5the anniversary celebration !

These pictures from the 5th anniversary Christmas cheer celebration of the department where I work is a telling story of the sense of belonging we have in the department. Just a few of us in our group! But we have a large company of friends in the campus in the student community. While my colleagues prepared the hand made items, the students volunteered to decorate and be present during the sale to help. 

We are still recollecting the fellowship times this effort offered to us. 

Fellowship in work place! Is this possible!

One aspect of fellowship is to integrate the abilities and gifts of people and bring together the efforts to  feel the richness it brings! My colleagues still talk about the joy of walking together !

The work place is also a place for fellowship!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Small is beautiful!

I decided to look for tiny flowers in the garden during one evening walk! These flowers small, but rich in colour and elegant in appearance beheld my attention. Few others also gathered around me while photographing them. 

I was intrigued by the design of the flowers which were common to all the flowers. The flower gives identity to the plant. 

Human behaviour gives identity to who we are. It is not the name, or family background,  or professional standing which provides us our identity. It is our behaviour!

That too behaviour when we are provoked, intimidated or attacked! If there is graceful response to every situation, then we would bring fragrance and delight to others. 

I have struggled with this dimension a lot recently as I have gone through a season of misunderstanding and strain in relationships! Watching these flowers revived my spirit immensely! My behaviour reveals my identity!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

Invisible presence!

There is a strong passion for visibility socially, culturally, economically and behaviourally. Ther tis competition for being seen, heard and valued!

During my morning walk in our garden, I passed this banana plant at least three times. During the fourth round, I noticed a movement in the air which made me look intently and patiently, which is when I noticed this spider at work in creating this exquisite artistic work. It was another time, when I regretted for not having carried a macro lens!

Visibility although is a strong human desire, quiet presence is an inner passion of the contemplatives! This spider in its quiet presence is creating and designing. I almost missed this sight because, my mind was occupied; my eyes captured the visible sights and by habit I walk without being fully present to what is immediately around me!   

Another lesson in this learning journey! It is the inner awareness and alertness which would make a person stay open to realities around. The inner consciousness to take interest in the less visible or not so imposing sights is a habit all of us can develop by a meditative attitude during our daily rhythm- to be present to what is around without being preoccupied or buried within ourselves!  

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Going beyond ourselves!

I watched and followed with interest the movement of this bird family till I located their current nesting place. During an hour or so when I spent doing this, the birds were conscious of my presence. As long as I stayed relatively quiet, they did not mind my presence. I was terribly disadvantaged without a zoom lens. 

What stays with me following this proximate view of the Parakeets is that bird watching is a focused activity which calls for attention, sensitivity and mindfulness of the mood and behaviour of the birds. It is an art of tuning oneself towards the behaviour pattern of the birds and learning to be adaptable. 

We live in an increasingly intolerant society. There is a language of anger and hate in the air...

I returned from this hour of bird watching with a consciousness that the gift we can offer to others is to grow in awareness and appreciation of the needs and aspirations of others. Others are our neighbours and therefore part of us! It was an experience of moving from 'my patterns' to adjusting  to the 'behaviour' of birds ! It was worth following them for an hour!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

The risks in our daily living!

I was awaiting for the white rose flower to blossom, but to my surprise, it was being  being  

eaten away! More than half of another flower was being eaten when I noticed the next day! 

There are risks that we encounter to our daily living experiences! While driving on a rainy day, a scooterist lost control and bumped into the car I was driving. Both the scooterist and I escaped unhurt. 

Risks are a reality!

How do we respond to the risks that we encounter!

We lost the whole bunch of white roses in three days of time!

So there are losses that we suffer from! But another bunch of flowers appeared in the plant in the next few days which last even now!

Life is full of promises all the time. The losses are often blended with gains!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Flowers in the Cactus!

The cactus in the garden flowers once a year but the flowers last for a few months. They remain fresh and brilliant with its original texture from the time it blossomed all through that time! 

I have been thinking of ageing of late as five colleagues retire at the end of this month from the hospital where Anna and I work.  It reminded of me of the time that I too would retire!

A professor in his early eighties is now New Zealand to present a paper in a conference of his discovery of globulins in the urine of patients suspected to have Leptospirosis, much before the antibodies are tested positive in the blood. Listening to his thoughts on his journey of observations spread over two years before he concluded his experiments, I noticed that the spark and freshness in him is alive fully even now!

To live alive to realities around us is a gift that those who grow older in life would need to aspire for! Each day is a gift and is a season for unfolding of the freshness that resides within us. 

This is more of an attitude to life, living and learning rather than conditioned by the chronological age!

It is good to fill our day with thoughts to hep us grow in freshness and renewal! I find that interior silence and outer stillness are a means for that because that is one way of staying connected with God of our lives to experience communion!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Morning dew !

Let me break the silence of the last two months of absence from posting  my reflections on the blog!

As I watched the dew drops on this tender leaves of the rose plant in our garden in the courtyard, I woke upto a new reality that these tiny drops of dew often remain noticed unless one takes time to look at them closely and deliberately!

During the last two months, there were some major life events which consumed my physical and emotional attention. I felt that I had lost my way at one time. I did physically loose my way at Salem Junction, one early morning and drove off on a side road for about 25 kilometres and found way back to the high way by travelling on a unpaved marshy side road. The car got stuck in the slush at one time. Finally when I reached the high way, I paused and rested to rejoice that I found my way back to my journey destination. 

So when I saw these dew drops today morning that I am on way back to life, living and learning after meandering for a while, partly in wasteland and partly in desert.

There are awakenings that come to us in unusual ways.... unusual experiences which appear difficult on the surface are profound events with meaning beneath the surface. 

I would look forward to seeing a bud in this tender shoot in the next few days ! That is its natural history when the rose plant sends our tender shoots after a long pause !

Th times of unusual happenings are times to pause and wait for new shoots of hope to spring within!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)