I watched this Barbet feeding at the feeding table in our garden! I knew that Barbets are gregarious feeders, but I was more than surprised by its nature to grab more and more food between its bills that it struggled to swallow. It flew away beyond my sight after struggling to swallow !
Some Barbets would even carry a banana between their bills and fly away to a safe site to eat privately.
Most other birds feed from the table just enough each time and return to feed during the day when needed! They feed when hungry!
The Barbets reveal an instinct of greed and possession.
It also reminds me of a self absorption in physical needs and indulgence for more beyond what is necessary!
It is necessary to be protective of one's resources but becoming possessive is a sure way to be possessed by one's existential passion, which is a distorted and reduced way of living!
I find a moving example of how shepherds in the field watching over their flock at night responded to the announcement of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. (Luke 2: 8-20). They went to Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus, leaving the flock behind, probably in the care of others. Their's was a behaviour of reason and wisdom. They were responsible shepherds; but they were also people with an awakened spirit of consciousness beyond the material engagement.
The shepherds in the act of leaving the flock in the care of others and going to Bethlehem allowed themselves to experience the larger reason for living beyond being the custodians of sheep. They sought for a soulful experience of meeting with Jesus, who was the promised son of God to be born in a manger according to the prophecies in the Scripture (Micah 5:2). It was the fulfilment of this, which Luke recorded in his narration in Luke 2:7.
The shepherds allowed themselves to be drawn by an inspiration to meet Jesus, a sure indication of how they readily responded to the call to travel to Bethlehem, without restrained by the care of the sheep!
To me, it symbolises a journey of living responsibly without becoming possessed or immersed in the material realities. The shepherds chose to leave behind the sheep in order to make the journey to Bethlehem to meet Jesus. The song of praise they heard which helped to decide for the journey was, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased' (Luke2: 14).
The Barbets seemed to be occupied with wanting more than they can swallow. The rulers of the nation of Jerusalem want to possess land that belongs to the nation of Palestine. The Russian president wants the property of Ukraine. The American president wants more tax for American goods and would charge large tariffs for goods coming to the USA from other countries. These leaders justify all these obsessive attitudes !
The shepherds tell me another story! It is necessary to be good stewards of our material responsibility. But there is yet another dimension to life, which is to be on journey in life to meet with the incarnate Jesus !
The manger points to the direction where the incarnate Jesus shall be found!
The shepherd travelled from a stable to manger.
Symbolically a stable is a building where animals are taken care of and a manger is a place where they are fed.
The manger where Jesus was laid after His birth symbolises the place of communion, where seekers of Jesus shall feel nourished, because 'Jesus is the bread of life' (John 6: 35, 48).
The stable is a place of security and the journey to the manger is a path beyond . The path is from the position of comfort to communion in the manger.
Most people live in the comfort zone either unknowingly of the manger of communion or deliberately stay rooted in the comfort of current realities and experiences.
The manger experience transcends the best of the experiences of the comfort zone. This is explicit in the way Luke narrated the experiences of the shepherds after meeting Jesus in the manger, 'And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told to them' (v 20).
The life in the stable while largely related to existential experiences, the manger experience is a mystical, transforming and indwelling experience.
A book, Carry Your Candle...Go Light Your World, biography of Drs Abraham Joseph and Sulochana Abraham was released at Vellore yesterday. One thing about Dr Abraham that drew my attention was how Dr Abraham having been interested in child health specialised in that branch in Bombay along with training in Public health after which he returned to work with Dr V Benjamin in community health department of the CMC, Vellore till retirement. It was he who brought the speciality of Epidemiology into limelight in India. Dr Sulochana with her training in Obstetrics and Community health brought a new dimension to obstetric care in the community and introduced Family Medicine as a speciality.
I remember interviewing both of them in 1999, out of a curiosity and a need to become familiar with the history of CMC when I joined the faculty of CMC in 1997. I remember two distinct remarks from them.
The first was that it looked as if they were risking active clinical careers while moving in to public health speciality. But what happened was the opposite. Dr Abraham developed an integrated practice of child health, public health and Epidemiology. Dr Suclochana initiated community Obstetrics and Family Medicine speciality at CMC with an interdisciplinary approach.
The second thing that inspired me about their mission was the way that they caused a new awakening in the Kaniyampadi block about health care by starting the community orientation programme for medical students by exposing them to life in the community for three weeks at the beginning of the medical studies. That is how they initiated a new mode training medical students in community medicine which subsequently became the model for the country and the neighbouring countries. They even got recognised for their innovations from the World Health Organisation, and remained as its consultants for a while to evolve community based medical education plan globally.
(A photo taken in 1999, during my interview with them )
Theirs was a journey from the stable of the secure confines of the traditional approach to health care to sharing the good news of mindfulness to people in the community, arising from their personal journey to the manger of love in Bethlehem.
The Barbet chose to have more food than necessary and got suffocated. The shepherds left the comfort of the stable when shown the blessedness of communion with God in the manger experience. Drs. Abraham and Sulochana leaving their security in the conventional practice of medicine, travelled to the manger of Bethlehem symbolically what the shepherds did physically! They lived their lives in communion with God and in the proximity of less advantaged people in rural India.
The journey is from comfort to communion!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
No comments:
Post a Comment