Receiving and giving !

On the last day of 2025, this rose bush in our garden became a symbol of  two messages. 

The large colourful flower representing 2025 became as a year of fullness and abundance in multiple ways. It was the second year into my retirement transition from fifty years of clinical work. It became a year bringing me clarity and direction about the way of being occupied meaningfully. The opportunity to grow in a giving mission by being in  a listening role became a worth while purpose to pursue. It was a year of bringing thoughts and experiences into a tangible form of recollecting the history, to converge towards the closure of a long season in life. That experience brought joyful and grateful memoirs of events, experiences and people. The meeting times with parents and their children, who needed neuro-developmental support became an educational tour into a less known arena of realities hidden in the lives of children living in the confines of their home, receiving support from professionals to move on to find a promise for their future. The opportunity to become familiar with the unspoken sorrow and silent tears of their hearts became a nourishment to my soul, to feel enlarged and edified by the resilience children and parents communicated from enduring their journey of difficulties. The year 2025 was such a time of looking back and recollecting the multiple colourful strands of the inner canvas that was being formed, during the fifty years of proximity with parents, children and professionals. For me 2025, was a year of receiving!

The above rose bush also revealed something to ponder upon about the forthcoming year, 2026. There are at least four buds in sight, adjacent to the open flower, with one just about to open. They are buds of hope and awaiting reality of surprises and promises for the year ahead! What is within our personal domain is to stay faithful to keep our body healthy and active. Our body is our personal home of our being. When the body is attuned to a healthy life style, it becomes a hospitable home for the mind and soul! That is the invitation that the rose bush symbolised for me. Its vibrancy and aliveness give the prospects for the bud to grow and blossom. How reassuring it is to regard our daily living as a fulfilling and renewing experience when we can live mindfully to bring health and wellness to our body! When we live in a healthy manner we become silent advocates and inspiration for others around us, to desire healthy living for themselves.  This form of integration of body, mind and soul, is what gives us a healthy orientation to be fruitful. We become fruit bearers for others. How uplifting it is to know that we, when we live in a  healthy way, can become Good Samaritans to others! My wish for 2026, is to grow  in giving!

A rose bush gives its flowers during its life time!

Each of us is endowed to be in that vocation of giving!

May the year 2026 make each of us more giving !

It is in giving we grow to be fully human! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)