Attending to oneself!

 

A soaked Greater Coucal (Crow Pheasant) sunbathing, while planning its flight path! Its vision reaches a long distance. It takes short flights as its body is heavy. In between its flights it stays on the ground to feed! When soaked in rain, as seen in the photos, it needs to dry its wings and feathers! 

I noticed its intentional look!

That is one way of finding the way forward!

A message to ponder on!

What are the ways I attend to my inner and outer needs each day!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Life, Living, Learning - 13

 

I noticed the Tailor bird above, arriving in the Rambutan tree adjacent to the feeding station, where two Barbets were feeding at the feeding table. 

The Tailor bird made a vigilant observation of the setting around it and took a little while to feel secure in its perch. 

The tuneful singing started as long but subdued bird calls initially, which increased in its loudness and duration! Its tuneful singing became high pitched, which brought a Bulbul to the tree near to the Tailor bird. 

The Bulbul looked absorbed and turned its head in the direction of the Tailor bird calls. 

The next to arrive was a Sunbird, turning to listen to the Tailor bird !

 

A pair of Bulbuls too arrived to be perched in the tree. The tree turned into a place of congregation of birds, all listening  to the Tailor bird. 

One small bird, making the garden come alive with its bird calls, which engaged the attention of other birds!

The Tailor bird chose to be perched in a branch, which positioned  it to be heard all around. 

It's habit is singing.  It made no efforts to gather an audience!

What the Tailor bird offered was its tuneful presence!

I recall Rev. Eva Marie Koch who visited us at the Child Development Centre at Chennai in 1984 at a time when Anna and I were finding our way in our involvement in child development and rehabilitation demanding! She happened to visit us on a day when the street outside the centre was waterlogged due to rain. She waddled through ankle deep water and came to be with us for about an hour, listening to the story since we began in 1983. She heard us from her heart and seemed to feel for the additional facilities we needed to offer support for children and families. 

A few weeks later, having heard about us and what we were involved in, two teachers from a school, Ms Christiane Osburg and Ms Giesela Jahner contacted us form Berlin, enquiring how they can be involved to support the initiative. They involved children in the school and organised a bazar twice a year to sell handmade articles, the proceeds of which were sent to us to acquire more facilities for helping developmentally challenged children.  That support which they started to offer then, continues even today. 

Anna and I were involved at that time to pursue what seemed to be an opportunity to focus on developmentally challenged children! A few gathered around us to support and encourage. It was Dr A.K.Tharien of the Christian Fellowship Hospital at Oddanchatram who guided Rev. Koch to visit us at Chennai. 

Forty two years later, Anna and I feel touched and moved as we recall how just a few heard us and came forward  to respond to the needs of developmentally challenged children. 

The Tailor bird through its tuneful singing engaged other birds. The birds present in its vicinity gave it a reason to continue singing!

For Anna and I, we needed a few friends at that time to accompany and remember us in order to be able to pursue the service for children who were developmentally challenged. What transformed us to be steadfast in this pursuit was the way we were heard and received by a few friends at a time, when the Child Development initiative did not receive much attention generally. 

Now, we realise that there are many soloists singing their language of service to people in need. Anna and I feel that an opportunity is offered to us to listen to the needs and aspirations of such people and be in touch with them to feel with them. The people we are in touch with convey us a message that, doing good is effortful although fulfilling! The efforts can drain people and consume them to feel exhausted! To look for such people and be companions to them is an opportunity and a gift of love! 

The Tailor bird through its tuneful singing offered itself to other birds in the garden!

That was a timely message to us!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The morning sight!

Our garden is a meeting place for birds. 

The two Sunbirds and two Bulbuls were together for a fairly long time this morning. It is a season for courtship for some birds!

There is a heart language between birds. The female purple rumbled sunbird was the first to arrive in the garden, followed by a male bird and then them the two Bulbuls! 

How good that birds find our garden a hospitable place to meet each other for courtship!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Meditation of my heart- 35

The Bulbul birds on arrival at the feeding table will call out for other birds before starting to feed. Their feeding sequence is similar to what is in the serial photos above . 

They come to the feeding table on a few occasions during the day. They return to the feeding table assured of the feed! It is a refreshing sight to watch. 

A priest, Rev Sajan P Mathew of the Marthoma Church, composed a song, the refrain of which is:  'There is no rain that would not stop, no wind that would not settle down,  no night that would not break forth into a day, no pain that would not fade away...' He received this song in his heart from an incident he read in a book of two people waiting for rain to end outside a church. Both of them had no rain coat or an umbrella. One became impatient and was about to go back, although would be drenched. The other told him, 'every rain would stop'. 

Rev Sajan seems to have read this at a time when he was receiving chemotherapy for a tumour when he was 25 years into the priestly ministry. He was disheartened and had many questions to God! He was reminded of Jesus asking the disciples to cast the net again after they caught no fish after a night of toil (John 21: 1-17). They had a large catch of fish.  Rev. Sajan saw in that incident all new possibilities beyond his cancer and its treatment. He spoke about his wellness and renewal experience following this awareness. He is more than a survivor of cancer; he is an inspiration to many as he sings and speaks of God who is merciful, forgiving and forbearing . The  above song he composed while receiving chemotherapy, is the favourite of many who come to their wits end. 

At seventy five years of age, two years ago, when I decided to step back from full time clinical work, I wondered what awaited me! I received an invitation form an institution to be a listener to people on their pilgrim journey.  This offered me an opportunity to listen to  faculty on line, which in the last two years became a new experience of becoming closer to some in their longing to find direction in life. 

It is a season in my life when I am given a window to experience the inner fortitude of many, overcoming challenges in life through their trustful pursuit after God!  

When I watch the Bulbuls at the feeding station and see them fly away satisfied after the feed, I am reminded of those whom I listen to, who journey in faith to find their hope and peace by turning to God. 

I find a new experience in being a listener! It is a way of regarding, affirming and valuing a person whom I listen to! The silence of listening is an occasion to draw closer to a person! A word spoken or a resonance would then spring from a depth that is beyond the mind perception. 

In listening to others, one deepens one's own awareness and moves on to live from a depth of openness. 

I sometimes experience listening leading to be in communion with the person who speaks. The words spoken evoke a new understanding about the person and the hidden truth or wisdom or search resident in that person ! In such an attitude of listening, the words heard become the key to know the person! 

I often feel ministered to, while listening attentively!

Listening is the way to become aware of the gift that we are to each other!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Life, Living, Learning - 12

This Loten's Sunbird is long billed and maroon breasted. Its exquisite coloured body receives even more brilliance of its feather coat during the monsoon months. The male bird is like the one above has a glossy purple crown and a grey-brown belly. It is larger than the purple Sunbird in the picture below. Its closest species is Malagasy green sunbird, which I am yet to spot in our garden.

What draws my attention to sunbirds is largely due to their immaculately groomed body at all seasons. The monsoon appearance is special as their feathers do not get soaked in the rain unlike in the Magpie Robins or Bulbuls. I have watched them groom the body by attending to the feather coat meticulously! 

These energetic birds, which have ultra short stay on flowers for nectar gathering, had a phenomenal memory. They visit the same flowers every day around the same time in the morning and evening.  

They are small birds. They are faster than other birds in flight. They fly high and stay fluttering over the flowers. They can gather nectar while fluttering in the air above the flower without having to rest on the flower! 

A small bird with some exquisite features! 

It is a message to all of us. Each of us has something good enough and special enough, which we need to identify and be glad for!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Knowing the child- 14

What did I see in this flower bunch at first sight? It was the dried remnant of an earlier flower !

The three brilliant flowers remained mostly unnoticed in the first sight! It was after I took off my attention from the dried flower, the three flowers partially engaged my attention. 

The temptation or habit is to lament about what is not there, even when what is present is exuberantly impressive and gratifying. 

I have had parents who complain about the few marks a child lost in his examination although the overall grade was outstanding. Parents think and speak irrationally about a child when he was mischievous or angry prone or erratic sometimes in his or her behaviour or response. 

One such experience comes to my memory. This nine years old child was outstanding in his performance in the class, music, sports and painting. But he lost pencil, pen, lunch box or did not give attention to take care of his belongings even at home. This made parents speak miserably about him. In a conversation about this with the boy he confessed that he heard complaints about his lapses from his parents  most of the time. He was starved of complements, acknowledgements or encouragements. 

All children have a bright side and a dark side! Why is that the dark side becomes more noticed than the brighter side!

As parents, if we grew up less appreciated or affirmed, we have not grown up in an environment of being accepted just as we are! A child is a person who needs to be valued and have that communicated to  him or her all the time. A child's psychic, behavioural and emotional formation become optimum, when he or she feels nurtured by acts of kindness, appreciation, thoughtfulness and tender expressions of feeling loved!

If I missed the three flowers at first sight and saw only the dried flower, it is an indication of a skewed view of realities. 

I wish parents would list at bed time to every child all that they noticed in the child during the day for the child to feel good about himself or herself. If we do not fill a child's conscious and subconscious mind by feed back of worth and goodness, he or she lives reduced. The corollary of this is a restrained or reduced self-acceptance or self-image. This leads to anxiety or fear leading to wonder if he or she is good enough for his or her parents  and others.

All children are good enough.  It is up to parents to nurture the child to  have good view of himself or herself and build the trust to be  a overcomer!

How refreshing it is for a child to feel accepted all the time! The slips or shortcomings do not make him or her feel any les valued or loved!

For parents,  the call of parenting is to be in a self giving role towards children and not in a judgemental, threatening or reprimanding role! It is love and care which when expressed all the time, shall become therapeutic to a child, who is struggling to overcome some challenges he or she faces!

A parent told me how he took his son for a forty minutes walk when he returned from the school, as he often came disheartened as some teachers did not like his handwriting! In two years with this steadfast accompanying from his parents  and constant encouragement about his abilities, this boy not only improved his handwriting but became a prize winning artist. The boy told me how it did not matter to his parents the least, how he wrote as they kept reminding him that he would be able to improve over time. Instead he received encouragements and got introduced to playing carroms, table tennis, quilling, paper craft and painting! 

What matters reference is about what is there, and not about what is not there, when we accompany our children during the formative years early childhood 

They need to be grounded in our unconditional acceptance and affection! They  respond to the language of love and endearment !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Life, Living and Learning - 11

The above photographs of the feeding station in our garden, when we started this three years ago, got congested with more birds coming needing a better setting. 

We moved it to a new location closer to our cottage with better facilities for birds. It has a feeding table and a water bath in a more natural environment of plants and trees around it. 

What has happened during the recent years is one change- some birds spend most of the day in the garden. They rest in the trees around the feeding station. 

The squirrel-bird relationship as seen in the first three photos is often distant. The squirrels behave unmindfully sometimes. When birds see others waiting around for thier turn in the feeding bowls, they give room to share the meal. The squirrels can be possessive and behave indifferently. 

During the recent international political posturing of the recent twelve months, what was evident was the dominant posturing of some nations. In the recent two months, the president of one nation being keen to claim the Nobel peace prize is ordering for cease-fire between nations, who have had intense confrontations. 

In a meeting of some professionals overseeing the affairs of organisations, I noticed how feeling for each other is replaced by competition! 

A retired Tahasildar told me yesterday that there are big houses all around with no occupants. The owners live and work overseas. They were built in the recent thirty years or so from the savings while working overseas. Now they are unlikely to come back as many have become citizens of the countries where they reside. He referred to the 'vanity' of richness and the 'distress of some with nothing to live on'

How much do we need!

Most people after their work life retire to lead a quiet life. Some engage in offering service and some others are forced to seek another employment to take care of their needs. 

I have often asked organisations that I was associated with as to why offering post retirement benefits by way of a monthly pension is not normal a practice in those organisations! 

Most people live twenty to thirty years after retirement. Who would meet their needs! Having given thirty or so years to an organisation in service, do we leave them unattended when they are older and  are no more able to be working to earn a living!

One experience that Anna and I have had is that the birds come to the feeding station to find the provision when food is scarce or are not able to find it!

I remember how Dr L.B.M. Joseph introduced the pension scheme at the Christian Medical College, Vellore in the late seventies, from the resources of the institution to all who worked at the institution till retirement for a minimum of 20 years. While he presented this proposal, he said, 'An employee of the institution is worthy of superannuation benefits for having served the institution'. The health care is at a highly subsidised cost for the retired staff in that institution, often freely provided for!

I feel compelled to suggest that a labourer is worthy of wages as well as care during his or her retirement years! 

All organisations that exist for 'non-profit' purpose ought to be responsible for the post retirement support of the staff!

The three phrases Jesus of Nazareth used to commission Peter to his vocation were: 'Tend My Lambs', 'Shepherd My sheep', and ' Tend My Sheep' (John 21: 15, 16, 17).

Tending the young and old, and shepherding them in life is our calling!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

  

Life and Learning-, Living - 10

The three small flowers in our garden this morning! 

It is the third flower above that fascinated me!

From a distance it looked too small to be of any consequence. But when I captured a macro view, the flower stood out as outstanding with brushy appearance in the centre! It might be a Spiderwort flower! 

It is lesson in living !

A distant view and a close up view can be wide apart informationally and experientially. 

I get introduced to this theme as I listen to families. They describe children sometimes from a distant view! A family who sought help for sudden onset of bedwetting for their seven years old son, insisted that everything was normal at home. 

It was while interviewing the child I found out that, he went to bed thinking about the quarrel between his father and mother ! I found out that it was on those days he had bed wetting! 

The casual pathway was in the family! How much the child got blamed by his parents!

The facts from a distant view and from a close up view can be poles apart. The child had his urine tested and lumbo-sacral X-ray taken and suffered further emotionally by these steps. 

It was following a few sessions of conversations, there was a readiness on the part of parents to attend to their behaviour in order to reduce the strain on the child emotionally. The parents found a different way to discuss their differences of opinion. They were learning to be polite to each other !

It is important to be patient to know the entire truth in every situation by listening, considering and pondering! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

The instinct for peace!

The feeding station is with more avian visitors in our garden now!

That is a sign of birds returning to the garden, unlike in the last three months, when only Bulbuls visited the feeding station!

The birds announce changes in the seasons. Following the monsoon season, birds find the environment inhospitable. Yesterday there were five Magpie Robins taking their shelter at night in our backyard on the cloth lines to protect themselves from the rain. 

This flock of birds at the feeding station are not familiar with each other as yet! I noticed Barbets trying to chase away the Bulbuls. 

The Barbets are gregarious, while the Bulbuls come to the feeding station a few times during the day and nibble on banana fruit. 

The Bulbuls announce with bird calls to invite other birds to come to feed, which is absent in the behaviour of Barbets. 

A behaviour can be instinctual or planned !

The present Dalai Lama announces and practices compassionate behaviour! That seems to be his second nature in spite of provocations from China and its control over Tibet. 

The Quatar leadership brokered peace between Iran and Israel after 12 days of war. That too when Iran attacked Quatar to bombard American army stations within the country. Although Quatar felt 'attacked' and suffered loss, its planned behaviour was to broker peace at a time when more nations were taking sides to perpetuate confrontation! The leadership of Quatar accomplished what the UNO failed to negotiate! 

The commitment to peace has to be both instinctual and planned !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Grateful recollections !

There are times when memories flood us with abounding gratefulness!

Anna and I had one such occasion during this week. 

Fr Johny, who is the founder of Sneha Deepam, a retreat centre at Vellore, warmly hosted us when Anna and I along with Arpit went to Vellore to attend the interview for Arpit to join the Christian Medical College for his undergraduate studies. 

Since that first meeting with him, Anna and I received his hospitality every week since 1999 when we used to go on Tuesday afternoons for time of reflection and prayer in the chapel. We needed that space and time for us to feel integrated with the life at CMC after joining to begin the Developmental Paediatrics Unit. 

Anna and I  were used to to have regular debriefing times with Fr Joe Mannath and Fr George since 1987 till we left Chennai in 1997 to join CMC Vellore. 

What was special about Fr Johny was his thoughtfulness and kindness to befriend people and be an encouragement. He created an ambience of quietness to help people who needed silence and solitude, while staying in the retreat centre. 

Having known that he was fond of birds, we left our bird house of about twenty birds with him, as a symbol of gratefulness when we retired from CMC Vellore and left Vellore in 2010. His response to us at that time, was 'You are leaving something of yourself with us'! 

It was after a few years we met Fr Johny. It was an occasion of happy recollections. 

The other two whom we meet were Dr and Mrs Mathew Chandy, who were faculty at CMC Vellore.

 Dr Mathew was the council secretary of the CMC Vellore, who was involved in inviting ASHIRVAD to start the Developmental Paediatrics Unit through a Memorandum of Understanding in 1997. He recollected the occasion as CMC normally started new facilities by the existing faculty trained in a particular discipline. In inviting Anna and me to start a new facility was a departure from the convention which involved long process of discussion and deliberation. Dr V.I.Mathan who was the director of CMC at that time took the initiative to carry forward this dialogue. It was his interest to include Developmental Paediatrics as a speciality in one among the five new departments that CMC planned to start in the centenary year of the Institution.

Dr Chandy being a neurosurgeon, was the one whom I approached probably in 2000, when a child with developmental challenges in spite of having been on three anti-epileptic medicines, had intractable seizures. The EEG showed focal seizure activity and MRI Mesial Temporal Sclerosis. On enquiring from him, about surgical intervention, he said that he had not taken up a developmentally challenged child for such a surgery earlier. But he proceeded with surgery and the child recovered well with only one drug required for prophylaxis. For three years following the surgery the child had no seizure and showed developmental progress and could join a school for his learning. 

Mrs Chandy was an Electrophysiologist overseeing the EEG laboratory in CMC Vellore. Since the starting of the Developmental Paediatrics Unit we had three to four children needing EEG almost every day. Often these children, because of their multiple development needs did not sleep well after medicines for undergoing the EEG tracing. It meant the technologists had to be patient and ready to attempt a second or third time. Mrs Chandy was magnanimous to allow that flexibility and encouraged her colleagues to give earlier appointment for taking EEG when she noticed that nearly sixty percent of children with neuro-developmental challenges had Cortical Electrical Dysfunction. I was keen to have some details on sleep architecture of children, which she offered to provide while reporting  the EEG. Once she told me that she included a large section on children's EEG in the monogram on EEG that she published, by using the EEG of children referred from Developmental Paediatrics Unit. 

When Anna and I met three of them this week in a church, I felt a warm welcome from all three of them. Their recollections of our association with them in the past, gave us a feeling of cordial regards they had towards us. 

Life is a such a confluence of relationships and interactions! How much others contribute to enrich our lives! Anna and I returned remembering the happy occasions of associating with three of them. 

Recollecting memories would help us to grow in gratefulness !

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Meditation of my heart- 34

When I noticed the two buds in this flower bunch, my thoughts went back to a narrative of a widow, who offered two copper coins in the treasury of the synagogue, about which Jesus of Nazareth made an observation: '...she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on'  and others, ' put in from their surplus into the offering'. According to Jesus, the poor widow had 'put in more than all the others'. ( Luke 21: 1-4).

Many offered from the surplus they had. A poor widow offered all she

had to live on !

The financial model that is currently advocated is to create surplus and wealth for personal benefit.  Most pursue that as the pathway to life! Some generate income for spending it on social benefits. 

The United States of America abandoned recently the medicare facility to save money. This who were weaker economically who benefited from this now are a great loss. The USA stopped the US Aid support earlier and now withdrew the Medicare facility!A disturbing scenario to suggest that the political leadership favours to prosper personal prosperity and not a social prosperity !

Jesus told the parable about a rich man who had a good harvest of grains, who decided to enlarge his barns to store the grain to live merrily in the future. His was an orientation towards wealth and riches.(Luke 12: 13-21) 

I wondered what the two copper coins might be symbol of, for me to consider! For the widow, they were not her savings, but all that she had to live on. 

Did they mean representing her identity as a poor widow, who for various reasons at that time, would have been the least person to be considered worthy of! A woman and a widow do not receive the honour as others receive. She might have been in a despised situation in the sights of others. This mantle of compulsive behaviour of others that fell on her was a daily reality for her. 

The other reality was her struggle to be in such an inhospitable situation. The burden of living was truly upon her. A widowed person was at the temple in desperation to find her direction and blessing. 

The rose flower and the two buds have a temporary presence in the garden! During their presence they are part of the garden adding colour and richness to the garden. The poor widow felt alienated and  excluded from being of value.

I feel inclined to think that this woman offered herself to be present to God amidst the tentativeness and transitoriness of life. She carried  a burdened soul and offered it to God!  Whom else she could offer her inner turmoil except to God who wait to receive those who 'walk through the valley of shadow of death' ! 

It was this inner distress and openness to God, that Jesus recognised in her and complemented her for her desire to seek refuge in God. 

Her pursuit was Godward in her desperate situation socially and economically!

What might be this Godward orientation! 

Jesus of Nazareth and said in one of His public discourses: ' Come to me, all who are weary, and heavy laden, and I will you rest (Matthew 11:28). That was what the widow did.

The widow's orientation was towards God and to seek His ways for her!

I watch this sunbird, which comes to our garden in the morning on most days to receive nectar from flowers. It lives by receiving!

The poor widow offered to live by giving herself and her burdens to God! She prepared herself to receive!

That is the first step towards receiving beyond, what we would have found normally! 

The surplus or wealth is the trap! It creates a passion to create more surplus and to have our eyes fixed on it! 

The wealth of God's ways is what would not perish! To live with what is given and share a portion of that for others in need become an option  to consider as the orientation in life!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Life, Living, Learning - 9

The Magpie Robins are quiet birds whose presence is often noticed with their bird calls in our garden. They have some regular stations which they visit to search for their feed. 

I noticed one of them in the tree in front of our cottage. While searching for insects in the branch, the chirp of a squirrel disturbed it. It soon moved to the adjacent tree. The last two photos in a new branch show how fretful it looks suspicious of a danger around. The squirrels chase them away normally. 

The body language of a bird conveyed an anxiety state. 

I have had an experience yesterday of how an anxiety state can occupy my  inner peace. With the new regulations about owning property, we are required to re-register in the local revenue office. This involves going to the government offices and fulfilling all the requirements. The thought of this created an unsettlement within me. I carried that all the day along. 

It was after Anna and I talked over the matter and clarified all the steps which we can follow, for which we have all the documents, I felt more comfortable. 

Often one does not take time to process the causal pathway for the state of anxiety. Awareness and processing the anxiety state normally lead to finding a way forward!

It is for this reason, about three minutes of silence three times a day can be a helpful way, to discern the wellness within and look for any signs of anxiety on account of subtle events outside. The question for meditation for such an occasion is, 'How do I feel now'!

This is a way to become present to oneself. 

We live conditioned by external events; we can also learn to live by being present to the inward composure within!

A Magpie Robin gets disturbed by the chirp of a squirrel! Watching this brought an awareness about the inward disturbance which the external events can arouse within me! 

Living from the strength of the inner composure can also become a habit by practice!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)