Plentiful !

Since this papaya plant in our garden bearing fruit about six months back, there has been to time it was without flowers and new fruits. It grows and gives plenty of fruits. 

As I have entered the seventh decade in my life, I have often reflected on this way of living! As I grow older do I live more vicariously and generously towards others. 

A family whom I met after a gap of 12 years brought some encouragement. They conversed about the earlier associations we have had. They cared to visit while passing by. It was an act of kindness profoundly significant and revealing. 

I wondered whether I have withdrawn from being generous! 

During a recent gathering, few people with with whom I had lot to do for a few years, avoided greeting Anna and myself on account of some differences of opinion that had surfaced on policy matters of that institution. I too could not travel a second mile journey to greet them! This has been heavy on my heart since then. 

It is for this reason the papaya plant becomes a pointer and symbol to me. The only worthwhile way of being and living is by bearing fruits whether it rains or not!

I have a list of about 150 people to whom I intend to write to share my greetings and regards in connection with my seventieth birthday. Having written to about half of them, I sense how enlarging and growing an experience it has been! We grow only when we bring others into our orbit of consciousness !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

When I paused..! Sunday mediation-4

I heard  the sound of a movement in the tree in front me, while on a walk this morning. I paused to scan the site. To my delightful surprise, I fund the two squirrels in a playful mood!

In less than a minute, they vanished from my sight! 

When do we pause! Its is good to pause regularly by habit. However that does not happen to most of us as we are carried away in to the world of our responsibilities, which often occupy us and fully consume our attention.

Usually it is something that disturbs us which makes us pause!

Following the recent storm when seven trees fell, an electric post got damaged, and left us without power and water for five days, it was a reason good enough to pause. 

Anna and I took time to reflect on our six years living in this cottage. 

One insight we received during the times of of our silence, reflection and sharing was the wellness this place provided for us thus far. Although the house is 80 years old and there is perennial leak from the water canal passing through the compound, causing serious damage to the property, we did not feel the strain of the demanding times. 

Why! Ou lives here have been well interspersed with joyful experiences of abundance in different ways. 

Seeing the squirrels in their playful mood this morning, it was a message of considerable significance to us.  They lived to relate and found pleasure in that!

As we grow older, what Anna and I find refreshing is the way we can grow in being mindful of each other. We restarted finding reading time together in the evening, which is a good way to close the day!

At the heart of our lives, is the opportunity for communion with God, with each other and others in our orbit.  

The Benedictine monk, John Main, in his book, Monastery without walls, wrote something profound in the chapter, 'Recovering our roots' (page 88): 

" The Gospel does not instruct us to choose exclusively, either to work with the poor, or to undertake the contemplative journey. It tells of getting lost in the vast breadth of possibility that its open command of love, lays before us. This is the challenge of the Gospel. Confusion results from evasion of breadth and integration. We find balance as a gift by facing and generously responding to the depth and breadth of the present moment. We do not create the balance from our resources. All is given. We simply have to learn to be open hearted in responding to the gift". 

The situations which seemingly appear to be difficult or delightfully engaging experiences, are both given to us to receive the breadth and depth of them and integrate them for our growing experience to continue. Even this desire to resolve to live contemplatively is a gift of love from God, in 'whom we live, move and have our being'! 

To live with an open heart and mind is our part in this experience of seeking common ion with God!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

An altar view !

This glass painting, which comes alive in the morning sun, placed above the altar at the church, where Anna and I often worship is a master piece of art. The artist portrayed the emotions of each of the four persons in the painting. When art work takes us to the original scene poignantly, it is more than a piece of art- it is a message of great appeal.

Although we have different opinions about icons, paintings, plaques, portraits in places of worship, there are some truths in our spiritual journey, which can be sometimes best represented in these forms.

What moves me each time, as I watch this, is the humanity of Jesus. He suffered like any one of us. We live in a society that abhor suffering and exemplifies success. 

As we kneel at the altar in prayer, Jesus is in communion with all of us who suffer in some way or other  because of which we can return from our prayer time affirmed of His promised presence .

M.C Mathew(text an photo)   

A mother calms her baby!

This oil painting, of a mother with her resting baby on her chest, is looking out into the wide world through the window of the room.

The poise on her look and the baby’s restful face communicate two different messages.

The baby is portrayed like a weaned child, blissfully comfortable and secure in her mother’s arms. The mother keeps the baby safe, secure and warm between her arms, by holding her close to her chest. The baby can feel the rhythmic heart beats of the mother, which is what calms a baby to sleep on the mother’s arms. The baby too reciprocates to this warmth by gently resting her hand on the mother. The mother’s love makes the baby sleep restfully.

The portrayal of this baby is akin to the description of ‘a weaned child resting against his mother' (Psalm 131:2)

In contrast, the extended neck of the mother, eyes wide open looking into the distance  with  a  still  and  searching face convey another emotion in this painting.

Is the mother waiting for her husband to return at the end of the day! Or does she fear facing him and the abuse at the end of another day when he returns home drunk! Does she carry sorrow in her heart about the way she is treated by her husband’s parents! Is she heavy of heart about losing her only bangle left, that her husband’s family want to mortgage during this festival season! Is she weary of all the ordeals and harassment her girl child would face when she grows up! Is she contemplating to be a single mother as she sees no respite from her daily pain! Is she emotionally broken and losing meaning in life and relationships!

Whatever may be her inner world of realities, the painter invites us to pause with her at her cross road! Women suffer silently and therefore we hear of their woes publicly only occasionally.

When I was studying for the course on family dispute resolution, I realised that girl children and women are disadvantaged in different ways. Many almost feel suffocated, because both at home and at work place, they have too many demands imposed upon them.

Yet they are self giving most of the times, because the usual instinct in them is love, care and goodwill for others!

There are paintings which summarise a reality which men do not want to face!

Whatever else might have been the intent of the painter, I was left with these thoughts when I saw this painting!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Secure and Free

I noticed this leaf suspended by a slender strand of the only remnant of a cob web, gently swaying in the breeze yesterday during the mid day walk. It was suspended from the branch of another tree. It gripped my attention and made me stop and ponder.

There was an interruption to the life of that leaf, because of which, before it was fully dry, it got severed from a branch. It was an event which could have landed the leaf on the ground or blown away by the wind. Once the leaf got separated from the branch, it had no control over its  future.

In the process of falling, it got held by  the only left over strand of a cob web. It looks as if the spider was sent to make a web at that place, where this prematurely separated leaf was about to fall! Even when it suffered a loss by no reason of its own, the leaf was not left to suffer the grief!

Being held by a web strand, it is dancing in the wind announcing a mystery!

We live in God's universe, whose 'government is upon His shoulder'. In the midst of all the  natural events that take place in our lives, there is a hope that holds us firm.

The writer of the Psalm 139, David, expressed this profoundly. "If I ascend to haven, Thou art there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Thy hand will lead me, and Thy right had will lay hold of me"(Vs. 8-10). David's meditation on this theme is captivating, as he communicates a new vision of God as expressed in verse 12: "Even the darkness is not dark to Thee, And the night is bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to Thee".

This alludes to a reality that whether we go through easy or difficult times in our lives, they are both alike, in terms of their purpose as intended by God. Those experiences are like the different coloured strands in a mosaic. They are woven together by God of love, who invites us to see ourselves as: 'I am fearfully and wonderfully made'.

I am convalescing after a major surgery six weeks back. The sight of the leaf in this photograph, suspended firmly from a live branch of another plant, brought a new understanding of my own situation. God grants one more opportunity in life to live fully and freely. Some may think, that the strand that holds the leaf is fragile and intangible, but with God, even a slender strand has inherent strength.

The good news is that, we are free to live, learn and serve, freed from the anxiety of daily living. Often an unexpected event leads us to enter into yet another plane of the mystery of this life and God.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Serving Leader

The batch of 2008 of medical students  at the MOSC Medical college, where I work enacted a skit on the occasion of the awareness event on child development, which the department of developmental paediatrics and child neurology organised, in connection with its anniversary of service. 

The scene on this photograph was that of an adolescent boy, seated in a  wheel chair due to the spasticity of his lower limbs, caused by Central Motor Dysfunction. The volunteers who offered to find the way for him to the treatment facility in the hospital, knelt beside him to communicate with him.

I was moved by this natural gesture of the two medical students 'lowering themselves' to be in touch with the boy at his 'level'. They tried to engage him in a conversation, but he was non-verbal. Instead he scribbled on a paper something about his parents.

There are several ways of communicating. Often, the communicator is reaching out to the listeners from his or her level. It is seldom a communicator finds the level of the listeners and start from that level. 

It is for this reason, the incarnational story of Jesus of Nazareth is distinct and inviting. He seemed to reach the level of people naturally by choice. He humbled Himself to be in a serving role. That was His way of leading by example. Some refer to Jesus as a 'servant leader'. I wish, Jesus would be referred to as a 'Serving Leader, which to me shifts the emphasis to 'leading by serving'. 

This form of leading is by descending from one's rightful position to be present to a person at his level. This journey of self giving is for serving and not becoming a leader from the benefit of recognition this may bring. 

Mother Teresa received global acknowledgement for her serving life style; but that did not elevate her to a position, which distanced her from those she felt called to serve. On the contrary she became even more closer to them emotionally and incarnationally. 

A parent helped me to understand the implication of 'stepping down'  when he demonstrated how to crawl to his daughter, who was nine months old. Most parents wait for their child to crawl by themselves. But this parent was ready to lead the child into crawling, by demonstrating it. It was not easy for him. But he was sharing in the experience of his daughter. 

A serving leader joins in to share intimately in the experience of those whom he or she attempts to serve.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The individual and the Collective

This wooden cross in the auditorium  at the Glorious Promised Land,  made me pause and reflect. 

Usually a wooden cross is made from a single wooden piece. The cross in this photo, was made by joining  multiple pieces of finely crafted wooden pieces.

The Christological symbols have a meaning and appeal.

The cross, when made from different pieces of wood represents the message that, 'we who are many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another (Romans.12:5). It is a sobering and inspiring message to all followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who suffer from separation and divisions, while being followers of the same faith tradition. 

The cross also symbolises the 'suffering servant', Jesus of Nazareth who volunteered for a vicarious death on the cross. That cross since then become the symbol of healing in a broken world.

This cross formed by joining together  several pieces of wood is an invitation for all those who profess to be followers of Jesus, to be unitedly engaged in a mission of becoming whole. The whole is formed by individual parts. But if the individual parts are separate from each other, the whole does not come into being. 

Although the different pieces in the wooden cross look dissimilar in colour, design and texture, they create the cross. There will be a mosaic in the whole, if all followers of Jesus can be an assembly, tuned to each other in fellowship and partnership.  

There are differences of opinion in pursuing a vocation, even in small organisation. But a rigid adherence to doctrines or dogmas can permanently keep the faith travellers separate from each other, which keep us fragmented and less appealing, to seekers of truth. 

The individual pieces formed this cross. Each piece of wood would not have made the symbol of the cross. I wish, individual followers of Jesus of Nazareth, would be drawn together with a passion to  form the whole, which then would be the symbol of healing in a broken world!

Agape love is the substance of the cross. Is that the heart language of individual followers of Christ and the congregations of followers of Jesus!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)  

Each person, a light

This illuminated outline on a map of India, was formed by placing the burning candles in an earthen pot  by the graduates of medicine at the Pondicherry Institute of Medical Science, during the Baccalaureate service, held last month. 

Each candle when it was placed on the floor was already casting its reflection on the floor which was an immediate feed back to to the graduates of how their life of service is already a source of enlightenment to others. The flame of the candles was pointing to different directions, while burning, which announced the different roles each graduate would play as ambassadors of healing in a globalised world.

In a metaphorical sense, the earthen pot represents the temporal or the existential and the light represents the eternal or the transcendent realities of life. The temporal would fade away and the eternal would last.

One of the common  comments, I hear about doctors in the general, is that they are drawn by the lure of fame, wealth, visibility, position, etc. They are frenziedly filling their earthen pot and their light has become dim for sight or has already burnt out. 

A chorus we often sing for children is, 'This little light of mine, I a'm going to let it shine, let it shine ..'      I wondered how these graduates would let their lights shine, in a world of seductions, enticements, temptations for resorting to short cuts to success.

Jesus of Nazareth referred to the light, in his discourse on the Sermon on the Mount, which is recorded in the gospel of St. Mathew(the New testament of the Bible) chapter 5.verses 14 to 16:

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp ad put it under the peck-measure but on a lamp stand and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven".

A business executive of Neuro-imaging service, brought me three weeks back, a packet of money as commission for the MRI of brain I ordered for children. When I refused to accept it, he remarked, 'how is that you refuse it when other doctors insist on it!'. The subsequent conversation confirmed to me that there is some truth in the perception that doctors are becoming materially addictive or prosperous driven.

Two medical students who dropped in yesterday for a conversation asked me, 'how can we stay focussed on caring for others, when practice of medicine is becoming all about personal success and wealth creation?'  

That to me was an affirmation that, God of love is at work in human hearts. Their lights would shine forth in the future!

The eternal needs the temporal for its expression. Even doctors need enough of material well being for their lights to shine forth! But the question, is the temporal replacing the eternal!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

Two butterflies

Anna and I spot butterflies occasionally in the garden where the lantana flowers bloom. But we spotted two of them for a long period today. With Daphney chasing them, it took some efforts to photograph them. 

We noticed something interesting about them. They were both determined to return to the flowers in spite of provocation from Daphney. They surpassed Daphney's tricks.

Even the butterflies have skills to withstand hostility in the environment. 

We were taken back by by the ease with which they stayed on in the garden fluttering over flowers.

We felt introduced to another meaning of freedom through this experience. Freedom is not hindered by what may happen all around us. It is an inner state of hope, perseverance and resilience.

Some people are never free even if they have nothing hostile or fear creating around them. They are prisoners of inner fear or anxiety or their past or future.

I sense through my meetings with families every week, that many among them have settled to live reduced lives without sensing the fullness of life, or the opportunities at their door step. But some have triumphed over intimidating circumstances.

There is freedom only when we can live above the constraints of the environment.  

A working mother said that her husband has been battering her for thirty years after alcohol consumption but she remained faithful and formed a fellowship and support assistance for battered women. She averted divorce, suicide and disaster for children. 

I asked her, how it was possible! With tears, in her eyes, she told me in a sober but affirming voice that she kept reciting in her heart a Bible verse she learnt in Sunday School, 'The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want'. Her strength came from this enabling reality of an ever present God, whose love in her life made her a forgiving and reconciling person.

Her husband is currently undergoing de-addiction therapy in the hospital and is already in touch with Alcoholics Anonymous.

These butter flies brought these thoughts of encouragements to our soul.

Aswathy and Anandit are with us during this week end. That brings another wave of encouragement.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Faith is the heart of spirituality

It is faith that give us wings to trust, rest and fly.

The Catholic Church is celebrating 2012 as the year of Faith. Rev. Fr. Tom Kunnunkal, SJ has captioned his article on this theme in the fortnightly, New Leader, october16-31 issue , 2012, as 'We are called to faith and not to religion'. It is an inspiring and instructional article. 

I realised yet another dimension of faith, when I noticed a two year old child coming down the stairs, while the mother was waiting at the foot of the stirs. This child confidently held the railing and descended placing his feet alternately on the steps, while he frequently looked to establish eye contact with his mother. 

Faith is following the ONE who has gone before us and waiting for us to follow Him. The religious rituals  and collective practices of a pilgrim community are meant to be the roadways we travel upon in this faith journey. The roadways are external and faith journey is internal. 

It is necessary to confine the external to be the facilitating the faith journey. Have many substituted the inner faith journey by the external journey!

The inner experience of faith is both a gift and personal effort. It is a gift because 'God first loved us' and brought into our lives the experience of forgiveness and healing to bring us in tune with God's ways in our lives. It is an effort because faith cannot be received as a gift unless we prepare our hearts to receive and nurture it. We need a physical place to keep gift we receive from someone. We need an inner space to receive, keep and appreciate faith which God gifts us in our encounter with Him. We nurture faith in an inner ambience of love with which God embraces us. For this to become authentic, fear needs displacement. 

The child after alighting from the staircase received an hug and kiss from his mother. It was love that made him to make that journey alone. Fear of fall or hurting did not over ride his faith in his mother's presence and love.

The three parables of Luke 15 remind us that we are God's precious coin, sheep, son or daughter, upon whom God's vigilant eyes are permanently fixed. We are conceived through a physical union in the intimacy love, received lovingly at birth and cared for lavishly for our formation. 

It is this consciousness of love that nurtures our faith. Faith is an experience of believing and following the ONE who is leading us into His proximity and presence.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)   

Surrounded by Godly favor

'Tho hast enclosed me behind and before, and laid thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me' Psalm.139:5

While visiting  a botanical garden, Anna and I felt surrounded by flowers that held our attention for a long time. Some were usual flowers and some were exotic and unusual such as this white cactus blossoms. This feeling of being present amidst an unusual sight was rather special. Everything around looked blending with each other to give a look of aesthetic glory.

The psalmist uses a similar allegory of being surrounded by God's nearness in different circumstances. I had a mail from a dear friend, to mention how it was to feel surrounded by God's nearness when he had an angioplasty at a most unexpected time, without any symptoms in the past of chest pain or discomfort. He referred to it as 'unbelievable'. Our lives are full of such unexpected events and happenings.  It is during such times, when we are almost overtaken by anxiety or fear, this experience of the psalmist comes to us as a comfort and assurance.

An 'enclosure' is made to make a place safe and secure.  The enclosure is an announcement that the place is protected and is set apart for a particular purpose. 

We are such people protected and set apart for a purpose. This understanding of God who choose to  'reveal His Son in us' is too much to grasp or consider. It transcends logic and explanation because, according to St. Paul, He chose us,'while we were still in our trespasses'. This enlarges our vision of God and brings into our interior a humbling orientation to confess as Mary said, 'Let it be unto me as you have said'.

It is this a five year old boy said, while climbing a tall climbing frame in the park, to a question by a friend,' are you not afraid'!  He said turning to his parents, that, 'when my parents are with me, I have none of it'. This is an invitation to trust and let go!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Knowing for Loving

'O, Lord, Thou has searched me and known me. Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thoughts from afar. Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down and art intimately acquainted with all my ways' Psalm.139:1-3.

While Anna and I were on a pleasure boat ride in  a shallow lake, we observed the skills of a sporty boatman, who negotiated the boat with ease and confidence. He deliberately swayed the boat a few times to give a thrill of movement and speed, perhaps for the benefit of Aswathy and Anandit who were with us in the boat. After the ride, I enquired of him the reason behind his confidence. He recalled having known the lake for thirty five years and the current boat for five years. He learned swimming in this lake and used to fish here before he became a boatman, taking the tourists each day about thirty trips.  He knew the boat, lake and what the tourists needed.

The way David, who wrote this Psalm, meditates on God's knowing of him, is a revealing truth about the character of God. God was intimately familiar with all that David was part of. David was aware of God's knowledge of his physical activities, thoughts, choices that he made and the happenings in his daily life. This dispelled from his heart any fear of being alone or lonely. One of my frequent experiences with people I meet at work is a sense of loneliness. David gave a strong refutal to this from his personal experience of God.

What  does it mean to be Known by God!  It is an experience of being loved. His knowing of each of us is to fill us with agape, the self giving love of God. Love is an overriding inner experience than, fear, anxiety or loneliness because love offers us a feeling of acceptance, belonging, rest and comfort. 

St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, testifies of love as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, as 'patient, kind..bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things...' (Vs 4-8). It is this Love of God which anchors us when we are swayed by guilt, disappointment, grief, ecstasy, anxiety or fear. God is accompanying us to love us and not to intrude into our lives. He cares enough to wait patiently for our return to respond to His love as portrayed in the character of the waiting Father in the story of the prodigal son. Love holds us together, lest we become fragmented with many inner contradictions. Love offers us the 'balm of Gilead' to heal our brokenness and nurse our wounds. Love liberates us from the pain or set backs of the past and carries us forward to love life and cherish the opportunities ahead.

A five year old boy who cane to visit us yesterday, looking at fish in the aquarium, told me, 'Someone must be caring for them'. God knows us and therefore He cares for us.  

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Knowing and Knowlewdge

SUNDAY MEDITATION

Psalm139:2 and 6

Let me share some  reflections on two phrases David, the psalmist, uses in these verses.

In verse 2, He addressed God, by saying, 'You know when I sit and when I rise' The subsequent three verses are his confessions of his consciousness of God, knowing him and his activities, thoughts, speech and movements.

The first phrase is  GOD KNOWS ME. This is a source of comfort and rest. This knowing that is referred to here, conveys God's intimacy and proximity. David had earlier experienced this reality of God in his life, when he referred to God as his Shepherd. A shepherd is present with his sheep, at all times, day and night, watching, leading, providing and protecting.

One mother rushed to the adjacent room, hearing her child cry. The room was noisy with 15 other children playing. She heard and recognized the voice of her daughter in the din. The mother went to look for her with her out stretched hands and her daughter was received in an embrace. It gave me an insight, on how much a mother is tuned towards her child and discerning of her need even from a distance.'Call to me, I will answer' is a oft repeated promise in the Scripture. David even while facing Goliath, said, 'In the name of the Lord, I go. 'I am always with you..'is an everlasting covenant, that God made with humankind.

The second phrase is MY KNOWLEDGE OF GOD(v.6). David speaks of this as a wonderful experience. God is big and large in Solomon's experience that, while making the prayer of dedication of the temple he built at Jerusalem, he said, 'heaven and earth cannot contain you, how much less this temple'! It is a mystery that humans who are finite and mortal can relate to an infinite and eternal God. There is a limitation to our knowledge of God as humans.

But God is constantly revealing Himself to humankind to enlarge our knowledge of Him. He revealed Himself in nature; He spoke and made Himself known to us through the prophets; He later revealed Himself in Jesus of Nazareth; God reveals Himself in a believer's life through His Holy Spirit. Every believer is on a journey waiting for a deepening experience of God, which then can enhance knowledge of God. Sometimes our knowledge of God is made more real through adverse circumstances. Job's confession at the end of his suffering that, 'so far I have had only a hearing of God, but now my eyes have seen Him..' is a pointer to the reality that God designs our circumstance to enlarge our knowledge of Him.

These two realities, God knows me, and My knowledge of him are like two sides of a coin. They are resonances of each other. This is what gives a follower of Jesus an anchor in all circumstances. We cannot hide ourselves from God and He does not withdraw His loving presence from us.

When Cardinal Basil Hume recollects his childhood, refers to a dream he had later in his life. His knowledge of God as a child was, as one, who watched over him to punish for every bad deed he did. In this dream, he is given a jar of cookies. He looks around and having made sure that no one is watching him, hesitantly puts his hand to take a cookie. Suddenly he hears a voice within himself, 'Son, take one more'. Cardinal Basil Hume was overcome by an enveloping love of God that, He began seeing God as his loving Father from then onwards.

Our knowledge of God needs revision. We can be skeptics; fearful; feeling distant or let down; angry and disbelieving... at best all these can be transient experiences in our lives. God Loves us ought to become a resident reality in our lives.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)  

'I did not deserve it'

'The Lord is good to all, he has compassion on all he has made'. Psalm.145: 9

This confession which, David the writer of this Psalm, makes comes from a deep personal experience of personal walk with God. David had faced attack from wild animals while shepherding the sheep; he suffered from moral fall in his life; there was threat to his life from King Saul; he spent long years in wilderness even after having been anointed as the king; there were many occasions of despair....

None of those terrible experiences get reflected in his personal confession of the reality of God. He is moved and exuberant about God's attribute of compassion. The word compassion is profound in its meaning. It is a blend of mercy, favor, kindness and love. It is to an offender God communicates His compassion. It is the lost sheep, who finds favour with God.

Jesus of Nazareth showed compassion to one thief on the cross who turned to Him for forgiveness. Jesus was moved with compassion on several occasions such as when He saw five thousand people staying on to listen to Him without food, or when a woman was brought to Him by the Jews ready to stone her to death for her immoral life; or when a woman sought His forgiveness by wiping His feet with her tears,  according to the gospel narration.  All these were occasions, when Jesus  acted compassionately, when the situation ordinarily did not merit any favourable consideration.

God, the father is lavish in compassion and slow in judgement. This is the good news, Jesus of Nazareth came to bring. He laid down his life lovingly to reveal God's love for humankind.

Michael got up in the morning fearing a terrible punishment for breaking the crystal bowl, which his father had got as a gift at his university graduation. Instead, his father greeted him with a hug and showed him the mended crystal bowl, looking almost original, with a candle lit inside. His father spent hours at night glueing the pieces together. While the father was doing this, Michael's mother had baked a cake to celebrate the restoration next morning. At break fast, Michael said to his parents, 'I did not deserve this'.

God's nature is self giving. A family setting is the place for demonstrating compassion. That is how one generation can commend God's ways to another (Psalm.145:4).

I am still with Thee

‘When I awake, I am still with thee’. Psalm.139:18. 

There are several passages in the Bible, where, God reminds us of His presence with us, such as in the gospel of Mathew.28:20, ‘.. lo I am with you always, even to end of ages’.

In this confession,  ‘I am still with thee’, the psalmist, David, is introducing  us to another reality. Where  am I when I am awake? Are we thinking or preoccupied with our work, family,disappointments, plans, etc.? We have a tendency to be flighty in our thoughts as many important events and happenings compete our attention.

The waking up time is the most refreshed time. That was when, David used to recollect himself before God. It was his  conscious effort to be centered in God, His love, forgiveness, goodness and guidance when he was awake in between sleep or while getting up . It was his practice to be open to God before he opened himself to work and relationships.  

Becoming present to God who is present with us is an act of discipline before it can become a habit. One practical way to grow in God-consciousness is to develop the habit of ‘centering prayer’. By recalling a word, phrase or a statement,  whenever we remember it during the day, which we found useful while meditating on the scripture in the morning, we allow the inner ambience to return to God centeredness. It is a way of making ourselves tuned to the inner reality of God, who  seeks to communicate to us in silence. This habit of returing to God by our consciousness is way of preparing for communion.

This way of inner recall connects us with the Stream of life, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who said,. 'Any one who is thirsty, let him come and drink ‘!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)