Each of us is through several departures and arrivals each day. When we leave our home in the morning to our place of work and arrive at our work place, a cycle of departures and arrivals would have only started for the day. There will be many departures and arrivals during the day.
One important thing happens at such times of departure and arrival is farewell and welcome. Such occasions are special and personal. We say farewell to an occasion or experience or people we leave behind, while we go on a travel. While saying farewell, there is a precious lot transacted emotionally and experientially. We bring out our best greetings, and affection and communicate them to touch and be touched. I wish we do guard such occasions with reverence and significance!
I remember how Dr. Hans Burki, at the end of a retreat would invite us to take time to say farewell to each person by sharing with each other appreciation and encouragement and even leaving a written statement of memory with each other. Such unhurried times of farewell bring a closure of a time spent together in an atmosphere of gratitude and affirmation, the memory of which would stay with us for long.
The welcome was too planned by him in a similar fashion by inviting us to share with each other the experiences of the last 24 hours before our arrival to help us to feel connected with each other emotionally. We become known to each other through an optic of insight that others bring to us about themselves, when their vulnerability or joyful experience are shared. We become more than just names, professions we represent or families and places we come from. We open the door into our true self by inviting others to share in the experiences of our lives.
Today begin the last day of 2013, we are about to arrive at the threshold of another year, 2014. None of us can anticipate, what awaits us for this day, personally, as a family, at work place, politically, economically, socially, internationally. But we have a bag of memories of experiences, which brought and change in our lives. They include gains and losses, both of which formed our lives.
We need time say farewell to the year 2013 and welcome the year 2014 gratefully and prayerfully! Many people drown themselves in celebrations, but lose the inner connection such experiences can bring within ourselves and between people.
Anna and I spent a day with Amy's parents, Ruby and Prasad and her sister Eva, last week end. They began the day sitting around the breakfast table to sing, read from the Scripture and pray and closed the day in a similar way at dinner table. We found that as a good way of welcoming a day and saying farewell to another day!
It is recollection and memories which revive our lives and cause our lives to stay fresh in thoughts and deeds.
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
One important thing happens at such times of departure and arrival is farewell and welcome. Such occasions are special and personal. We say farewell to an occasion or experience or people we leave behind, while we go on a travel. While saying farewell, there is a precious lot transacted emotionally and experientially. We bring out our best greetings, and affection and communicate them to touch and be touched. I wish we do guard such occasions with reverence and significance!
I remember how Dr. Hans Burki, at the end of a retreat would invite us to take time to say farewell to each person by sharing with each other appreciation and encouragement and even leaving a written statement of memory with each other. Such unhurried times of farewell bring a closure of a time spent together in an atmosphere of gratitude and affirmation, the memory of which would stay with us for long.
The welcome was too planned by him in a similar fashion by inviting us to share with each other the experiences of the last 24 hours before our arrival to help us to feel connected with each other emotionally. We become known to each other through an optic of insight that others bring to us about themselves, when their vulnerability or joyful experience are shared. We become more than just names, professions we represent or families and places we come from. We open the door into our true self by inviting others to share in the experiences of our lives.
Today begin the last day of 2013, we are about to arrive at the threshold of another year, 2014. None of us can anticipate, what awaits us for this day, personally, as a family, at work place, politically, economically, socially, internationally. But we have a bag of memories of experiences, which brought and change in our lives. They include gains and losses, both of which formed our lives.
We need time say farewell to the year 2013 and welcome the year 2014 gratefully and prayerfully! Many people drown themselves in celebrations, but lose the inner connection such experiences can bring within ourselves and between people.
Anna and I spent a day with Amy's parents, Ruby and Prasad and her sister Eva, last week end. They began the day sitting around the breakfast table to sing, read from the Scripture and pray and closed the day in a similar way at dinner table. We found that as a good way of welcoming a day and saying farewell to another day!
It is recollection and memories which revive our lives and cause our lives to stay fresh in thoughts and deeds.
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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