The ease of living !

The certainty of each day! 

The Sunbird and the Bulbul indicated comfort and confidence as they searched for their feed in our garden and found them! 

I had a conversation about the 'ease of living' with a friend ! He talked about the changes in the attitude and outlook to life in the current context. He being from an engineering background told me how the conversation evolved to focus on success, by the time he was in the final year among his friends. It was to secure a place for management education and seek to find a place in a large company to go through the internship in preparation for securing a permanent position. For most professionals this permanent position lasts for around five years when they seek for changes to seek for better perks and benefits. He mentioned to me of this natural course for the majority of professionals. According to him, a visible position of leadership in the market place is the aspiration of the most! 

The advertisement of a costly car read like this: 'a matching car for your status'! Another advertisement for a flat in a premium housing estate was this: ' You are known by where you live'! A bank lured people to take loan by saying: ' We charge you no interest for the loan in the first three months'! 

The counter message of these, is from birds in our garden was, 'join us to live freely'! The birds are certain to find their food and shelter each day! Even when they migrate during different seasons, they live well! 

The birds tell me each day about the ease of living! Anna and I were talking yesterday, about the sense of wellness we experience when we lead a quieter life in our cottage! When we reach out to a few people each day on phone, we feel connected by the ups and downs of life people encounter! 

The flash flood that took away land, property and lives of people in Nepal ten days ago, is a message of the unforeseen experiences in life! 

We cannot predict or overcome such situations in life!

However to be able to live with a sense of wellness, peace and hope each day is the greatest gift we can offer to ourselves and our families. For the birds in our garden, the flowers and the feeding station are the certainties because of which they have a sense of ease in their daily rhythm. 

The sunbird found nectar and the Bulbul a mouthful of feed !

We live well when we have an interior comfort of contentment! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

The hope that sustains us!

The morning scenes in our garden have such variability each day that we would miss something worth remembering, if we are not present when the morning visitors arrive in the garden! 

From a grass hopper to a butterfly, birds and squirrel come for their outing and feed! 

What a sight to watch when there is a convergence of happenings that remind of the way a garden offers shelter and fodder to all that come seeking! A garden fosters fraternity and belonging! A garden is a home for a tiny grasshopper as well as a squirrel, who can be a predator! 

The garden announces a language of welcome and offers it as a home to all who need shelter! 

That was how we grew up after the second world war, which we thought was the end of the aggressive and destructive mind set of leaders of some nations. But it looks like some prominent nations of the world are involved in geo-political war as if they are comfortable with another world war! 

I present the scene in our garden to highlight that a garden speaks of language of harmony and peace and instructs humans to relate harmoniously and live comfortably accommodating the differences and plurality of interests. 

The leaders of three nations who are engaged in fostering war are oligarchs themselves, who have amassed wealth even during the war. We have lost something sacred as humans, when we come under the imposed war which brings no gains for the millions of people except suffering and interruption to normal life! 

When the conscience is corrupt, then we have a sliding path ahead of us! 

The subtle attempt to replace democracy by oligarchy is gathering momentum. Now is the time to resist such a downward path by voicing concerns against this counterfeit culture ! 

When I see the grass hopper resting in the rose bush,  I feel revived in hope and aspiration that life will be preserved on earth even when the 'powerful' leaders feel less for the least among us on earth! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

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)