The first photo of a large gaping hollow going deep into the trunk of the Jackfruit tree struck me as the one invisible beyond the mouth of the hole from below. The rest of the photos are a contrast with full visibility.
I pondered over the possibilities inside the hole. It could be empty or is a nest for birds with eggs or little ones inside or a hiding place for squirrel or a predator! I was lazy to get a ladder and climb to examine it with a torch. So I keep guessing and stay content with a good guess.
All of us are truth seekers. There is a story behind all the other photos and the visibility of the photos tell us a lot more than what the hole revealed.
The hole is a mystery when compared to the rest of the photos.
I have a personal take on human relationships which surfaces from this contrast. All of us reveal as much of ourselves as we feel comfortable to others. Our attire, appearance, style of conversation, social life, type of friends we keep, personal conduct, professional work style, integrity in behaviour, morality in practice, etc reveal a lot about ourselves. Most of us are not always satisfied about all that we get to know about others. We are inquisitive to know more. This persuasion makes us to discuss others and keep guessing and spread hear-say information about others. This loose talk is so common that a person gets represented by our distorted thoughts in an ugly way or far from the truth.
Knowing a person through conversation is a privilege and an opportunity to widen one's perspectives on life, living and learning. We grow through our interaction with others. But we reduce ourselves to be gossipers when we build our impressions of others based on waht we hear form others.
It is not curiosity which ought lead us to befriend others but a desire to make self disclosures and seek the same from others. All friendships are conditioned by how much we are comfortable to make self-disclosure. That is a decision which each of us ought tot make when we relate to others. Neither exaggeration nor concealment of facts help in building trustful and endearing relationships.
There is a dimension in each of us which is not known to others. Most people know us remotely and from a distance. This loosely formed friendships are utilitarian in nature and not formative to upbuild lives.
Knowing a person is a process which is initiated by asking questions and offering to say more than what is superficial.
In a conversation with a friend, I realised that there was so much happening in his life which could not be known through casual telephone calls. His son and wife had major difficulties and remained unknown to me till I asked direct questions based on what was told to me by a common friend. It was while listening to the story, I felt assured of his openness and longing to receive support during this difficult time.
We live among others, but often stay in our own islands.
It is for this reason, I make a good guess that Jesus of Nazareth said, 'Love your neighbour as yourself'. We are invited to become friendly with others to love them and not to get news about them to make it a conversational topic in social circles.
Each of the photographs in this blog is like a tip of the ice berg in their story line. Each of the photographs represents situations and context which can bring new awareness and enlargement to our optic.
Often children till about eight years can live in the plane of 'face value judgments'. They might think that what they see or feel or hear is all that is there and make their responses based on those impressions . But even adults can live like that with no effort to deepen their thoughts and widen their perspectives.
This is true even in marriage. How much more each couple know of each other every succeeding year in their marriage relationships is a question worth pondering. If we do not grow towards each other in intimacy, fidelity and trust every year, we are likely to be distant from each other progressively. In the formal marriage enrichment programme, one fundamental question that each couple is required to ask regularly is, 'How much more I have made myself known to my spouse and taken efforts to know more about him or her'!
I started with what is unknown about the hole in the trunk of a tree! It was the hesitancy on my part to get a ladder from the garage and look into it with a torch, which limited me to know about the expanse and content of the hole! So I shall stay guessing till I do that.
How terrible it is for us to stay guessing about each other and continue as friends and yet strangers to each other! Life is an opportunity to know others as much as others can be known in this pilgrim journey!
It is in the community of pilgrims on the way we shall discover more of the ways of God amidst humanity in contemporary times!
M.CX.Mathew(text and photo)
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