This is the season for Striped Barbados Lilly in our garden. They are blooming in different places in our garden. Thanks to Anna, who planted them in different places during the last monsoon season. There are different species of this orange Lilly. Sometimes I notice the different species in full bloom on the roadsides, adjacent to farm lands.
What surprises me most is about their habitual flowering twice in a year, although they do not receive any special attention. They follow their rhythm.
I realise how my mood and temperament get affected by the circumstances and situations. I feel that the swings in attitudes and behaviour would be to some extent conditioned by the context. This variability might be natural, but, what forms a challenging dimension in adult formation is, one's own inner resilience to live above the storms of circumstances.
I got thinking about it following the story I heard about a daily wage earner who has defaulted in payment of his bank loan. He faces the risk of his house being mortgaged by the bank to redeem the loan. He decided to go for a retreat yesterday to find a sense of direction at this difficult time of his life. Listening to his narration of events of the last four years, I realised that there might have been a slack on his part in repayment. But the harsh realities of a daily wage earner, during the COVID season of two years get ignored. Hw did not have jobs for weeks and lived borrowing for his sustenance. Now the burden of repayment!
Amidst this chaos and distress, he is seeking to live beyond the burden he is under. There are few practical sources opening up before him to find a way forward. His gesture to have a day of supervised retreat gave me a feeling that he is pursuing to find his anchor in God, who is a burden bearer of those who are 'heavy-laden'. The words of Jesus of Nazareth came to me, while listening to him: 'Come to me, all who are weary...'
The flowers above became a symbol to me of God's presence with us in all seasons of life!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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