The Inclusive journey!

The tolerance level of a Mynah to let a Bulbul co-feed in the feeding station in our garden lasted only for a short while. The Mynah arrived when the Bulbul was quietly feeding. In a few minutes, the Mynah forced the Bulbul to leave the feeding station although the Bulbul tired negotiating!

The desire to control was strong with the Mynah and the Bulbul was weak to resist! 

This is the dynamic movements in relationships. The desire to stay relationally can get subsumed by the desire to subdue others. 

This human instinct takes away the cordial culture required to relate and accommodate others! 

During a visit to Nagaland recently, I heard a public health professional talks about the strategy the families practice to get over the substance among the adolescent population in the last ten years. Each family took an interest in supporting one another family in the neighbourhood to support a teenager who needed de-addiction support. This neighbourhood watchfulness worked well for the substance abuse to get under control in some communities. What a remarkable way of neighbourly living with a mission! In some communities, the young people who did not have regular employment, participated in developing community farming of fruits and vegetables! 

I wish harmony between people will become the usual feature ! In the place where Anna and I live, the 'barrier' of caste which divided people, is now fading and there is a communal coherence and cordiality. The religious divide which is strong in some parts of India is not strong in our part of India. 

Our humanity outshines all these divisive thoughts. A group of young people who are social activists practice prayer of silence when they meet to affirm the freedom to practice their faith and work together for the common good! 

I wish all neighbourhoods become friendly and fraternal! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

 

The unmet needs of people!

What was this Bulbul bird looking for, while perched in the tree! Likely to be for its morning feed,  as it soon arrived at the feeding station in our garden!

I came across a family who prepares five food packets every evening and delivers to a food bank from where volunteers deliver food to senior citizens who are bed ridden or restricted in mobility, living in the neighbourhood. That family is one among five other families in the neighbourhood who are involved in a similar giving habit! 

The USAID stopped its giving habit towards supporting immunisation and food supplies to those who live displaced or are affected by calamities. 

A press reporter recently commented that there is more giving among those who have their own struggles than among those who are well off!  

I came across a social activist who resigned from his regular job, to promote community farming that all those in a cluster of villages would have enough food supply through the year. This initiative has developed into a community dairy farming, poultry farming and vegetable farming that a weekly food market has evolved in the community. The social harmony and collective mind set for common wellness were the additional benefits of this initiative. 

The Bulbul bird found its feed! 

How distressing it is to know that some in all communities struggle to find their daily bread! 

The voluntary initiatives to meet their need remind us of the growing mindfulness among people in our communities! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

The journey of becoming !

The buds are not yet flowers! When they are fully open, they become flowers. 

In a conversation with five families yesterday, I picked up a thought process that parents carry with them about their children! They have a vision and aspiration for tier children. They pursue actively to realise that desire!

But each of the family carried a disappointment about the difficulties which their child faces to move in to the pathway they desired for their children. The disappointment about what they are not becoming seems to have affected the sense of fulfilment and delight in what and who they are now.

The present is the only reality that we can live with. The future is not predictable. 

A well child following a convulsion having weakness of one side is recovering slowly. The right sided weakness impairs the functions of easting, writing and other self care.  What brought consolation was the hope the parents carry about further recovery! 

Professor Malathi Jadhav, under whom I worked for two years used to say, 'Treat the child, comfort the parents and revive the hope of the family'! That stayed with me as the vocation for child health practice. 

What a privilege it is for professionals in child health practice to be in this vocation of watching over children, becoming through transitions of life events to be who they can be! 

This calls for an optic of thoughtfulness and consideration to support families through their difficult times.

What an opportunity it is to be pathfinders for families who wait for their children to blossom ! To so relate to the parents  that they can lean on to the professionals to feel supported when they encounter stressful times is the vocation to embrace! Let it not be seen as a demanding experience but as an upbuilding experience for nurturing families and enabling children to be overcomes! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The flourishing family ambience !

 Flowers are more than just colours or fragrances!

They tell the story of the plants which bear them and the soil that nurtures them, the sunshine that feeds them and water that sustains them. They grow in manicured or wild gardens where they are planted. The plants carry the potential to grow and flower in due season. The flowers feed insects with nectar and participate in pollination. They perpetuate and sustain themselves.

In a conversation with a family I understood how their home is naturally conditioned by the needs and aspirations of their children. The week-days have one rhythm and the week ends have another rhythm.  Both parents make an effort to take leave during children's holidays to create another rhythm during the holidays. 

The conversation proceeded to give me a surprising state of awareness that this family has in fostering the enlargement of their children by making the home, a place of belonging and upbuilding. Th family has a journal in which the parents and children make entires to share experiences and recollections. This journal currently a designer book has entries from parents and children, sometimes daily or as when they have something that occurred as special. It is a practice for the family to have this journal before them during the Saturday evening family meeting to have longer conversations about what were entered in the journal. They live their memories actively and reflectively. This time of conversation often brings a new level of connections at the family level. Each parent and child makes an entry of the experience of this weekly family conversation in a sentence or through a drawing to summarise the conversation. 

The parents have a separate journal for both their children, which is an open book, accessible to children. The parents make regular entires of comments, appreciation or questions which children can read and add their thoughts. The parents often make their entries related to what they notice in their children and adding compliments and suggestions. Children respond with questions and comments during the Saturday family meeting. For children, the individual journals are a recording of their formative and relational journey which gives them a feed back and affirming direction. 

I was moved to listen to the story of this form of Parental awakening which a creates an environment of trustful and cordial communication between parents and children. 

This form of written journal with drawings and sketching, which the family maintains for parents and children might not be a usual habit. I saw in this practice an imaginative dimension that family carries in its role, as the garden of life for their children, and a learning ground for parents in moderating and modulating parenting practices. 

Flowers flourish because a garden favours it by its homely soil. 

A family flourishes by nurturing children to grow up to be who they are to be! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Listening with the heart!

The above silent presence of togetherness in discerning the next flight path for the morning is a daily event ! 

This is the behaviour of Bulbul pairs in our garden! Following the routine of feeding at the feeding station in our garden, the Bulbul pairs often are perched in the cable to look around and fly away. 

This watchful search and planning is worth watching, as they would chirp to each other in a hushed tone as if they are in conversation and exchanging their perceptions. 

They too have a plan for the day! 

Anna and I find our conversation times at day break sipping our cup of coffee a good start for the day, taking time to look back and look forward! 

What and how we sense a situation can be decisive and defining to be ready for the events ahead of the day! 

This is one way of growing in the art of listening with the heart! That is an endearing experience where the trustful intimacy brings comfort, hope, assurance and affirmation of the sense of belonging.

The Bulbul pairs educate us on the art of the communication at the heart level!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

The missing generation!

There are changes in the bird movements seasonally in ur garden. Often we do not observe them carefully so as to miss seeing some birds. 

But Anna and I certainly miss Magpie robins. Usually one of them would be perched at day break on the cable in our courtyard while we have our cup of coffee in our drawing room. We got used to watching one or two of them and listen to the tuneful singing for a while. The variable loudness, duration and tune have an originality that do not get repeated. The male birds are the tuneful singers. 

It is well known that the Magpie robins are comfortable with human proximity. So they choose flight stations which are closer to homes. 

What is the larger message of this disappearance of the Magpie robins! 

One thing we notice is that our garden is lot more noisy with Mynahs and jungle Babblers. Both of these bird species are noisy and imposing! They come in group of five or more and flutter and move between trees, that smaller birds do not feel comfortable to appear in their vicinity. Even the Sun birds changed the timings of their visit to the garden to avoid these larger noisy birds. 

 

This story of displacement brought to my attention what happened to our neighbourhood. Out of about forty two households during my childhood, only five families are left in the neighbourhood. Others   got lured by the large offer of prize or their  properties and moved out to the interior places, some building new houses others choosing to live in rented houses. Most of the families needed the money to educate their children. Apart from selling their houses, they also had to take bank loans. 

These children are in other places in India studying or working or are overseas waiting for opportunities after their study. The homes have older people in most homes. 

A generation or two are missing in our village and in the surrounding villages. 

The older people live without active engagement with the younger people and the younger people do not get the benefit of the shelter of the older people.  

The absence of one or two generations in a society brings discontinuity and weakness in the fabric of a society without the younger people bringing the vibrancy and change needed in the formation of a society. We live mostly with the  generational thoughts of yesteryears without the influence of the inspirational thoughts and dreams of younger people! 

The song of Magpie robins are missing in our garden! 

The thoughts of the younger people are missing in the formation of our homes and families. 

This is a serious gap in the generational transition ! 

Unless our educational system changes to make learning transformative to make younger people to take the reins of responsibility and leadership, we shall live in the past with ideas and thoughts that the older generation has grown up with ! 

The younger people feel displaced and disheartened! They need larger space and acknowledgement! 

If about 40 percent of the population in India are below 30 years, then they have the right and role to lead rest of us! 

I feel exercised to pursue this thought further by initiating a dialogue process with some ! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Waiting in Hope !

A Bulbul's patience for its turn at the feeding station in our garden! 

This was waiting with hope!

Life is a journey of waiting in hope!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)