All the flowers above are in the opening stages. Their colourful presence is a pleasing sight in the garden! How much more when they are open in full self disclosure!
Each of us is also in different stages of becoming open!
Becoming open and present in full disclosure become the natural evolution of the flowers! They bring that offering of their aesthetic and romantic presence in the garden. They become open with nectar and fragrance! The flowers become a gift to the garden for others to receive and take delight in!
How am I present where I am positioned ? I felt moved by this question!
Anna is in the final stage of editing the book, Engage your child, to get it ready for publication. It is a collection of our thoughts presented as a Manual of ideas to help parents to engage their pre-school children through a play based learning at home. The readiness for school is the theme of this book. While working on this book, we felt encouraged by what we can share about our experiences and learning about child development of the early years, which is facilitated by parenting involvement with children. An earlier book, Parenting presence described the role and content of interactive engagement between parents and pre-school children, following which there were some engagements with parents in small groups to explore the experiences and challenges of parenting! The first book on Parenting your child published in 2000, having got out of print we explored concerns of parenting in the digital age in the recent book, Parenting presence.
It was during the last two years when we were engaged in writing and summarising our journey experiences in life, Anna and I realised the influence of others in our formation and becoming process.
As we attend to the plants in our garden, we get reminded of the many who attended to the formative process in our lives. At the funeral service of our daughter Anita in 1981, Rev A.C.Ommen made a reference in his message: 'What this experience might mean to Anna and M.C ? God will guide them into it' ! That is what happened in 1983, when we felt moved to explore child development and rehabilitation. A sorrowful experience became an awakening with a pointer to the future outside our frame of our thinking till then !
The voice within is a good prompt in our decision making. But the voice from outside of us, if discerned well, would have a message that shall alter the becoming process of our lives.
Rev Eva Marie Koch a pastor from Berlin visiting us in December 1983 at the Child Development Centre at Chennai, said, ' You set out on a path that has a future well beyond our thinking..'. She followed up that by introducing us to Christiana and Giesala, two teachers, who formed the Friends of ASHIRVAD at Berlin, to support that initiative, which they continue till now.
In this becoming process, Anna and I feel amazed how that small beginning sowed the seed for child development initiatives at Chennai, Nagpur, Vellore, Pondicherry and Kolenchery during the last forty years.
The buds blossom over a period of time, when plants are tended and nurtured, which is what we learn from our garden.
Anna and I recall all those who invested in us to allow our lives to become what we are today!
We have received in plenty !
We desire to give as much as we are able to!
The becoming is to be an offering !
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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