The year-2014

 We are about to embark on a journey into 2014!

 Every journey needs preparation and provisions. What have we got for this journey!

Let me suggest that we carry hope as our main stay for this journey. 

In one sense, hope is so real that it can lift our spirit from any sense of despair or self-resignation. A farmer sows or plants, waters manures and tends…he does all of these in the hope that he would be able to gather fruits of his labour. We exercise this hope so many times in a day in so many ways. Every time I sit in the driver’s seat of a car, what sustains my spirit is the hope of safe travel and good arrival. 

I experienced recently how hope can revive a languishing spirit. When I was told in September 9th, 2013, by the cardiologist that I had a heart disease which needed a coronary by pass surgery, I did feel anxious and unsettled. Although I was told that complications are uncommon and risk to life was less than 0.5 percent, I had recurring periods of anxiety till the day before surgery. All the members of my family sat around my bed and prayed to revive my hope. That was when, I felt hopeful of being carried through this valley experience. After the operation, during the stay in the intensive care unit, I felt well and recovered progressively. The speed of my recovery surprised me even. 

I want to testify that hope is what sustains our spirit to overcome because hope is based on the reality of God, who does all things well. It is God who turns disappointments into a blessing and joyous occasion into a transforming experience.

If we can be messengers of this hope, which can never die, as long as, ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, it will inspire some in the year 2014!

I like the hymn of faith of Habakuk, ‘Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labour of the olive may fall, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls- yet I will rejoice in the Lord..’(Hab.3:17). 

A hope that stays in the reality of God and not on the sifting circumstances!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Existential challenges

Anna and I have a pleasant drive each day in the morning and evening, through the quiet country side on our way and back from the hospital. The fifteen kilometre drive which takes about twenty-five minutes is refreshing and tells us a lot about life in a rural setting. 

The rubber plantations have replaced the rice fields which used to be on either side of the roads. Ever since there was scarcity of labour force and daily wage for labourers had climbed up, many resorted to rubber plantation. The rubber trees have normally about thirty years of life and most of the plantations in this region are first generations rubber trees. 

Now the planters have another challenge to face: even tappers are not freely available. About thirty percent of rubber plantations do not produce rubber as tappers are expensive to employ or are scared.

The farm where Anna and I live have tall coconut trees and a climber would need to be paid a fee larger than what the few coconuts would yield when sold. 

None of these existential challenges diminish the serenity and aesthetics of the environment we live. To live close to nature with acres of greenery all around, with no challenges of pollution or congestion is indeed a privilege. We drive each day, seeing only few vehicles on the road. There are no cycles as most people ride on two wheelers. The ‘corner shops’ where people used to gather to sip tea and read morning news paper look deserted. The grocery shops are getting displaced by departmental stores. There is palpable change due to urban influence, which is attracting city dwellers to move to the country side to live and drive to the towns to work.   

Anna and I close this year with gratitude for having been in this environment, where we live among others who are struggling to find their identity. The younger generation is desperate to look and appear modern. They set aside family based value system. Yesterday a lady from our neighbourhood got married and informed her parents about it  on phone, after the wedding.

We are getting familiar with people and situations which we hope would help us to find friends and companions. It is now fifteen months since we have been here. We are strangers and pilgrims in this place. In one sense it is true of many of us. But we can rejoice in knowing that God is our anchor.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Beginning well and staying fresh !

This is the first joint activity which a newly married couple would perform publicly when they come for the public reception. It is symbolically done to wish them ‘sweetness and freshness’ as the tender coconut drink is both of these. So it is a good beginning after having made the marriage woes to care for each other. This incorporates the theme of togetherness and shared living.

I heard an elderly couple sitting next to me, seeing this on the stage,  whisper to each other that ‘It is different after the first day. Husband  does what he likes publicly and the wife does what she wants privately’. This disturbed me. It sounded to me as words of  betrayal of fidelity in marriage. Although I know that there is a four fold increase in the number of couples seeking intervention from the family courts to settle family disputes or seek divorce,  I  live with hope that the majority would practice permanency and intimacy marriage.

What we need to do is to help young couples to choose some symbols that they can recall and periodically exercise between them to refresh the essence of the marriage. One elderly couple told me that it is a custom for them to take half a day in a month to a go to a quiet place to talk to each other about their experiences as a couple- sharing appreciation and affirmation to increase the sense of belonging.  They listen to each other and refer to their disappointments or difficulties. They unburden themselves to each other to make the personal baggage of emotional turmoils lighter. They have a special occasion once a year, when they say the marriage vows to each other and put the ring on each other yet one more time, in the presence of their family of children and grand children. What a solemn way of remembering the marriage journey!

I wish each married couple would choose symbols, gestures and exercises which they can practice regularly or occasionally to refresh themselves with the heart of marriage, which is love and self giving to become ONE.

M.C.Mathew (text ans photo)        

2014- Many children become teenagers!

Yesterday, while being at a wedding reception, a boy whom I knew for a while came to me and said in an exciting tome in his voice, ‘Uncle I will turn a teenager on my birthday in 2014’. That set me thinking of what this brings to his life and thousands of others globally in 2014. I asked him to describe three features of begin a teenager. He mentioned, one word: Freedom. I would have continued the conversation, had another friend not interrupted the conversation!

Let me reflect on the word freedom.

Freedom is  a key word, which defines a teenager. He wants to be set free from the usual restraints, expectations or demands imposed upon him. Many use this freedom and others despise it. 

I remember a teenage girl who once told me about her younger brother of seven years old, who could not speak, walk or attend a school when she was young. She was an athlete, singer, debater, and a painter. She would normally spend most of her spare time in one of these activities for which she had got state level recognition. When she turned a teenager, she asked her parents, ‘Can I withdraw from all these activities for a while, so that I would have more time with my brother’. Her parents let her choose that because of her insistence. 

During the next six months she spent her evenings and week ends with her brother, helping in his mobility, communication and socialisation. She persuaded her parents to let him attend her school in a wheel chair. At the end of two years, he was mobile, communicating and became an active school goer, although with some limitations. 

This teenager sought freedom to choose what she would do with her time. She let go of her interests to make a difference in the life of her brother, who until then received help from therapists coming home to help. They did help the child, but she invested her in the life of her brother devotionally and lovingly. 

Freedom, for teenagers can mean many things.  I wish we can give them an opportunity to choose wisely while we offer them freedom! They can be so original in their thought that, it needs patience on our part to see the opportunity they envisage through their optic. 

Teenagers are a resource and trend setters ! Let us be alive and alert to their instincts!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

Arrivals and departures!

Each of us is through several departures and arrivals each day. When we leave our home in the morning to our place of work and arrive at our work place, a cycle of departures and arrivals would have only started for the day. There will be many departures and arrivals during the day.

One important thing happens at such times of departure and arrival is farewell and welcome. Such occasions are special and personal. We say farewell to an occasion or experience or people we leave behind, while we go on a travel. While saying farewell, there is a precious lot transacted emotionally and experientially. We bring out our best greetings, and affection and communicate them to touch and be touched. I wish we do guard such occasions with reverence and significance!

I remember how Dr. Hans Burki, at the end of a retreat would invite us to take time to say farewell to each person by sharing with each other appreciation and encouragement and even leaving a written statement of memory with each other. Such unhurried times of farewell bring a closure of a time spent together in an atmosphere of gratitude and affirmation, the memory of which would stay with us for long.

The welcome was too planned by him in  a similar fashion by inviting us to share with each other the experiences of the last 24 hours before our arrival to help us to feel connected with each other emotionally. We become known to each other through an optic of insight that others bring to us about themselves, when their vulnerability or joyful experience are shared. We become more than just names, professions we represent or families and places we come from. We open the door into our true self by inviting others to share in the experiences of our lives.

Today begin the last day of 2013, we are about to arrive at the threshold of another year, 2014. None of us can anticipate, what awaits us for this day, personally, as a family, at work place, politically, economically, socially, internationally. But we have a bag of memories of experiences, which brought and change in our lives. They include gains and losses, both of which formed our lives.

We need time say farewell to the year 2013 and welcome the year 2014 gratefully and prayerfully! Many people drown themselves in celebrations, but lose the inner connection such experiences can bring within ourselves and between people.

Anna and I spent a day with Amy's parents, Ruby and Prasad and her sister Eva, last week end. They began the day sitting around the breakfast table to sing, read from the Scripture and pray and closed the day in a similar way at dinner table. We found that as a good way of welcoming a day and saying farewell to another day!

It is recollection and memories which revive our lives and cause our lives to stay fresh in thoughts and deeds.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
      

The life within a family!

During my three months of stay at the Christian Medical college, Vellore following my surgery, I developed an interest to follow the trial of birds who normally resided in the campus. There were four common sites where parakeets occupied the trees. By about mid November, I had begun to notice many getting paired.

The day before, Anna and I left the CMC campus in December, I noticed these two parakeets on this palm tree inspecting the hole in the trunk for its nesting. I found them returning to this site a few times and finally one of them getting into the hole. 

As I watched this, I was glad to have observed the cycle of pairing, courtship, and preparation for nesting. The birds too have their rhythm and practice. 

One thing that stays with me through this experience is the change in the bird song between the time the birds were singing to search for partners and after they chose the partners. Initially  the song was that of the male bird and the females hardly sang. By the time the birds were courting each other, the songs were reciprocal although the females were poor singers. They sang to each other in turn for long periods during the day and this was indeed special to hear. I got up in the morning listening to this. They sang differently when they felt a threat or were romantic. They flew together and looked for food together. They searched for a home together.

These birds, tell us a lot about what is missing in some human families! What creates, sustains and nurtures family life is the way we spend time together in communication. Listening and giving heart responses are essential to upbuild. 

I remember a senior colleague telling me about his habit of going for a walk with his wife, having lunch together at the work place and sitting in the garden together after supper. He considers them as the source of their intimacy. 

The intimacy between husband and wife sets the standards for children for their future behaviour. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The twilight colours!

Anna and I have a regular walk in the evening along a hilly terrain, most of it along the meandering  irrigation canal. It is dusk when we get back after the walk. We therefore encounter the twilight period of each evening, when the fading sunlight falls on the hillside, giving an altogether different appearance to the vegetation. It is breathtaking and engaging. 

The special twilight has three important features. 

It lasts for a short time. Most of the special experiences of life are often short. A three years old child who enjoys his cone ice cream, said loudly, ‘it is over and can I have another one?’ to which his mother said, ‘wait for another occasion’. It is difficult to prolong or reproduce the special experiences. That is why they remain special. Each special experience ought to bring contentment rather than a longing for more of the same!

The second feature of this twilight period of the day is its in-betweenness. It is a time between the day and the dusk. Therefore it is a transitory and passing phase of time. Every time we watch this evening glory of nature, we are reminded of life itself- its richness and transitoriness. So we can live cherishing each day and all the experiences without drifting into any form of anxiety, because, we have, what has been given to us by God of all good gifts.

The third feature of the twilight is its special colour, unlike any part of the day. It is a gentle, visually pleasing and emotionally healing light that highlights the details of the foliage distinctly. The nature comes alive and draws close to us, when clothed by the twilight sun. It is most refreshing to behold.The special experiences are given to refresh us. It delights us so much that we can live devoid of anything special for a while.  

A family who greeted us for Christmas wrote in the mail, ‘Every Christmas is different, unlike the previous one, because we have grown inwardly since then’. All experiences contribute to enrich our lives.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)