing the altar at a height about 100 feet, visible from a distance. What strikes anyone, once he or she enters through the main entrance is this piece of art with its enduring elegance.

The art work on glass is a special because it is done with skilled artists with precision and co-ordination. Of late the paintings are done by computer aided technology, unlike in the past.

What strikes me about  any form of art work on glass is its longevity and freshness  in spite of passing time. There are some things meant to last unlike many art forms having a short shelf life or short span of interest.

I grew up in my early thirties when abstract art forms on canvas was becoming popular. Now imagery, scenes, sights, mystery in nature, portraying biographical sketches, etc. have returned to occupy the theme of artists. When I visited an art gallery, most of the paintings were visibly illustrative of common themes which anyone can connect with. I was glad that there were less abstract things which would only be accessible to an artistically trained mind to understand the message concealed in the abstract forms.

I like this return because, it is a sign that after a convoluted thinking on art designs, artists are returning to be communicative to a wider community than just to the art connoisseurs.

I was also moved by the serenity of the face, the alertness in the eyes and the beholding look. The encircling halo around the head symboling the cross is a mystical dimension of this painting- in fact gospel in a nutshell!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

Working to bear fruit !

This is one of the pineapple plants we planted nine months back in our garden. It is now bearing its fruit. Anna and I watch over this pineapple fruit as squirrels, rodents and birds are fond of them.

As we watched the row of pineapple plants grow since we planted them, our longing was to see them bear fruit. Almost every day we inspected to look for the fruit. I still remember the delight with which Anna came back one morning after seeing the fruit in one of them!

Our lives take a new meaning when we long for something. We become diligent, proactive and enthused to do what we can, to get a favourable outcome from what we do. 

I wonder whether anxiety subsumes hope! What anchors our lives is hope, no matter how adverse the circumstances may be for the time being! Because we are people who thrive when consumed by hope, let me suggest that we do what ever we do, to bear fruit. An athlete according to St Paul prepares himself to get a ‘crown’, which is a good testimony to the hopes with which he or she trains for the race.

As Anna and I live in a new culture in ‘god’s own country’, I realise how the common table conversations can turn to be pessimistic. 

A medical student came and described to us recently how he visits a children’s home fairly regularly because he wants to make a small difference by singing for them and playing with them. This story encouraged us because he although is young, is hopeful and enterprising!

Let us so work that our efforts bear fruit! 

M.C.Mathew(picture and photo)

Roots and soil!

During the last week there was thunderstorm and heavy rain almost every evening. Many trees fell or their branches were blown away in the storm.

Anna and I stopped at this site on our way back home to have a closer look at this seventy years old tree uprooted in the storm.

The roots were on shallow and loose ground, although the roots were well  spread out.

The roots appeared slender and sparse for a fifty metre tall and heavy tree with thick foliage. The soil was porous and loose and did not hold the roots solidly. While we were at the site, a farmer mentioned that ‘a tree needs solid roots in a good soil to survive’.

I listened to a few medical students staying in the hostel the other day, who talked about how they have drifted into some undesirable habits, which they could resist while  living at home. They were rooted in the good traditions and practices of the home. Once in the hostel, neither did they belong to a group who would guard them from drifting nor exercise their freedom to develop personal moral checks and balance on their own.

We require moral roots and a community to belong to, to keep us us from falling or drifting ! We are linked to the virtual community through Face book, etc. and are getting distanced from personal and visible contacts with each other.  The intimacy that is inherent between the roots and soil, highlights the need for intimacy in our relationships with each other to stay mutually supported.


M.C.Mathew

From the outer to the inner!

This was a procession on the Sunday morning before the regular service- a practice some congregations of certain denominations have every year the sunday after Easter.

As I watched this procession encircling the the church building with orchestral singing with   percussionists in traditional attire and  those in procession carrying ornamental umbrellas used in festive occasions, I stopped for a while to capture the significance of this sight.

With many temples and churches in the place where Anna and I live, we have been getting used to processions, festivals and annual church gatherings. The festive occasions attract most people in the locality, with people from all faith traditions joining in for the festive occasions. So the church festivals take a cultural overtone with fairs, performances, meetings etc. This is a unifying factor in a culturally and religiously divergent milieu in many villages and and towns. There is piety, fervour and strict adherence to many rituals.

However, do these occasions add to the inner spiritual formation of a community! There are many acts of service and mercy showered upon the marginalised people on these occasions. So people exercise the second command of ‘love your neighbour..’ in an affirmative away. 

How much these festive occasions contribute to draw people to the actualisation of the first commandment,  ‘Love your God with all your heart, mind and spirit’! 

The reality and experience  of this God-human relationship is what makes us more humane, God-centirc in thought and attitudes and inwardly righteous and just ! I hear that some congregations organise organise Bible conventions before the church festivals, which is a welcome addition!  

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)