Yes to life and No to what harms others!

The birds of Sunbird family are the smallest of birds that visit our garden on most days although their visits are less frequent during the hot days. They visit the flowers for nectar. Their arrivals and departures are quiet without bird calls. They feed quickly and fly out to the next station. That is the usual pattern. The above Loten's sunbird is iridescent and attractively colourful with an elegant look and behaviour! 

At another corner of the garden, a female Purple-rumped Sunbird was gathering its nectar ! 

The flowers received an adorable look with the colourful presence of the Sunbirds. In fact, the above flowers get noticed even more, when Sunbirds come to feed nectar. 

It is the nectar that brings the sunbirds to the flowers. The Sunbirds pollinate the flowers to continue the life beyond ! The small Sunbirds sustain the plant life by visiting the flowers. 

In the book, The Time is Now-a call to uncommon courage, Joan Chittister, begins the book, with  questions: 'How do we really get out of the swamp we're in. What else are required, to fix this muddled world?' 

In the chapter on, A word about prophets, Joan asks: "The only question is, Will we take up what we know is our moral and spiritual responsibility: to make the world a better place for all, to bring to life the fullness of creation for all? To help bring about equality, safety, security, and compassion for all? That is where the prophets come in. The prophet is the person who says no to everything that is not of God.

No to the abuse of women

No to the rejection of the stranger.

No to crimes against immigrants.

No to the rape of trees.

No to the pollution of the skies. 

No to the poisoning of oceans. 

No to the despicable destruction of humankind for the sake of more wealth, more power, more control for a few.

No to death.....

The prophet is a one who speaks the truth to a culture of lies. 

And while saying no, the prophet also says yes. 

Yes to equal rights for all.

Yes to alleviating suffering.

Yes to embracing the different.

Yes to who God made you.

Yes to life.

This book is about prophetic spirituality...

It is the spirituality of awareness, of choice, of risk, of transformation. It is about the embrace of life, the pursuit of wholeness, the acceptance of others, the call to co-creation" ( quote ends).

Yes, the Sunbirds were engaged in sustaining the plant life from which they received their nectar! 

This is in contrast to the current painful pursuit of war, destruction and  attempting to subdue others who are different from us. We need political leaders and rulers of nations who are bathed in prophetic spirituality! 

I was reminded while watching the Sunbirds, how they continue the cycle of receiving and giving to sustain the garden life, a prophetic mission indeed ! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

The colours of the morning !

The plants offer their colourful presence in the garden! The parents offer their colourful presence in a home by their thoughtful and endearing habits. The workplace becomes a colourful place when the mindful behaviour towards each other is the way of relating! The life in the neighbourhood of every home becomes colourful because there is a caring ambience towards each other! 

Every morning, as I welcome the flowers in our garden, what occurs to me is that the plants give spontaneously and habitually! Its giving comes from receiving. The soil and sunshine nourish them to give ! 

It is when I water them, deseed the plant bed and provide the nutrients, I realise how our giving yields their giving! 

All relationships grow and fruity by giving and receiving! 

We had an overseas visitor a few days ago, who while visiting India included in his itinerary, meeting us in our home! What a symbol of giving. A brief contact with him about thirty years ago was what made him think of us. He came to recall and refresh memories of that time! 

We receive such surprises by way of visits, messages and telephone calls. Thais is what  makes us feel touched by kindness and regards which arise from practice of giving and receiving. This is  central to all relationships. 

We add goodness and kindness through our being and doing to people that we relate to. 

That is the message from the colourful presence of plants in the garden!

The two flower vases with colourful flowers in our living room make us feel refreshed, because of their gentle and silent presence! The flowers offer colour, fragrance and nectar. They fade away into oblivion, leaving memories that last for a while!

Every home is a garden of life where lives blossom when giving and receiving become the way of relating!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

A communication time!

The above photos of two Bulbuls in our garden, while feeding together   turned a meal time into a communicating time!

The Bulbul who arrived at the feeding station first turned to different directions with bird calls to invite its pair for the meal. From feeding separately from two bowls, they came to tether to feed from the same fruit, taking turns. 

Yesterday, during a conversation time with a family, I was disturbed to hear that the meal time at the home was a TV viewing time. Their child who was three years old had poor expressive language skills. As early as from six months of age, the chid was introduced to feed watching TV. After a while it became a family behaviour. 

Sharing a meal together creates an occasion to be present to each other and to create a communicating time. That was what I noticed with these two Bulbuls. 

The 'machine language' might appear to be entertaining. The 'language of the heart' brings endearing experiences. For children, the endearing experiences are formative and foundational to develop trustful and intimate relationships. For children, such family times offer to experience the family times around a meal as fellowship times. 

A child drifts to be occupied to play alone by two to three years of age, if he or she is not introduced to the experiences of togetherness. This is one of the serious disadvantages of offering children to be occupied with TV viewing or playing with mobile phone. Their social world regresses to an animated world where interaction is replaced with passive entertainment. 

The Bulbuls demonstrated a contrary experience. They turned to each other in between feeding. They chirped to each other and found pleasure in that communicative ambience. The visual, auditory, emotional and social experiences play a large role in the first three years for the social formation of a child! 

The sounds, colours and animations of a visual screen are not what a  child's brain is conditioned for in the pre-school years. But human presence, voice, face, touch and interactive play! 

The Bulbuls above demonstrated that communicative intent during their meal time! The meal  time, becomes a fulfilling time, when it becomes a fellowship time !

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

A morning ritual !

The bird visits to our feeding table have decreased considerably since March due to warm weather. Most birds are no more in the garden during the day. The absence of birds visiting the feeding station from fifty or more to just a few had not occurred in the previous summer months. It is thought that birds sense the forthcoming weather ambience even before the weathermen forecast the weather. 

I noticed that birds spend time more time bathing than at the feeding table. A few of them return to the water bath during the day. 

The existential needs of birds are a few. The heat of the day in summer is hard on some birds !  

We leave at least one banana bunch and a few papaya fruits without  harvesting them during this season for birds to stay in the garden. That too is not helping during this season. 

The climate change has come to stay. It is for us to acknowledge and act on it. The few acts such as suspending the USAID activities and appealing to return to fossil oil instead of populating electric vehicles which President Trump did, as soon as he was in the office, made us wonder about their effects and outcome! 

Now that we lived in a war dominant climate for about two years, and threat of a third world war, I wonder if we treat the 'mother earth' and its inhabitants without any regard! 

It was the habit of Dulcie and Daphne to watch t birds at the feeding station each morning. Now they wait for birds to come. It is their barking which alert me about the arrival of birds.

When I see such fraternal behaviour, I feel awakened to sense the  feelings with which dogs welcome birds. Our dogs were companions to me while photographing the birds! 

I wondered if this Bulbul above was looking stressed yesterday! Its look and posture were different! If, so, it is disturbing!

We would need to shift the feeding station in our garden to a shady place where birds would feel sheltered and comfortable! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

From Trees to Tea plantation !

The Tea plantations integrate well with nature's order. The tea plantations that Anna and I recently visited gave us an introduction to the biological order preserved in the mountains. The forest cover and tea plantations co-exist. The planting and replanting of the tea saplings are an ongoing activity in the estates! The forest cover protects the climate to be favourable for tea plants to grow. The pruning of tea plants and replanting too take place in a planned manner seasonably. 

What fascinated us was the habits and practices of the plantation workers. They know the tea plants and nurture them by pruning, so that there are multiple branches, which make a tea plant to grow in all directions to give it a rounded look. When pruning has been done multiple times, over about ten to fifteen years, replanting might be necessary. Sometimes replanting can be prolonged even up to twenty five years. It is the tea taster in the tea factory who indicates if the aroma and taste of tea have changed, upon which a decision is taken about pruning or replanting. 

The grading of tea leaves after processing is another important step in the marketing of the products. Each brand of tea is a product of its natural flavour and taste preserved by an appropriate processing. 

The details of how green leaves get transformed into what we get to buy as tea leaves from the shop involve a chain of planned activities. They transform leaves to yield tea!

In the book, Ageless Soul, Thomas More suggests that growing up and ageing are two different experiences in life. The growing up is a chronological event whereas aging is a formative process. In the section on The joy of aging in page 8, Thomas More had this to say: " When you open yourself to a transformative experience, whether it seems positive or negative, your soul blossoms. It is born in you again and again. Soul refers to our mysterious depth and substance, what remains after medicine and psychology have analysed and explained us. It is a profound sense of self, far beyond what they call ego, and it helps us to connect with others. The soul offers a strong sense of identity and individuality, but at the same time it includes a felt awareness of being part of humanity. In some mysterious way, we and others share an experience of what it is to be human and we do this so deeply that, according to many traditional accounts, we share one soul"

Such a soulful experience was referred to by Ralph Waldo Emerson as an 'ascension of state, such as can be represented by metamorphosis'. 

The green leaves become tea leaves through the processing from the plucking stage to ready to use tea leaves to make tea! The tea plants too go through a series of priming and pruning to yield leaves that can be used to become tea leaves. 

This is a metaphor of 'human becoming' ! If leaders of some countries still use war to hurt, harm and subdue people, this human becoming process to stay connected with the rest of humanity has got halted somewhere. The leaders of such nations have grown older but not aged to live soulfully! 

Thomas More describes aging in page 5 of the above book: 'When I use the word aging, I mean becoming more of a person and more over time. I keep an image in my mind of cheese and wine. Some get better with simple passage of time. We set them aside to rest until they are ready. Time improves them, an inner and invisible alchemy transforms them and gives them taste and flavour. Human being age in. asimialt way. If you let life shape you, then as time goes by you will become richer, more interesting person... In that sense, your very purpose in life is to age, to become what you are, essentially, to unfold and let your inborn nature to be revealed. You let your ageless self, your soul, peek out from behind the more anxious, active self, trying hard to be successful through planning and hard work".

Jesus of Nazareth told a parable which illustrated this ageing process of human becoming succinctly! That was the parable of the Good Samaritan. The first two who noticed the wounded person passed by to occupy themselves in their work that fulfilled their ego. A third person, a Samaritan stopped to attend to the wounded person and took him to an inn, paid for his care and offered to return to attend to him.  The Good Samaritan lived soulfully because of which he shared his caring instinct with a wounded person! 

That is the aging process! To be able to feel the wounds of others and be moved  to care! 

This is the aging process of human becoming !

The green leaves become tea leaves because of the processing they go through. The experiences in our chronological years prepare us to age to become a neighbour to others!  

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Turn out, Time out and Burn out !

It was while driving up a hill range with 40 hair pin bends, I notched a pattern on the road design.  Almost after every hair pin bend, there is a broad space on one side of the road, which I found out, is termed as 'turn out' space. It is designed to offer space for road travellers to halt and wait as they drive up or down. I noticed travellers waiting at some of these spaces taking a break from the climb or descent. Anna and I too stopped at these 'turnout' spaces four times on the upward journey and three times on the downward journey. It was while halting, getting out of the car and moving about for a few minutes, we felt different and relaxed from the strain of the climb or descent along the narrow road. Even the car needed a break from the strain of being in the second gear during the decent and ascent. 

Such short 'time out' experiences are normal for most of us in our work life. We look for the week end to have a break from the routine of work. Some countries have designed work life to stay confined to five days, and some others to six days. A day off during the week is the norm in most countries. The Saturday work was limited to half a day in all the hospitals where Anna and I worked, which gave us a longer week end for rest, recovery and renewal for the next week. 

I remember two experiences of 'burn out'  during the fifty years of clinical work. The first occasion was in 1982,  following the sudden home call of our daughter during her infancy, when going to work became a drag and a burden. The second was for a season in 1991 when I was longing for further truing in Paediatric neurology towards an  enlargement of neurological thinking. This became necessary to continue  my involvement in child development and rehabilitation. There was no training opportunity in India at that time and going overseas was not an option. Training in adult neurology would not have met my need. 

On both these occasions, I felt work a burden and depleted of energy, enthusiasm and direction ahead! 

In the first instance it was the grief reaction that dominated and disturbed me. During a period of three months, I received help from three senior friends and was enabled to process grief to see beyond and trust in the unfolding of a purpose. It happened slowly and incrementally. 

In the second instance, the respite came from the offer of a three year post doctoral research and study tailor made to suit my needs under the supervision of two Paediatric neurologists at the Institute of Neurology, Chennai. It was during those three years, I was guided in to a new horizon in child development and rehabilitation with an outlook which changed my orientation and understanding of the Neuro-developmental needs of children by tracing the causal pathway for their developmental departure and finding formative pathways for their ongoing developmental prospects.  

The first burn out experience initiated me into pursue child development as a vocation. The outcome of the second burn out experience was recovery of purpose and getting anchored in neurological optic for understanding the developmental departure in children. In fact, Prof. C.U.Velmurugendran who guided me in this process commented when I finished my term that, my 'study and research, led to initiate a  subspecialty of Developmental Neurology at the Institute of Neurology'. 

A turn out, time out, and burn out are normal experiences most of us would go through in our journey of life and discovery. 

I return to the first photograph above. It symbolises the journey of life into the unknown of tomorrows. The mountain ranges ahead offer an invitation to keep moving forward purposefully and trustingly. 

The second photograph reminds me of the turn out, and time out experiences which  one can purposefully convert into supportive and restorative times in the journey of life. 

The third photograph is a symbol of the prospect of sighting a large water body while going through a burn out experience! A burn out experience is a time to look inward; but it is mostly a time to look beyond to see the oasis awaiting when one journeys on! 

How reassuring it is to know that our lives are lived between peeks and valleys, each experience bringing insights and depth to make our journey experience purposeful and altruistic! 

The turn out and time out offer protection from burn out and facilitate recovery process when caught in it. When one has experienced burn out once, the foreknowledge of the risk of it can restore a person to  a pathway of hope and wellness by attending to inner wellness.  

I noticed the Magpie robin above, which was comfortable perched on a cable for its sunbath. It flew away on hearing the roaring sound of a tractor which was approaching the site! 

That was a definite message of a protective step when faced with threatening noise level!

Living safely is the avian way!

Moving out of the emotional terrain of burn out on time is a safe way to stay well!

M.C.Mathew(tex and photo)

  

The differences as diversity!

The first and second photo of cashew fruits taken from the same position seem to indicate that one cashew fruit had double cashew nuts. 

The third photo taken from a different angle showed a different picture of three nuts in three different fruits! 

What we see influence our impressions or opinions. The above photos do suggest that impressions are at best tentative and would need revision by ascertaining facts. 

There are three steps we can take before we form opinions or act on them. 

As all facts are often scattered and sometimes submerged in first impressions, a honest fact finding search is essential as the starting point to form an opinion. 

Ther second step is to verify facts by enquiry, consultation and critical appraisal of what is available. 

The third step is openness to listen and discern an opposite view point before a final opinion is formed! 

There are differences in the morphology of the three cashew fruits above, although all three of them come from a common branch of the same cashew tree. This calls for even greater observation as similar looking fruits have some significant differences.

One trap that is commonly responsible for conflict of opinions is generalisation bias. 

A teacher of kindergarten who keeps a weekly individual journal of each of the 25 children in the class, told me that it takes about three months or more to get to know each child and the different ways they learn, behave and communicate. The teacher knowing the differences attempts to relate to each child in a personal way to make each child feel comfortable and accepted! With her fifteen years of experience, the teacher has developed an appreciative mode of relating to each child without resorting a common approach of instruction or correction. It is an important dimension of helping the formative experiences of children by individual attention and affirmation. 

I thought that the teacher was practicing a relational approach to each child in an individual manner, which even parents fail to practice. A family made a confession in a conversation that during the family time of engaging in indoor games all the three children had three different choice of games. The occasion became quarrelsome sometimes. They resolved the differences by each child having a choice twice a week to choose a game! The differences do not divide or create a conflict if differences are appreciated as inherent nature of each child. It took several months for the parents to resolve the habit of arguments before the family settled to play the indoor game! 

The openness to accept other opinions and consider them create an ambience of dialogue! 

It is often easier to practice conflict avoidance than conflict resolution!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)