I traced these two waterbirds for a while one afternoon last week. They stayed around this area for most of the afternoon as I noticed them even in the evening around the same area. The stream flowing not so far form this is almost dry and do not seem to have the usual equal life for them to feed on. The waterbirds do have a difficult season during summer. So most of them migrate. The ones left behind are the ones excluded from their own species. So they suffer separation nd deprivation!
There are life lessons for all of us from bird life. It is usually not common for birds to abandon their older or less able ones while they fly away looking for better habitat. However it happens.
Ann and I have had opportunities to work in five institutions during our life time of service. One of our special interests was to find people who live 'solo' lives. in every community there are some like that who get excluded or do not feel included. They are people who are different in temperament, choices thy make or habits they keep. The very fact that they live in the 'edge' or the margins does indicate that they might have landed in that setting having failed to integrate to the majoritarian view of life or common practices.
It is among those who live and work in the margins, we can find something exceptional because of which they either choose or feel forced to remain less connected with others.
I heard a comment from a senior colleague yesterday that his 'opinions' are the reasons because of which he felt excluded in the place he works.
The Francis of Assisi was an exception. Mother Teresa was an exception. Dr I da Scudder was an exception. Bishop Desmond Tutu is an exception. The founder of the college where Anna and I work now was exception. Dr K.C.Mammen who resigned from CMC Vellore to become the founding medical director of MOSC Medical Mission hospital, Kolenchery fifty years ago was an exception. I had a telephone call from him the other day, to enquire how the college is impacting the lives of students and faculty. He is in his eighties and it was evident from what he told me that he had to overcome his own inhibitions and what others imposed on him to come to a sleepy village to start a mission hospital fifty years ago.
Those of us who have had to leave the 'mainstream' to live lives 'differently' from what others desired of us can comfort ourselves that there is space history for exceptions as well.
The lonely times in our lives or walking alone along a narrow path are occasions to live harmoniously with others who still exercise their thoughts to exclude or marginalise!
The inner resilience and the calling to live the way consanat with our calling ought to reflect a behaviour of temperance, tolerance and acceptance of all around us ! It is necessary to 'return' graceful greetings when the opposite is what one receives.
Make the experience of being in the margins to let others see the calling as a vocation!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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