About Dr Howard Searle, who lived for people in need.

 

The Founding Executive director of the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) in November 1969 moved on a few days back in his home. It happened in another November, 53 years after he helped to form the EHA along with Dr Ray Windsor and Dr K Thirumalai. 

 

I remember his first visit vividly to the Medical College Hostel at Nagpur in November 1969, when he came looking for me while on his way to Achalpur Mission Hospital, where he was working then, after returning from a meeting in Delhi. 

Incidentally he was returning after this final meeting when the decision was made to form the EHA by representatives of about 15 mission boards, who were engaged in hospital work in north India. 

Dr Ray Windsor, the international Director of the Bible Medical Missionary Fellowship (now INTERSERVE) was the prime mover of this initiative. 

The decision of the government of India not to renew the visa of the expatriates working in the mission hospitals in India created a crisis for the future of the mission hospitals where the some key doctors and other professionals were expatriates. 

Dr Searle became equally concerned about it and he participated in the preparatory meetings to assist the mission boards to incorporate the hospitals to the newly formed EHA. 

There were about 600 mission hospitals in 1947 when India became independent, and that number had reduced to half by 1967 as mission boards could not obtain visa for overseas nationals to live and work in India.

I was only a third year medical student at that time.  I was fascinated by this story of what was emerging for the stability of mission hospitals. Dr Searle cared to visit me when he passed thorough Nagpur a few times in a year. There were about twenty Christian Medical students in the college and he came to conduct retreats on three occasions between 1969 and 1971. Once he relocated at New Delhi, we did not have his frequent visits. 

I remember asking him once as to why he was interested to stay in touch with me. He responded: wherever Christian medical students are in medical schools he would be interested to get in touch with them to share with them the opportunity to serve in the mission hospitals in north India. That mission of him, placed EHA in an advantaged position. 

With the Christian Medical colleges at Vellore and Ludhiana offering sponsorship for undergraduate and post graduate training in medicine, Nursing and allied health for those sponsored through EHA, there is a steady of health care professionals to the different EHA hospitals in North India. 

What highlights the conduct of a person is what he leaves behind when he has to leave. He found Mr Lalchuanglia, an IAS officer, who took voluntary retirement to take over form him as the Executive Director of the EHA. For the next twenty years or so, EHA under the leadership of Mr Lalchuanglia established its roots as a credible organisation internationally.

Although Anna and I could not join any hospital of EHA, the friendship with Dr Seale lasted even after he left India to become the Executive director of HEED Bangla Desh. It was when I joined the governing Board of the EHA in mid 2000 I had another opportunity to meet him twice a year. 

After having been back in the USA, he was involved in different responsibilities to promote international health care activities. He established EHA-USA which became a support organisation for promoting the work of EHA in India.

During our conversations in those years till I left the board after five years, there were occasions to recall events and stories of mission hospitals with which he was connected.

 

Anna and I remember him gratefully as he along with Dr Ray Windsor and Dr A.K.Tharien, instilled in our hearts a desire to pursue ‘a less beaten path’ professionally. Every time we had contacts with him, since we got involved in ASHIRVAD in 1983 to be involved with children who were developmentally challenged, he affirmed us and made us feel valued. 

He had stressful experiences in later years at the family level. He lived his life for making a difference for others. 

Anna and I remember his gratefully for his formative influence in our lives. 

M. C. Mathew (text and photo) (portrait of Dr Searle from EHA USA)

A tree is a host for Birds!

I noticed these birds making the wood apple tree in our garden as their flight stations almost every day since the winter season has started. Sometimes two or three birds are found together in the tree at the same time. 

A tree welcomes all birds to host them!

Yesterday at work I was helped to find a new meaning to hosting families when they come with the needs of their children. A grandmother expressed her annoyance for having had to wait for about an hour to be called in for consultation. Having been told about her reactive comments, I wondered how I would be able to be a host to her beyond just a conversation about her grandchild. During the half an hour I spent with her, I sensed how I struggled within to be courteous and thoughtful. 

A host cannot choose his or her guests. A host exists for the guests, which is the vocation if we choose to make work place a place of hospitality. While I struggled with this initially with discomfort for her unreasonableness especially when I had not taken a break from 9 am when I started, till 3. 45 pm, I had a transient feeling of justifying myself as most of the families till them were visiting us for the first time, out of which two families needed extra time, which delayed the subsequent consultations. This grandmother had lost her patience when her grandchild was all over the place whom she had to restrain to which he reacted by screaming. 

That is when the picture of the tree in our garden where I noticed the above birds came to my consciousness. Through the day this tree would have about thirty birds visiting and even plucking its fruit and feeding on nectar in the flowers. 

The tree is in a permanent giving and hosting mission!

I am glad that this thought guided me to settle down emotionally and offer the grandmother support after which she left smiling and asking time for the next appointment. 

Our first thoughts in any difficult situation are thoughts of defence and self righteousness. But beneath that layer is the subconscious layer of our processed attitudes to life and living exist. One would have reflected on similar situations in the past and would have chosen the path to be mindful even in difficult circumstances. It is by welcoming those resident thoughts and acting in resonance with that mission, which would allow the personal growth of inner awakening and transformation to continue. 

The practice of medicine is to offer altruistic benefits to others. We are not in a position to choose our guests; but to be a host with an attitude of hospitality is the way we can make others return home fulfilled!

A tree and birds gave me the instruction to be a host in a difficult situation! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Sunday morning sights !

What an unusual sight of a pair of Wood pecker and Red vented Bulbul (sorry for the out of focus photo. Before I could refocus, both of them flew away) in our garden! 

The wood pecker arrived together. The bird call of the red vented Bulbul brought the other Bulbul. Soon they were on their way for the next phase of expedition of the morning. 

It was  special to watch a confirmed pair of wood peckers and a pair of Bulbuls beginning their courtship!

I spend less time now-a-days than I used to watching birds. I feel disappointed for not having been able to make time in the recent months. I look forward to Sundays now as it gives an opportunity. 

Ever since Anna and I  summarised our experiences in the book, Bird Movements-our inner responses earlier this year, we have felt that some birds have become closer to us emotionally. The bulbuls now come to our dining table to feed on the banana whenever they have an opportunity. Anna recently placed a tray with banana and a bowl of water adjacent to it. A pair of them are regular visitors for their feed and drink in the morning. 

It is a pleasure to watch them as well as sense the hesitation their body language conveys when they spot us watching them. 

The pigeons at Trafalgar Square in London would come to take feed from the hand of anyone. I suspect the fascination for bird watching originated within us since we sighted and experienced this. Our children often choose to go there whenever we were in that part of London to experience the pigeons feeding from their hands. 

Humans generate fear in other living beings. Bu humans can also create bonding in our pets as well as visiting birds. 

Dulcie would come to Anna often wanting to be stroked. When I return form work she would bark till I gave her attention and allowed her to climb on to my legs to be stroked. 

Parents can generate fear or affection in their toddlers and pre-school children. I heard the mother say to her toddler when he was crying, 'stop crying, otherwise the doctor would give an injection'. I heard a contrary message when a child was crying, ' I know you are tired. Can I read to you till we finish seeing the doctor'! The child stopped crying and kept looking at the picture book from where her mother was reading to her. 

We can create fear or composure!

I herd a speaker today using his message to create fear about going to hell. At the same time I heard another person in prayer mentioning that loves dispels fear. 

A professionals once mentioned to me that, many use  'controlling as the way of getting work done'.  I realised during my ten years at my work place that caring for each other  can be another way of getting work done. 

The above were the thoughts that surfaced in my mind as I watched the birds in our garden today!

M.C.Mathew(text and phot)

 

A movement forward!

As I watched this sunbird moves between twigs, I noticed how it remained suspended in the air for a short while! A bird is well equipped to remain suspended in the air as it has its wings to fly!

Moving forward is often a difficult choice one has to make. I met a father who is now moving to Delhi form his present job. It took about six months of preparation to feel ready to quit his job which gave him professional prospects for ten years. To move from the south to the North India, and find a suitable school for his five year old son was a major hesitation to him. What made him choose to make the move was that, he was forty years old and opportunities would not come his way often in view of his older age in the management circles. He had some serious questions about the risks involved!

As I listened to him, I realised that most of my decisions come from the pressure of circumstances. Some decisions I made volitionally did involve risks, but the risks got subsumed in the process of making the transition. 

All movements in life which involve pursuit of a vocation or calling would pause challenges and risks. But the inner strength which is a gift of insight, that we receive as we stay at the cross roads in our lives, is the resource of resilience when faced with transitions in life. 

I face new transition challenges in my health status. As I have been faced with a few of them in the recent weeks, I realised  how occupation with readjusting to the changes in the body can take attention away from the calling, which is what moves us forward in life.   

To be in a voyager's outlook to life is what makes movements forward possible even amidst constraints and challenges. 

I found inspirations from the book of Proverbs 8:20: 'I walk in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of justice, to endow those who love me with wealth, that I may fill their treasuries' !

Living is for giving!

To so live that from the fullness of life we create provisions for others!

This consciousness liberators us from preoccupations about what we do not have and fill us with an awareness of  how plentifully we are blessed to be available to others! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Winter visitor!

 

This small bird, a Common Iora, is  a passerine bird. Anna and I spotted this bird perched in our Bell fruit tree two days ago. This might be the beginning of other new visitors to our garden during this winter months. Although small in size its bird call is loud and distinct. Its plumage of yellow belly and black wings with an exquisite white design on them, stands out. 

This is a song bird from the bird calls we heard that morning. It's loud whistling followed by other tuneful sounds make them different from other common birds.  

We noticed them feeding on ants while on that tree.

A small bird of unusual colour and appearance!

I got to think how such small birds are given more features to distinguish themselves from others. The small birds too have their valuable presence in nature. 

One does not have to be big in size or presence to be of some significance.  Even small beings have a place in the life and story of nature. 

I wish each of us ca be content with who we are and what we are and live celebrantly and gratefully!

Having been involved with children for forty years in my professional journey, I get a feeling of significance of children in our families. Often it is children who make adults more complete, wholesome and hospitable. 

A mother told me that her daughter insists on sending the guest away with a flower from the garden! That gesture of her daughter made her feel that guests can be honoured in ways that can be symbolic to them. Her daughter told her that when they give a flower, they share something more, for them to remember our friendship. 

A small act, but meaningful and endearing!

Each of us can be people with with such an attitude of becoming a gift to others, through our small acts of kindness!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Earley sights of the winter season!

Misty mornings!

Flowery leaves!

Flowers !

Blossoms!

Fruits!

The season is full of hopes!

What strikes me is the joy of living that becomes most expressive in different seasons in nature!

I look forward to the week ahead because, new birds have begun to arrive in our garden! The wintering of birds!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The half is of the full!

As I recently watched and photographed this half moon, I got a feeling that I was looking at half of the full moon, although the rest of the moon would be visible only a week or so later. 

A child who cries incessantly at three years is expressing only part of the feelings he carries with himself or herself when he or she cries. 

It is a challenge that parents carry with them. They get so focussed on the cry and attempt to pacify the child that the feelings behind the cry do not get attended to! I hear the crying pattern of the children who wait for consultation. They cry loud to insist on what they want; they cry longer to avoid being pacified; they cry to be noticed by others so that parents feel pressured to oblige; they cry in public place to get attention especially if the child was not given attention normally. There are more reasons than these. A child would cry only when a child is hurt physically or emotionally. 

The commonest cause for a three year old child to cry in public place is to make parents vulnerable to give the Mobile phone for the child to play with. Instead of moving out of the public space to be private with the child and engage  in conversation, parents give in to pacify the child by offering the phone. When it is done once, then the next time it would be even more difficult to deny the child the phone at home or in a public space. 

This attitude of the child which we experience is part of the whole of the emotional milieu of a child which is internalised by the child, often acquired by habit. 

Just as the moon exists in full although not visible, the behaviour of a child has larger dimensions than what is externalised. 

It is by the habit of creating de-briefing times with children parents can enter in to the wide expanse of their emotional matrix. Up until parents take turns to have personal times with each child before the child falls asleep, parents would miss the entirety of the emotional state of a child. It is when parents become strangers to the inner world of realities of a child, the child  externalises some of the pent up emotions in an undesirable way.

Parenting is all about befriending children. 

Knowing a pre-school child is for upbuilding him. His mind space and rational thoughts are limited at three years. 

Most of their behaviour is therefore an immature expression of sadness, anger, frustration or reaction. 

To get to know beyond the half is a worthwhile journey for parents. Knowing the whole is a way of endearing a child to upbuild him for her!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

ASHIRVAD into its Fortieth year !

Anna and I recall November 14, 1982, when after a year of waiting, we felt ready to embark on a journey to look for greater meaning in the practice of medicine. 

It was when I noticed the three white wagtail birds beside a pool of water beyond our garden, I felt a resonance of memory lingering within me. 

After experiencing the home call of our daughter in 1981, both of us felt an emptiness within. It was so heavy and un-resolving that we left our regular professional role at the Christian Medical College, Vellore and spent an year at the Christian Fellowship Hospital, Oddanchatram to get a sense of the inner happening and further direction in our lives. 

I sustained a fracture on my right knee and needed a pair of crutches to walk immediately after our arrival at Oddanchatram. I had a fascination to train in Paediatric cardiology; but conversation and reflections between us brought to our attention the needs of Neuro-developmentally challenged children. It was on 14th November 1982, the Children's day, we set our hearts to make that as our journey from then on. 

A year later on 14 the November, 1983,  ASHIRVAD started its Child Development Centre, at Chennai. The first child who was in severe muscle spasm due to quadriplegia, who arrived the next day, made us feel that it would be a long journey before we could understand the needs of a child who did not speak or be a support to her parents who were exhausted in consoling a child who cried most of the night. 

Our helplessness exposed and distressed us!

When her mother carried her she felt composed and relaxed.  

That scene of how a mother comforted and quietened a crying child to make the child feel secure and loved came upon us as the tip of the iceberg in the content of the learning journey that began then, but has continued since then.  

A father who lives in Britain brought his five years old son on Friday last week, who has limited expressive language. Every time he cried, the father carried him on his lap and kept whispering in his ear, 'It is ok. I love you'. He settled down in a minute or two and was ready to play again. 

There is a mystery about children with Neuro-developmental needs. I do not think that as one having gone through formal learning in Child Development and Developmental Neurology got  any introduction to this mystery surrounding the Neuro-defelopmentally challenged children or their parents who adapt to the challenges in a self giving way. 

It was while watching the white Wagtail birds, beside the pool of water the other day, I got a surprise insight  about the purpose of this forty year journey in Child Development and rehabilitation. What children experience and parents encounter can only be understood to some extent only by being in their company. It was that which ASHIRVAD provided us. 

The Wagtail birds came to the water for quenching their thirst. Anna and I were guided to be in the company of developmentally challenged children and parents to find our meaning in the practice of medicine. 

The last forty years took us to Chennai, Nagpur, Vellore, Pondicherry and now to Kolencherry, where there are visible expressions of what came into being, while we were engaged in being with the developmentally challenged children. The temptation often was to talk about what we did, now in the recent years our experience and conversations turned to celebrate the experience of having been blessed with a life of meaning while being with the 'wounded healers', the developmentally challenged children and their parents. 

It is in the recent years that we realised even more, that the gain of being with those who are hurting and struggling can awaken us to a new consciousness- how sorrow can turn many parents and children to have a deeper meaning and purpose in life. 

A child of four years who tapped rhythmically on the furniture whenever he came to visit for consultation, is now a percussionist in a choir ever since his parents realised that as his gift and allowed it to blossom. At 21 years, he lives a fulfilled life although he still uses a communication board to communicate. A girl whom we knew from two years, who had a developmental challenge, is now a painter, dancer and a performer at international functions, all because her parents turned her abilities to be her vocation. 

I write this because I was moved at the sight of the wagtails. They came searching for water. 

Anna and I were searching for meaning in the practices of medicine. We feel glad that we have been brought nearer to the developmentally challenged children and their parents, out of which we  experienced a deeper meaning in our life !

Let me refer to three of the deeper meanings to life we received by accompanying developmentally challenged children and their parents. 

First is a revised view of the purpose of life. It is not by having more comfort or access to the material resources or by pursuing the creature comfort, one becomes content. True contentment comes by living mindfully of others and taking an interest in their wellness. 

Second is all about the attitude to life. Life itself is transient. When opportunities are denied or doors are closed to proceed, consider them as an indication to wait for something beyond one has aspired for. What awaits us would be more formative and restorative in life than what we longed for. 

Third is about the way we are called to work. To so work that work brings joy and pleasure which give energy and enthusiasm ! The sense of tiredness is a sign of work depleting energy and wellness. When we make work as an offering, others receive it with gladness and what returns to us is added wellness. We are called to live loving neighbours for which our work ought to provide us a vision and vocation.    

The fortieth year of ASHIRVAD will be remembered for the seeds of meaning in life the  developmentally challenged children and their parents bring to us day after day!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

The little !

 The ants gathering nectar from  small flowers! This sight held my attention. 

Is there enough nectar in small flowers! The ants need only little. Is that the only reason!

It is this thought that led me to dwell on the largeness of the small!

The boy who gave his packet of five loaves and two fish to Jesus of Nazareth appeared to be   little for a gathering of five thousand for their meal. Jesus received and gave thanks for the food, broke the bread and distributed, which became enough for the five thousand with twelve basket full of bread left over!

This is the largeness of the little!

Th widow  of Zarephath, baked bread from the little dough and oil left with her, when the prophet Elijah came visiting. Since then the dough or the oil did not get exhausted till the famine came to an end. The little became enough for the widow and her son to live well, who when Elijah met her was gathering firewood for preparing her last meal with no more dough and oil left in her jars!

What is this little which has  a magical power! This is the creative power of God at work. It is a gathering of four cells following the fertilisation which forms a foetus, who is born as a human baby, few months later. 

Saint Teresa of Calcutta had only the goodwill of the Loretta convent, when she set out to take care of the patients of leprosy and the ailing aged living in the pavements of the city of Calcutta. Now the sisters of her, Missionaries of Charity order works in over 100 countries to  bring health and healing to hundreds who live reduced lives. They are in the forefront in the relief camps to bring comfort to those affected by  the Ukrainian crisis following the Russian invasion. 

Yesterday a family who came to visit from Tanil Nadu had no hope left for their son, whom they dedicated to become a temple priest, but now at the age of seven years has many features of developmental delay. What they needed was listening years to share their grief! That was the little that I could offer in that seventy minutes! While going back, the father who is the temple priest said, ' we have found peace because you gave us time to listen to us'!

Listening is a small gesture of goodwill. Often in complex situations that alone is left as a gesture of kindness !

Two post graduates from Anaesthesia waited for long to meet me to invite me for a seminar their department was organising. They said: 'We wanted to meet you and give you the invitation personally'. A little thing but an immensely cordial act!

The little things we can do can bring cheer to others and a sense of fullness to ourselves! What is life until it makes connections with others, who are our co-voyagers in this pilgrim journey of life!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)