Sunday Meditation

Although, tis picture of a heron is photographically not good enough, this picture gave me some insights about negotiating through difficult circumstances.

It was evening and the wind was strong. The branches of the tall trees on the side of the paddy fields were swaying in the wind. That is when I noticed this heron flying low for a distance and changing its direction as if it was struggling to keep its flying direction. As I watched this for about ten minutes, I noticed that it was the only heron flying, while the others in the flock were on the ground far away in  a secure setting.

It was when I watched the picture of this heron, I noticed three things.

Its feet were outstretched in an angle, which the birds normally do to advance the body forward to maintain the flying momentum. It is one way of giving a thrust to the body to stay balanced, while flying.

The second thing is about the position of its head. It is in another plane above the plane of the body, but held parallel to the body without straining its neck, but held gently in its normal flexed position over its body. A very safe position of the head to have an overview of the vast air space in front. 

The third is about the different positions of the wings. While one wing is flat, the other is held as a hollow facing inward to protect the body from the current of the strong wind. The flat position of the other wing balances it in the air.

I have been surprised by the different body adaptations of a heron to an adverse situation of strong wind. It is living fully even in adverse circumstance, while the other herons were on the land in their safe setting. Those, who have a calling to live in difficult situations can find a message form this heron.

The first normal human instinct in challenging situation is to complain, react, question or withdraw. As I watched the photo of the heron, I was blessed with an insight. No matter, what is around us, there is enough resource within to negotiate through circumstances. So, finding a way forward is a better option than frozen by circumstances.

This comes to us through the promise of Jesus of Nazareth,' I am with you always..' 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Confessions of a child

A seven years old child had several questions to ask but he had a significant confession to make in that short conversation with me. It kept resonating in my heart for a while. 

When I go to school, I am made to participate in the drama, singing, sports, etc. Every time such an occasion arises, my teachers tell me that, 'I MUST WIN'. When we play in the court yard in the evenings with friends, every one wants to score the highest run. In fact, the game gets interrupted if some one is declared out as he would not like to hand over the bat to the other because he had not scored more than his friend. When we play scrabble at home, often I sense the pressure to make the longest word. When we go for an outing as a class, the teacher would say that, 'one who makes the best drawing of the nature scenes would get a prize'. In the Sunday school, it all about memory verse conversation or singing competition. We prepare for this in our Sunday classes. When we receive the progress card showing our grade in an examination, every one is keen to know who got the highest grade. 

Is competition the most important aspect of growing up. Is it so for older people also!

As I heard these comments of a child's observation, I could not but agree with him that adults are competition driven and we pass on this instinct to our children from very early age. The success driven culture is a phenomenon which is driving society today. The market driven economy is based on quality and competition. This has permeated to education, scientific pursuit, social context, etc. 

I was helpless as I did not have any tangible corrective proposal. I told him one experience of another child. He gave up his Christmas pocket money to buy a dress for his friend, whose parents are daily wage earners. He was dressed in an ordinary dress, and not a new one unlike his friends on Christmas day. When his friends heard his decision to forgo his Christmas gift, for the sake of his friend, they were moved that they decided to take the gifts they had prepared for reach other to the children's home, close by, to celebrate with the children in that home. Their parents offered to make a special lunch for the children.

It is necessary to find delight in pursuing the welfare of others. This is the only antidote to self driven competition and success pursuit.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)          

A teacher and a student

Anna has had a special interest in Medical Education Technology and was the co-ordinator of the teacher's training workshops at CMC Vellore, since its inception. After she retired, she continued pursuing this interest and  organised the first workshop of  the MOSC Medical College.

I was a student at this workshop. The last time I attended a condensed course on Medical Education was in 1980.

It was an inspiring experience to listen to Anna making several presentations on Adult education, Feed back, Multiple Choice questions, Teaching-Learning process, etc.  I was excited to discover her insightful understanding of the several skills medical teachers need to acquire to be effective communicators and mentors. The other faculty making presentations on related topics were enabled a great deal by Anna personally, helping them in their preparation, as this was the first one for them.

It was a privilege to watch them function as a team. They related and trusted each other to make the work shop a pleasant experience. The  three day work shop was stimulating, interesting and hands on.  

For me it was an opportunity to be tutored through different experiences, Anna shared with the group and appreciate her scholarship in medical education. The power point presentations Anna prepared and presented had an outstanding quality and content. I was surprised to discover how Anna used adult learning principles in her presentations, pausing for questions and interspersing her talks with exercises, group activities, etc. It was a feast to listen to her.

As I recall Anna's pursuit to become an effective facilitator, I have observed  her enthusiasm, sense of mission and self directed learning. She 'walks the talk', because students during their term in pharmacology felt stimulated that some of them kept in touch with her informally to pursue their special interests in pharmacology. A teacher is known by his or her ability to inspire students. That is what Anna has become to many students.  

What a privilege it was to have been Anna's student in Medical Education technology!  

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)  

  

Turning obstacles into an opportunity

Amy and Arpit gifted this book to Anna on her birthday in 2012. I returned to this book several times during the last six months. 

It is a story of a British Nurse, Janet, who was brought up in Quaker tradition, living in Titmoh, a village in Jarkhand, formerly in Bihar, for ten years to experience the realities people face in their day to day life. 

Janet got deeply involved to create a primary health care for humans and animals in this village. In her attempt to make a difference, she came across the powerful in the society who exploited the weak  and became rich. The money lenders were one such group. 

It is written in a story form, easy to read and to connect with rural India. The stories create anger and shame within us as it is litany of  stories of insensitivity and callousness  of those in authority, whether it is health care professionals or animal husbandry professionals. 

The ten years she spent from 1975 was different as the development mantra that we hear today had not  surfaced in the India polity at that time. People lived at the mercy of a heath care system which was rudimentary in Indian villages especially in Bihar. 

What she left behind when she returned to Britain, was a mud hut in the village, where a dispensary was established with the help of a doctor from Calcutta and several living memories of her insistent pursuit to make a change in the social and health care setting of the community.

The question we often ask is, 'what can an individual do in a system that is resistant to change'? I hear this echoed among the christian heath care professionals working in rural India. Most of the rural hospitals in the Christian hospitals net work are through rough times, of late, with health care professionals disregarding this opportunity. One organisation needs fifty new doctors for its hospitals, but there are only one or two applicants.

Let me commend this book because it revives the call to rural India for partnering with people in their struggle  to progress. The book was published by Penguin in 2005.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

A journey into independence

I enjoy watching children learn cycling, because it brings back many memories of my childhood. Most children would start learning cycling by about three years now, as they would have an access to a cycle at home.

During my childhood days, most children learned cycling by 10 years or later. I started cycling only by 12 years. There were two cycle shops in our village from where we could hire a cycle. Between the two shops, there were two cycles meant for children. There were too many children who would want to hire them. So I was fortunate if I got a chance to hire it when I wanted it. 

It was during one summer holidays I started to learn cycling. I was told to learn cycling in an open ground and was restrained from going into the main road. Once I trespassed and went on the road. I lost my balance while coming down a slope and fell into a ditch. Since then I confined myself to the open ground till I was more confident.

The interesting thing about this  experience of learning cycling was the sense of independence it brought. I remember friends also feeling the same way. Those were the days, when, children lived a subdued lives, often willingly subjecting themselves to the control and expectations of parents. The only teenage indulgence most children had was to go on a cycling expedition with the little pocket money available, to a nearby village or town to have an ice cream or a cool drink. The adventure stopped with this. The thrill was to do this without being found out by parents.

Looking back, it was a necessary activity to explore and grow to be in touch with realities around us. Some, of course would go to watch a film, although I did not do this. I do not remember any of my friends experimenting with smoking or drugs or alcohol. There were few who would have liked to be personal with girls, but it was difficult as the social norms prevalent at that time detested it.

Fifty years later, the teenagers have a different outlook to life. The internet, films and social climate of self indulgence without moral moorings create a permissive attitude to life. Their refrain is,' Life is to enjoy'.

Let me return to my favourite theme. Parents are often detached from the reality of the impact, the social media creates in a child's mind. The average age at which a child begins to use a mobile phone is six years and and eighty percent of urban children own a mobile phone by ten years. They are formed by the opinions and experiences of others in the social media net work.

We need to invent ways of parenting this generation of children so that parents would still have some lasting formative influence in their formation.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)         

Outer space and inner promptings

There are some things we miss, since coming to live in a village in Kerala. That is the sea side of Pondicherry.

One of the regular places we would take visitors when they came to visit us was a sea side restaurant. It was refreshing to sit in the glass panelled restaurant overlooking the sea. Susan from New castle in fact, wanted to visit this place almost every day.

The sea has a therapeutic effect. It brings us closer to the origin of life. It was out of water space the earth was formed according to the Genesis account of the creation story. 

There is a need to return to our origin. We are beings created for a purpose and mission. Life is a journey to discover and consummate it. It would also involve making revisions in our practices and  making confessions 

I realize from the confessions of Lance Armstrong, that any one can lose direction in life and get enticed by immediate gain, success or reputation and live pathologically suppressing truth and violating the integrity of  conscience. What seems to break Lance's heart most was that he lied to his son, now thirteen years, Luke, who used to publicly deny that his father took performance enhancing drugs. It was to Luke, Lance told, first, ' Do not defend me anymore, I am guilty'.

We need space and setting to be in touch with ourselves. Many people find mountains or water shore at sea, lake or river, most suitable to be in touch with oneself. Being in such a setting helps us to feel surrounded by a vastness and beyondness. It is in such a setting of the infinite grace of love and acceptance that God pours upon our hearts, that we are enabled to discover darkness within and move towards the light that shall lead us on. 

Anna and I were firmly engaged in the mission of Ashirvad at Chennai and we delayed any consideration of the invitation of Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1994 to relocate Ashirvad to start a Developmental Paediatrics facility at CMC. Theo Herren, a good friend from Switzerland visited us in the spring of 1995. We spent a long afternoon at the Marina beach. There was a prolonged conversation about this invitation and our reluctance, to which, Theo said, 'A voyager discovers more truth when he continues the journey..'. That was one of the seminal conversations which initiated a change in our attitude, that led us to finally  move to Vellore in 1997. Those fifteen years at Vellore added  a new quality and content to our lives  

It was most interesting to listen to Susan and her own learning and growing experiences and through her moves.   

It was in the sea shore we were made ready to receive a message. Have we found our own space and settings to receive messages that can lead us on in life! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)    

Water resourcing

I had not made the association between frequent sights on the road of loaded motor cycles with water cans and the current water scarcity, till I received a notice from the administration of the hospital where I work that there would be only six hours of piped in water supply in the campus. In fact we have monsoon rains for over six months in Kerala. It is a surprise that we have drought like condition here. 

This motor cyclist would sell all these plastic water cans in one day. People like these cans to gather and store water. Women would use these as head load while carrying water, often walking long distances. They are affordable to buy and last only one season, as they are made of thin plastic. I am not even sure whether it has the prescribed quality meant for plastic vessels when used to store water.

This is what disturbs me. I often notice people leaving the tap running, during brushing teeth or shaving, which would mean that in three minutes of brushing the teeth, they would waste about twenty litres of water. We need only two litres to brush teeth if water  is used judiciously. We would use only two and half litres of water for washing hands if we were to use a mug to draw water from a bucket, where as we would use almost ten litres while washing hands in running water. It is because we do not close the tap while applying soap on the hands.   

We are yet to conserve rain water adequately. It is not a practice even in places where water is needed in large quantity. The rain water gets washed away into drains. It is not even collected for ground water resourcing.

I believe, there is much greater scope to save water if each of us were to change our water consumption practices. Water is one natural resource which is getting depleted fast. 

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)