Looking beyond!

Anna and I watched these swans moving alertly and actively in a lake, while we were on a holiday. 

Their heightened sense of alertness was obvious in their body posture! 

They moved about in different directions in response to the signals they received about the movement of the fish  in the lake. 

What occurred to me during this engaging sight was a parallel to our own lives as we live  our lives in the ocean of opportunities.  

It is others and their needs which ought to alert us so that we move towards them to be thier companions!

This is distinct to human behaviour. We are called to live in an attitude of openness to sense even the unspoken needs of others and be near to them in their time of need. 

Today Anna and I take our domestic helper for her surgery to a hospital ninety kilometres away from us! We felt moved by the way some friends in that hospital came forward to make all the arrangements for this. Philip, a senior physician now, who took the lead, was someone whom we knew from his medical student days. We feel amazed at the way he took our concerns and needs and  responded to each of them in a touching manner.  

He is an example of one who is used to looking out to help!

Our personal journey each day is an occasion to be in the role of a Good Samaritan!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Move, Pause and proceed !

I am in a transition from an active professional life involving more than 12 hours of the day to a more structured day with lesser hours of conversations and engagements with people. I have been longing for freedom to choose the events of the day rather than be in a responding mode to engage the situations of each day. 

The walking pace of this Ibis gave me an indication of choosing to move and pausing to proceed. 

During the twenty minutes I watched this Ibis, it moved about thirty feet, changing direction a few times! It moved forward and sideways and not backward!

I observed three aspects of this rhythm. 

It moved slowly looking around and placing the steps forward firmly.

It rested in between, lifting one of its feet and standing on one leg for short periods. 

It moved its head on all directions as if to sense the environment and plan the move. 

This gave me an insight about the way an Ibis moves on the land. It is walking to exercise and find its feed from the ground. It has an option to move by flying. Whenever it chooses to walk, it is slow, steady and rhythmic in movements. 

The calendar and clock direct me most of the time moving me from one activity to another. The events of the day often determine my responses. 

I found the Ibis incorporating a style of pausing to choose the next move, rather than behave by responding to what is around. 

I find in that move an inwardness of sensing and choosing!

Listening from within is an attitude that some people develop by practice. 

They listen attentively to themselves and others. They feel, sense and respond with affect and mindfulness. They convey that spontaneously in their conversations and conduct. They consider before they move and contemplate on what they shall say. 

I was with someone with this inner orientation for a short while yesterday! He refreshed me with a sense of presence. He noticed the wrinkles on my face and wondered whether I was feeling heavy of heat! He sensed how I felt at that time. He smiled and said that 'This too shall be behind soon'! His sense of presence to feel my inner ambience comforted me! It was enough to know that someone felt for me. 

To know and feel near to the inner happenings in our lives is possible when we pause and proceed. From chasing the day, there is an option pausing during the day to 'return and rest' in the inner ambience where God is resting within the turbulence. 

As I concluded the day with the above thoughts, the scene of Jesus of Nazareth sleeping in a boat, while it was caught in storm came to me (Matthew8:23-27). His disciples woke him up by saying, 'Save us Lord, we are perishing'! Jesus rebuked the winds and the sea and it became calm. Sleeping while voyaging through turbulence! 

Sleep is one occasion when we surrender ourselves to the silent physiological rhythm of the body, when our conscious awareness is at its lowest level. No wonder that the turbulence was not an issue of concern for Jesus of Nazareth.  He lived close to the ambience of peace within. His disciples lived close to the turbulence outside. 

The Ibis I watched, moved, paused and proceeded. It was present to itself while negotiating its moves!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

  

Secure a garden; Secure a home for children !

I noticed while visiting a city that the gardens in front of some of the houses were surrounded by walls made of granite stones. It was an unusual sight as that was not the pattern in some other parts of the city. A resident of the area mentioned to me that that part of the city was prone for flooding during rain. The gardens were therefore reinforced with additional protection by strengthening the walls. 

It was while watching one garden from the street, I noticed that gardens provide a lawn and beds for plants and trees. They too need protection. 

The delightful sight was the sight of birds in one of the trees in that garden looking for berries.

While walking past this refreshing sight of how gardens were secured, I remembered how Anna and I had to get the wall of our nutmeg farm rebuilt to secure it from the fury of the rain. The wall had crumbled in three places during the rainy spell of December 2022. It was a difficult exercise with five men working for five weeks to complete this one hundred and twenty meters long and four meters tall wall!

After the building activities stopped it took a while for birds to return to the site! 

The Kingfishers were regular visitors as the stream beside the wall provided them their morning feed. The photo below was of a Kingfisher I spotted in the farm, perched in a coconut palm after the wall was rebuilt!

What was delightful was sighting other birds using the farm, as a flight station in the mornings and evenings. 

I confess that walls do not give an aesthetic look most of the times. It stands out subduing the sights in the garden. However it is necessary for making a garden secure for plants, trees and birds!

As I have begun the preparation to retire from my work in June 2023,  one thought lingers in my mind! 

Have I done enough to spread the message of securing our homes for children!

I have seen families build their houses and make them a hospitable place for adults.

I wonder whether our homes are secure for children! 

As more and more children get introduced to mobile phones, TV, internet and social media, with the volitional choice of parents, even from the first year of life, I have a suspicion that the visual media has become a third parent in most homes! If there is one negative influence upon children during the pre-school years, which would have lasting consequences, it is exposing children to use the visual media at the cost of parents spending time to bond with their children through different interactive times. Even the meal times which are conversation times usually,  have become TV viewing times in many homes!

Secure our homes for pre-school children for them to grow and develop in the ambience of parenting presence, availability and interaction!

That is a gift even more valuable than the money we deposit in the banks for their future education!

What shall profit a family, if they give education to their children but impoverish them without their proximity, affection and accompaniment!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Presence and Movement!

A tree in the season of autumn !

Birds in flight!

The canopy above gives space for presence and movement!

We are SHOWN scenes and sights to remind us of, Whose we are!

For me, such reminders of the presence of God and the movements He causes us to experience in our lives, come at a time when I face a transition in my life!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Shared space for living!

 

The trees above share the root space and the land space and created a wooded space1

Whereas the the single trees below occupy large space and do not share root space and land space with other trees. 

When I considered this, it occurred to me that the economic philosophy of the world is metaphorically related to this two perspectives. 

The socialistic nations of the world advocate and support plurality in the economic horizon supporting and safeguarding the large, middle and small industrialists alike to give space and shelter for everyone to prosper. 

The capitalistic nations seem to have a leaning towards fostering large industrial initiatives as they bring the large chunk of the income!

Th large trees do not give room for smaller trees to come up. Even if other trees come up they are lean and cannot thrive under the snow of the large trees. 

These large trees dominate and survive!

There was an occasion of celebrating democracy in India when the new parliament was inaugurated earlier today. But the opposition parties would have wanted the president to inaugurate the building, but the majority party who rules the country chose to have the Prime Minister perform that duty. I thought that it was an opportunity for the Prime Minister and the President jointly do the inauguration. 

But the majority party decided to highlight and showcase the Prime Minister and his achievements. The ruling party and the Prime Minister won but the democracy lost one of its core values of federalism and collaboration!

The director general of the World Health Organisation in its annual meeting few days ago, warned that another pandemic worst than COVID can strike us at any time. 

We live in uncertain times in a polarised world. 

In India, we live polarised on account of several dividing influences. 

I wish we would be a community of fraternal beings and not become humans against humanity!

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)

 

The Light brings Transparency!

It was while watching the above bunch of flowers in the morning sunshine I had the following train of thoughts!

The sunshine falling on the flowers made the flowers look elegant and beautiful !

But when I noticed how the sunlight filtered by the petals of flowers, made the flowers look almost transparent, I remained still watching this scene in a sense of wonder and inward  search!

The light making a flower translucent!

The light within us makes our lives transparent!

Our interior is not known to others. What resides within us is expressed through our thoughts.  actions and behaviour. 

A confession I came across in the Old Testament of the Bible by the prophet Isaiah, recorded in the Book of Isiah 6: verses 1-7 came to my mind as I watched the opaque petals of a flower becoming translucent to reveal the substance of the petals. Isaiah after having a vision of a Holy God, said to himself: 'Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts'. 

To me, this honest self appraisal, arising out of the illuminating vision he had of God, was the beginning of a new experience for the prophet.  His response at the end of this honest confession about himself was readiness to be led by God, which he announced by saying, 'Here am I, send me' (v8). 

I have struggled with myself about how much of my interior needs to be open before people! It is after I have been able to receive the light of clarity, healing and forgiveness within me, I have been able to share openly my acts of commissions and omission. It is a long journey when one travels in t pathway towards openness. As I discover the dichotomous dimensions in my life where I am different from what I am within, I  realise how long this journey is to become the True Self!

The flower above is only partly known through the first two photographs. It is the third photograph which reveals more about its texture and character of t petals. 

I encountered a challenging situation to the practice of honesty and regretful confession two days back in the evening while driving home. While I was overtaking a parked car, the stationary car moved which resulted both cars rubbing with each other on the side. I stopped the car and noticed that there were marks of that impact without any dent  on both doors of the car. The driver of the other car also stopped. He and his wife, older than me, looked tired and appeared anxious. My first impulse was to ask him,  why he started a car without putting on  the side indicator. But on seeing their disposition, I received a prompting from within to be kind and courteous. Their car also did not have any damage except a superficial scratch. When I said, 'we are safe and our cars are in good shape', the response of his wife, was that they had not recognised that a car was coming from behind.  We greeted each other and parted in peace. 

While driving back home I relived the experience. There is a normal tendency to blame others whenever we are caught in a road traffic event. That was what surfaced within in me as the first thought! But the light within me guided  me to a different approach. 

My thoughts turned to nurturing this inner consciousness to be considerate and thoughtful towards others.  

I felt that a journey into self awareness needs the light from a lamp. I remembered the verse from the Bible in Psalms 119: 105, 'Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path'. I felt encouraged, by this consciousness. My habitual pattern of reading the Scripture suffered during the recent years as I returned home around eight at night from my work place on most days. When a rhythm is disturbed, the truth it normally brings into one's life gets subsumed or faint!

To have the inner lamp provide the light to our path is a defining experience. One becomes more truthful inwardly and that is what makes a person transparent!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Celebrating Friendship!

Recently I had a pleasant experience of witnessing the jubilant and grateful recollection of two class mates, of their time, when they were together for six year for under graduate medical studies.  

Anna was meeting with her after five years. They had lots win common during the time when they lived in the hotel for their medical studies. 

What delighted me was the way they celebrated,  the friendship of those years, with recollections and grateful appreciation of those experiences. The joy with which they recalled the  events in the hostel and in the college. They remembered other common friends and relived their recent association with them. 

It was a joy to see how Anna's friend's daughter shared in the joy of her mother and spoke about the way her mother remembers many events of her hostel and college life. 

It was an occasion to witness and participate in the joy of friendship!

Let me send the flower bunch above, that I photographed from outside Anna's friend's home, to all those, who honour friendship as a sacred trust of respect and mutuality! 

I felt refreshed by the spontaneity and thoughtful ways with which Anna and her fried related and conversed. It was a lesson in discovering the lasting meaning of friendship!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Nuts and Nectar!

I walked yesterday,  along the memory lane of the last forty years, since a decision was made to bring to a close my active professional work of the last forty years, by the end of June 2023. 

The photo below of walking along the footpath with aged trees on one side became a metaphor  while I took time to look back. This footpath I walked a few times during a visit to a city, gave me a feeling of the safety life offered to me along this long forty years of walk in the professional terrain of child development. It was a walk along a narrow path, sometimes lonely and long! The journey was from practicing child development by being located  in  a child development centre to discovering and describing a home based approach by enabling parents for child development practice! It starts from creating a Child's Corner at home

What did I find along this journey!

The photo below symbolises, what I would like to summarise as the  experience of the last forty years. 

The bush below has flowers and fruits in all stages of maturation. I was given the experience of receiving thoughts and ideas which have matured and expanded my horizon to create within me a philosophy of child development. Some thoughts are in a blossoming stage. There are thoughts in a nascent stage, fresh and needing nurture. 

While watching this bush in amazement with its flowers and fruits, I noticed a Lorikeet feeding on its fruit, which was dry an solid. Later the lorikeet moved on to receive nectar from the flowers. 

This fascinating sight of a Lorikeet feeding on the nuts and nectar drew my attention! A Lorikeet needs to bite solids and eat, which is effortful. It also is given  opportunity to receive nectar effortlessly!

To me this became a good summary o fly experiences during the last forty years. There were instances of having had to put lot of efforts to discover and describe the content and contours of a home based Parent involved child development practice. The two booklets, Buds to Blossom and Accompany Your Child published in 2021 and 2022 were the efforts of many, particularly Shalini in compiling them, Anna for editing them and ASHIRVAD for publishing them. They are now in circulation for parents to use. The establishment of Developmental Paediatrics Unit at the Christian Medical College was effortful. 

The two service facilities. currently that exist in the place from where I shall retire after a month, highlight the parent-involved philosophy of Child Development, which were were effortful activities.

 

The first was Early Learning Centre, which prepares parents to have an experience of how a home based developmental support can be created at home.  This six week programme has evolved to be a valuable support for parents, who are ready to initiate their children into an augmented play based experience. 

The second was the Learning Resource Centre, which prepares pre-school children for school readiness. The transition from a home to a school for children is often a season of adaptation and changes. The pre-school readiness involving the domains of social skills, communication skills, pre-reading and prewriting skills, self care skills, etc. get introduced to children. This gives an orientation to parents, of how they can structure the home for transition of their children from home to school. 

Many other events and happening were less effortful or least effortful. Some of the experiences were gifts of love from BMMF international (now INTERSERVE), Christmas Cracker through Dr Raju Abraham, and from friends of ASHIRVAD in different countries. In that context we would remember Dr and Mrs Garlick, Ms Christiana and Gisela, Mike and Sue, Drs Hans and Ago Burke, Dr Rachel Chacko, Ms Hedwig Buchi, Dr A.K.Tharien, Dr William Cutting, Dr V.I.Mathen, to name a few! Some of them have moved on in life, but their acts of goodness still refresh us!

What an experience of GIVENNESS! 

The Nuts and Nectar along life's journey!

This recollection of gratefulness brings a new level of consciousness! The story of our lives are more of Givenness than acquired!

Given to receive and to live with a sense of stewardship!

At the threshold of the start of another season in our life, this memory of all that were given,  as Anna and I journeyed through the narrow path of our professional journey during the last forty years, fill our hearts. The provisions we received create a sense of gratefulness and anticipation!

M.C.Mathew(text and Photo)

 

The Provision and the Provider!

There are times when one finds clarity and direction in a way that enables the decision making! I found a conversation yesterday with the leadership of the organisation where I currently work,  helpful in giving me a direction about the next step as my contract ends shortly!

I was asked if I could design a project to start a school for developmentally challenged children, which was in the air for at least for five years now! I remember submitting four proposals for the future of the facility, to provide continuity of services for developmentally challenged children, during my eleven years at work, the last being a proposal to include developing a schooling facility. For various reasons, the proposal did not move into fruition.

Now I am at the threshold of 75 years and the working hours got extended to late in the evening during the last four years. I needed a break from this pace.  I have had a longing for a while  to modify this schedule to what is more appropriate to ensure wellness and transition to a more leisurely pace in life! So I was not able to accept the proposal to be involved in another spell of planning and developing a facility!

That brings to a closure my association with the organisation I work for now and I look forward to the month of July 2023, when I would be free from my current work schedule and responsibility. 

In fact it brings me to a closure of forty years of journey in developing child development services at Chennai, Nagpur, Vellore, Pondicherry and Kolencherry. They were years of discoveries, leaning and growing. It is a time of celebration and grateful recollections of opportunities families gave me to be involved with them in finding a way for their children who were developmentally challenged. 

I was glancing through my photo library of the recent weeks early in the morning today. The four pictures below of a sequence of a bird finding berries to feed on, held my attention. 

The third photo with a berry between its beaks and the fourth photo of the bird in a ready to fly body posture, gave me a sense of comfort about the provision that I too shall find during this transition time, in my journey into retirement from active professional work. 

What would occupy my attention now would be the writing projects which received in between attention in the last four years. Now it would be possible to revive the writing pace. 

I feel good for having had a conversation with the leadership yesterday and coming to this decision to prepare for the transition!

A bird flies between its flight stations. That is how it exercises to remain flight ready. It tends to keep its wings and feathers dry and oiled to fly! It is this practice of attending to the personal needs and home needs, which suffered during the last four years, since the working hours got extended to late in the evening. 

Now Anna and I would hopefully have time to renew contacts with friends, visit places where some of them work in difficult situations and choose a pace of living that corresponds with our age and abilities. 

I find within me comfort and encouragement for having come to the other side of a stream of long years of profession work!

They were years which brought contentment and gladness! 

I bow in appreciation and gratitude to about one hundred thousand families, whom I would have welcomed for consultation during the last forty years, who trusted me to receive services for their children. Their regards have refreshed me. 

Let me also thank the management of the MOSC Medical College for starting a department to take care of the developmentally challenged children in 2012 and giving ASHIRVAD an opportunity to support the initiative. I leave this responsibility in the hope that it would offer ongoing support and services to children and their families. 

I look forward to the time beyond July 2023!

God would offer provisions for the next phase in life. He is the Provider to whom Anna and I turn to!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

On a cloudy day!

 It was a cloudy day inward and outward yesterday!

As the monsoon of 2023 is only a week away, it is natural to have a few cloudy days ahead. 

It was cloudy inwardly, as I informed the management of the organisation where I work currently, of my desire to end my term of service, when my current contract finishes shortly. 

As I returned to my photo collection, I noticed three pictures above, taken during a visit recently!

One is that of a Magpie perched just before daybreak, when the morning light was yet to brighten the tree and its foliage. 

On that occasion, when I looked below, I noticed a bunch of rose flowers in the front garden of a house. 

When I turned to the garden of the next house, I noticed a single rose flower with its petals partly rolled, suggesting that it had been open for a while. The sun was just rising with its rays brightening the flower from all sides.  

All these images bring a symbolic meaning to me on this occasion when I pare to leave the place where I work after 11 years. They were fulfilling years and had enlarged my understanding more than any other time since embarking on pursuing to promote child development in 1983. The opportunity to promote a family based child development practices happened during this time. The first response to this approach from some families,  who designed a Child's corner at home and used the publication, Accompany Your Child, for home based developmental monitoring of children brought much encouragement. This is therefore a viable model for families, to have a close observational approach to child development of pre-school children. 

As I prepare to move on to a more disciplined writing projects, without working six days welcoming children for consultation, I feel that I am embarking into another phase in my life. It was while seeing the Magpie, a bunch flowers and a single flower, it came to me that a new day was before me, with the sunshine gently showing me the path into the day ahead!

It shall be another phase altogether, in making a greater sense of living with a purpose! 

I find an inner comfort in having been taken through this journey of the last forty years. It was not a journey that I chartered for myself! My interest was to specialise in cardiology and but Anna and I were shown the way into there discipline of child development! 

Anna and I found these forty years as an experience in learning from children and families and turning those insights to bring this Family based Child Development Practice as a contribution to families of developmentally challenged children. The ASHIRVD trust which facilitated this exploration and discovery was supported by friends of ASHIRVAD. We look back with grateful hearts. Now we look forward to live reflectively and intuitively!

It was when it was cloudy, the three symbols above became a path finder!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

A plant, Bud and flower!

Every time I watch a Hibiscus Bud which becomes flower in a fe days, I am reminded of the science of child Development when a foetus becomes a new born and goes on to be an infant. 

The foetus-newborn-infant development, take place in three environments-in the uterus for the mother, birthing place at home or in a hospital and the home environment of the parents. Each of these environments has a bearing on the child development process. 

Of late, my exploration has been to discover the favourable and unfavourable events taking place in this developmental journey. 

A buds does not become a flower until all the influences converge to allow it to happen. 

The coming together of the involvement of parents, Obstetrician and the family members create the ambience for a pleasurable and promising child development journey for a child!

Is it happening in a commendable way!

I suspect that parents seem to abdicate a lot of the responsibilities towards their child  to other  members of the family! This is causing a set back to optimal child development practices !

A mother told me that her children are under the care of their grandparents! I was faced with   a disturbing question! Where are the parents!

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)

The Daily Bread!

The birds fond food for each day. 

They are not in the habit of storing their food for the next day!

They live from the provisions they can find each day!

The fruits in this shrub would last for ever!

I found different families of Lorikeets on this tree during most of the day! The fruits did not seem to diminish!

I found this, similar to what the woman at Zarephath experienced during the time of a famine when she had just enough food for herself and her son. Subsequently,  'The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil becoming empty, according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke through Elijah'( I kings 17.16) !

I carry this message upon me when, while growing older, the normal anxiety of what we shall eat or wear or where to live are questions which can trouble us!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Holding on to the One who holds!

 

It was while editing the above photographs, I made an observation about the experience of vans while they perch on the branches of trees. 

A branch holds a bird by its strength. A Bird holds on to it by its paws. 

This imagery brought encouragement to me. 

The words of apostle Paul, it is in God 'we live, move and have our being' remind us of who holds us in this journey of life!

To hold on, to the One who holds us is in the domain of our responsibility. I remember occasions when I faltered to live in this consciousness. 

Seeing these birds, find security in a branch, by holding on to it brings a new awareness about the way to live!

It is one season in my life, when the security of a job and all the benefits that it normally brings will soon come to an end! That is why this imagery brings a vision about life ahead!

Holding on to the One who holds us!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)