Flying and Landing

I tried to click this butterfly during its flight and landing on a plant. It was a difficult photography. I was able to get only a side view of the butterfly.

I noticed that it is the body in its front during its flight and landing. The wings assist the body during the flight and landing.

The body is in the centre and is therefore well balanced between the two wings. Its legs and antennae guide the direction and help in getting a grip while landing. 

I have no knowledge of the nervous system of the butterfly. But I guess that butterflies are scent and sight driven. The body, antennae, legs, wings and the sensory functions integrate well for its flight and landing. It possibly happens by conditioning the body through practice.

I watched a pole vaulter at a height of ten feet swinging his body across the bar, while letting go the pole he used to raise himself to that height. All of those functions started with running a distance with a pole held between hands and lifting him to the height with the aid of the pole. It was a spectacular sight. When a player jumps high to shoot a basket during a basket ball game, a similar co-ordination of multiple functions take place in an ultrashort time.   

Our body is a mystery even to ourselves. Most of what we do routinely happens even without planning the steps. We do not have a plan how to brush teeth, but invariable we do it similarly everyday from our sensory-motor memory.

This calls for regarding our body as a bountiful resource. We live in our body. We disregard or despise our body, when we let the body to be a slave to addictions. 

There is an increase in alcohol consumption in the state of Kerala after the flood in August 2018. It is a sign of post-traumatic stress ! 

A priest told me that some families need weekly visit to keep them steadfast to go through the hardships after they have lost their valuables and household articles in the flood!

Where are the volunteers to help people to restore their wellness! People need support during this flight from their grief!

M.C.Mathew(texta nd photo)

On either side !

I was glad to find this bud arrangements in our garden.

I took a walk into the garden after reading about a couple who are distressed about their one year old daughter, who needs a cardiac surgery, for which they need a financial help. Both parents are daily wage earners are losing hope as they have been waiting for a few months now.

The bud in the centre is about to blossom! It has a bud each on either side.

This is a story worth pondering over!

Companionship is the way of living and growing. 

It is this that is less evident in our work place, neighbourhood, places of worship we go to, etc.

The competitive culture makes us less compassionate, considerate and collaborative. 

Who are those who are on either side of us in this journey of life! It is this which would define the wellness we need to go on when hostile circumstances befall us.

Building friendships would lead us to find companionships. 

We would lose some but would gain some others as friendships are often dynamic and volatile! But companionships emerge because of mutual commitment and resolve to stay faithful!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Similar saplings, but different plants.

Both these pants of Ixora (Jungle Jerenium) are in our front garden, planted at the same time five years ago.  

The first one produces larger flowers, but is still a small plant. The next one has smaller flowers but has several shoots.

Although sold to us as similar saplings, perhaps they are of different species from the family of Ixora.

It is by the 'fruits we know humans'. It is by the flowers we know a plant!

Let me tell the immediate conditioning factors affecting the two plants. The first plant is open to the sky and gets direct sunlight. I gives flowers all through the year. The second one is under the shade of two trees and receives sunlight for a short time that too filtered by the leaves of the trees. It has smaller flowers that too only after the monsoon lasting for about six months. It does not receive the optimum light and everything else while staying in the shadow of tall trees.

When one understands epigenetic, one gets a fuller picture of this contrast.  The genetics would determine the destiny, but he environment can modify the outcome considerably. 

I have known children with Trisomy 21doing extremely well when their parents have been lavish to invest on them, where as some others slip into great many difficulties from early childhood.

I feel more or less clear now that our homes are more critical than our genetics.

I feel uncomfortable that there is only little formal teaching to help parents to create a family friendly home.

Although we have a physical setting for a Family Life Centre in the department where I work, it is not operational to offer the family life education!

Family Life Education is central to the unfolding of the prospects and abilities of adults and children!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

From the beginning to the end! Sunday meditation-3

I watched a small green Barbet eat away a Rose apple in our garden. It was its bird song that drew me out into the garden.

I stayed watching the Barbet eat the whole Rose apple and fly away with a mouthful in its mouth!

These are just a few pictures of of this interesting scene!

This was around 11 am, while I was reflecting on the meaning some words which appeared in a article in the People's Reporter, of 25 October, 2018 based on a talk given by  Fr Dr. K.M.George on the occasion of 25th M.A.Thomas Memorial Lecture. Fr George is an outstanding theologian in the lineage of Dr M.M.Thomas, and Fr Dr. Paul Varghese, who later became a bishop of the Orthodox church. All these three theologians represented the eastern thoughts in theology and contribute d significantly to the leadership of the Word Council of Churches. They were linguists and spoke and wrote from a profound knowledge of Greek, Hebrew and European languages.

In this article, Fr George on a sub theme of his talk, spoke about, 'Guest, Host and Hostility'.  The word hospitality comes from Latin, hospes, meaning guest or host.The words like, hospital, hostel, hospice, and hostility come form this root word. So the words guest and host are interchangeable because of its same meaning in Latin. Fr George suggested that, 'this is an ideal situation, where the host does not dominate the guest and the guest is not reduced to the passivity of receiving the bounty of the host. They both contribute, share and participate on a common ground in the act of hospitality'. 

Similarly, Fr George said that the greek word for hospitality is Philoxenia literally meaning, 'love of the stranger, the alien, or the foreigner'. The guest is someone, 'who just drops in irrespective of the convenience of the householder'. Fr George referred to the rule of the St Benedict of the sixth century,  who instructed  the 'monks to consider every guest as Christ himself'. 

So it was an experience of immense meaning to me to find the Barbet feeling at home and refreshed from the Rose apple in our garden. To watch a barbet is a delight in itself because of its adorable body and the well groomed feathers. To have it receive the fruit from the garden is even more special, because it chose to  dissolve the barrier between the guest and host. The barbet was comfortable to share what we have, uninvited!

What belongs to us belongs to the Barbet as well. 

This is how God created us. He created Eve for Adam and both for the rest of the plant and animal world which He had already created. 

All of us are either hosts or guest in our roles at different times. Going by hospes, which makes the guest and host similar or interchangeable in function, there is a calling for us to consider.

Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated it at the last supper. Jesus was in one sense the guest on the occasion as it was the last supper that he would have with His disciples. The guest became the host, when Jesus took a basin of water and a towel to wash the feet of the disciples. He breaks the bread and blesses the vine. 

To me it was a transforming hospitality. Even Judas was given an opportunity to change his plan of betraying Jesus. 

We live with this calling to make our presence and service transforming in effect. God is the source of this transformation when we make others including those who 'betray' us as our objects of hospitality. 

This takes us on an inner journey from hostility to hospitality towards others! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A relay!

It is good to see the relay in nature!

The buds are ready to blossom by the time the open flower shall fade away!

I have been looking at this process of relay in the life of organisations. 

One organisation, where I watched the 'leadership relay' is in the Christian Fellowship Hospital, Oddanchatram.  

During my first visit to that hospital in 1968, I noticed that the leadership of the hospital changed every four years, which to me was an eye opener to the process of leadership development. 

This pattern of rotating leadership among senior people is becoming a pattern in some hospitals. 

The short term of three and half years that Jesus spent with his immediate followers resulted in the disciples being enabled to create history of considerable sequence!

Those whom we think are 'not able enough' for leadership positions would surprise us if we accompany them and affirm their abilities.

As I look back at people whom I handed over my responsibilities in the few instances, they exceeded my expectations. 

It starts by trusting others, creating space for others and allowing their creativity and originality to flourish! 

Practice Leadership Relay!

The quiet and little things in the garden!

What do you look for when you see leaves half eaten!

Larvae! So I found one.

Not too far away from it was an adult butterfly!

Their cycle of life and growth goes on the in garden for many small creatures. Only when a plant is almost eaten up and becomes bare we get to notice them!

Nature is a magical world if we can take part in the small things which escape our attention ordinarily!

We need the mind set of a child who takes delight in everything around him or her in the garden!

It is a Sunday morning and also the birth day of one of our grandchildren! Both of these together make us feel worshipful and grateful! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

The thumbs!

It is now about 20 years since I have been studying the thumbs of children for their size, shape, length, creases outside and inside, range of movement, flexibility, position, etc. 

It all started by an observation in children who were born with weakness of one side or developed weakness after birth, that they had a smaller thumb on the weaker side. This smallness came from disuse of the weaker thumb.

That did raise a question in my mind as to whether differential use of the thumbs also would lead to the thumb size being different from the other!

A child who is right handed would use the right much more than the left! Would that make the right thumb larger than the left! This curiosity made me observe thumbs of hundreds of children whom I welcomed for consultation. Yes, the thumb on the dominant hand is marginally bigger. 

This raised a question in my mind: would inspecting the size of the thumbs help in differentiating children who were born to be destined to use the left hand as the preferred hand!

My observation has driven me to conclude that there are some children who have larger left thumb, but use the right hand. On enquiry with parents, I found majority of them were forced to change to use the right hand from the time they noticed the child using the left hand. So although we ought to find at least 10-15 percent of children using the left hand by preference, in actual practice, it is less than 5 percent!

What happens to all those who were forced to change to use the right hand! It is likely that there is a greater challenges when they write or perform activities of daily living! Some children have even reading or learning related difficulties on account of this. 

Left handedness is NORMAL! 

One hand is the dominant one and the other is a companion hand. Whether it is the right or the left hand which is dominant, it is the one brain which is responsible for both.  

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)