The sky is a canopy of shelter for all humans and everything upon the earth!
When I watched the sky with nothing between my sight and the sky, it looked vacant and least communicative. When the clouds appeared, there was a message of its purpose. When I spotted the moon in the day light, the sky was communicating another of its mission. When a tree branch with a bird perched in it with its tuneful bird song appeared between the sky and my sight, the sky became even more purposeful in its role as a shelter.
The sky gives the story tellers, music composers, theatre artists, visual communicators, etc. a theme to illustrate their dreams and aspirations.
It is what exists under the sky which attributes to it its significance and multiple functions. It exists to provide shelter by covering all that is underneath it.
This is a metaphor for liberality in life and living. If only humans can be all encompassing shelter to each other, we would have better neighbourhood of friends and care givers.
During the Onam festival, villagers are used to visit each other. Now they visit others who align with them politically! What a fall from the earlier days, when differences or affiliations seemed did not separate people from each other.
The sky is a universal reality. Friendliness too is a universal reality! The verbal venomous language towards others who believe and practice other faiths or political philosophy and practice of segregational attitude towards some who are different from us is more common than I have ever witnessed in the last fifty years.
I as a doctor have benefitted by many privileges, formal and informal. I walked into an office recently to make an enquiry. Seeing my identity card on my shirt, I was welcomed and made to sit. There were about ten people waiting for their turn to meet the officer. It was when I walked out, I realised that I got treated differently from what others received. I felt that I took away somebody else's turn.
There are those who are in the main stream and some others in the margins of any society. The fraternal spirit that bonds us to belong to each other is fading away. The existential philosophy of 'me, mine and myself' is pervasive and expanding!
I watch this with much sorrow! A church faction is getting the worshippers of a split away church evacuated from their worshipping places because the Supreme Court of India in a verdict favoured to usurp all the church premises belonging to the other faction. Never have the privileged church leaders expressed concern for those who would be without a place to meet for worship. It seems it is a time of celebration for the church that gains assets and property, because all the church premises would come under their control, leaving thousands orphaned of their worshipping places which were in their possessions for decades!
This to me, is contrary to the solemn belief in the universal grace, which all followers of Jesus of Nazareth profess to believe in. We are not too be covetous and seeking to possess want rightfully belongs to others.
The sky is a metaphor of hope and shelter for all those who live upon earth! The church is to be the evident expression of this eternal truth and show the way for others! The Church's role is serving others and giving away what it has for others. The Church on earth is like the canopy of the sky, protecting and providing for all. A church is to be giving and not possessing or acquisitive in disposition. What is a church unless she is known for her self-giving or mindfulness of others within her fold and outside!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
No comments:
Post a Comment