While on a reserve forest yesterday, I noticed this senior citizen gathering fire wood from trees which were felled during a storm. It is permitted to gather firewood provided it is only from the dry trees which have already fallen.
I watched this lady for about forty five minutes, gathering the firewood, bundling it, and carry it as a head load to the market. She does twice a day and collects about 300 rupees in a day. This has been her livelihood event since her husband moved on. This is the source of her subsistence for twenty years and would remain so for a while. Fortunately she has a pension from the government, which looks after the rent of her house. She lives each day to earn enough so that she can have enough to buy clothes for her grandchildren when they visit her three or four times in a year.
Even in her difficult situation she has a consciousness of wanting to be a gift to her grandchildren!
I felt moved by her story and carried that back with me in the hope that her 'calling' in life to be a gift to others would stay with me even as I grow older and sense my limitations of openness and freedom to live mindfully of others around me!
It is self pity or self seeking which deny all of us the vision of purpose of life! Life is an offering to others.
I welcomed a mother for conversation, who live for her teenage daughter amidst a distressing experience of separation from her husband! Her mission is wellness and fullness of life for her daughter!
It is a purpose beyond ourselves which gives life an incentive to be innovate and vicarious!
A farmer in a village open his farm once a week free of cost to help others to elan about cattle and poultry farming. He remembers about twenty people who have since them begun rearing cattle or started a poultry farm which has protected them from the abyss of poverty!
Whose neighbour am I !
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
No comments:
Post a Comment