Planting for fruits

I watched these six interns at PIMS, Pondicherry, plant a tree together on the day of their graduation in August, 2013. As I passed by them, I asked them, 'What is your wish as you plant this sapling'! One of them turning to me said, 'it may bear plenty of fruits'. It happened to be a mango sapling. I was taken back by this visionary statement. They had a mission even while planting a tree on a ceremonial occasion. 

I kept pondering over this comment during the day, while Anna and I moved about in the PIMS campus meeting friends and faculty.

'Why do I do what I do' has often been a theme in my mind in the recent months. We relocated in Kerala in September,2012 to be with my ageing mother. We joined the MOSC Medical College to be gainfully engaged. We began tending the property to make it yield better. Most of what Anna and I have done during the last one year have had an existential reason. It looked as though, we felt compelled by our circumstance to focus on the immediate.  

Professor William Barclay mentions  in the section on 'confession' in his order of the Eucharist service,  mentioned that 'we have been so immersed in the details that we have sometimes lost the vision of the eternities'.

To look for something beyond the immediate is indeed a calling! Yesterday, I watched a nine year old boy bicycling with regular acceleration and deceleration. I thought that he was preparing for a race. I stopped to ask him, what  was he preparing for! He said, 'to be a bicyclist'. He knew in his mind that, it takes a while to be disciplined to ride a bicycle for pleasure or sport.

As I spend this time reflecting over events in my life in the recent months, I get a sense that any one of us can be distracted by the tempter's snare. The material world is exerting its pressure on us to dwell on 'what we shall eat or where we shall live or what we shall put on'.

I feel grateful to the interns, who reminded me that they planted the sapling to bear fruits, so that others can be refreshed. Whatever we do, it ought to have an inclusive thoughtfulness of benefits for others! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)