We have about 200 croton plants in our garden of 15 different colours. We do an annual pruning in the middle of the monsoon season. A month later they are all back to life! They look fresh and resilient! It looks as if pruning has given a new impetus for its growth.
Th pruning process is an 'assault' on the plant. The plant turns it into an advantage and returns to its full life.
I have recently gone through a couple of unexpected 'shocks' in my work place. I kept watching these crotons and felt challenged to live resiliently. None of the things that happen to us can be an assault or a hostile experience. Beyond the immediate pain, there is a life awaiting to burst forth!
The domestic worker who helps us told his story yesterday, of sickness at home, a child birth to his daughter, no employment fo this wife since the COVID 19 pandemic, a huge loan to return...Listening to him made me feel that life is caught in a storm, but this response is creative and transformative. He said, that he is almost out of his alcohol dependence since he felt choked by financial difficulty. He talked about it as a significant turn in his life.
As I go through a difficult time professionally, and there would be changes awaiting, I feel carried and comforted.
It is the language of the heart and the envisioning in the soul that can hold us in such times. I remember Dr C.K.Job, while needing blood transfusion almost every three weeks, telling me about his experience, 'life is beyond sickness..'. Life is beyond all circumstances. The wind and storm is not a daily occurrence. It comes and leaves a devastation, but life in nature returns to fullness shortly thereafter as if no such thing occurred.
Life is endowed to subsume experiences and make them as a means for growth!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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