Lissy Maruthanakuzhy
Panaji, June 16, 2020: I was shocked to see a tomato plant in our backyard garden broken with its tender stem touching the ground in the heavy rain the previous night. I had given the plant so much of my time and care to help the plant withstand the summer.
As sadness filled my heart, I noticed all was not lost. The plant was still attached to the main stem. It had not broken apart, like the umbilical cord still attached to the body to receive nourishment!
“There is still life though broken,” I whispered as I tied the plant to the stem with some splinters and used a stick to make it stand.
Then followed scorching heat and heavy showers on alternate days I watched the plant gain strength day by day. Within a week the broken stem grew upward. Nature has its own ways to surmount difficulties.
Something inside me reminded me about God’s tender mercy and care. Broken pieces get healed and grow. No handicaps deter God’s plan. It was the feast of Corpus Christ. The day reminds us that nothing can break apart God’s love for his people.
My thoughts traveled back through preschool years. In our nursery school we used palm leaves and white sand (we called it sugar sand) for the practice of our lessons in Alphabet. As I moved into school I had a slate and a stone pencil besides the text book. One day while walking to school alone through the narrow path in the paddy field my pencil fell in to the water. I could not locate it. I stood there not knowing what to do.
Then came a young man, who we called “tender handed Jacob” because his polio stricken right hand hung lifelessly. However the handicap never stopped him from doing anything. Looking at my sullen face, he gave me a coin to buy another pencil and I walked to school. I carry that gratitude in my heart even now. I make it a point to spend some time with him whenever I go home for vacation. His active presence and determination to catch up with life always inspires me.
The man was a regular farmhand for my father. In fact they were like friends. Occasionally he would make a decent house of palm leaves in one part of our land and live there to make it easy to join work in the field.
His bent back, with protruding backbone was a question mark for me as a child. He had a severed backbone as a result of a fall. His life left him to the care of his aged mother. Amazingly, he fought with destiny and came back to normal life. He could do any work, like any other person, my grandmother had briefed me.
He was very kind, patient and loving. He was always there to help at the beck and call of my father. He married a young woman and lived with his six children.
The plant and Jacob remind me that life has many falls, wounds and broken limbs. However, there is this tender, tiny cord that keeps us attached to the life-line God, who continues to nourish us.
The feast of Corpus Christi reminds me about this connection with God. Life is God’s gift and he nourishes, protects, guides, guards it. In our brokenness we stay close to this life-giving cable. God will pass on his living waters through the tiny veins that sustain our life. The wound remains, the pain vanishes; the brokenness is fleeting, but life goes on.
The Body of Christ was broken, wounded, bruised. From the same body came forth a new life that was never to be wounded but to give life to each of us.
The Covid-19 is breaking our lives. Yet we believe the Body of Christ is welding and supporting us.