As you travel through life,snapshots of moments hit you as you travel along.You capture it or you let it pass.Somethings are worth reminding oneself of.
I have been blessed by parents who have all their lives lived a life of living faith.Their prayers have been a lifeline that has carried them through life.Now when I look back I wonder at their wisdom and the richness of their lives.My mother taught the sunday school and then carried it onwards to teach small kids their first ABCs in the church in the week days when our district had no concept of primary schools.She read us bible stories from small children books and we had our family prayers every night at home.Often you would find dad and mom spontanaeusly share in the course of the day how the Word of the lord reprimended them in a certain course of action.It was never preachy,it was very often shared in a sheepish manner.
The other culture my parents cultivated with great care is entertaining missionaries .We had men and women of God visit and stay in our house all our lives.My mother never tired of hosting them with a certain amount of reverance.
Living in the countryside has it's advantages,we are in very many ways not counting the pennies like the city folks.With very faithful people who served us,some actually life-long we lived ,now I gather a dream of a childhood.I remember us five siblings sitting by the fire in the evening and watching the servants eat the mountain of their meals and my brother doing a running football commentary as they made their way through the pile.We were too young and innocent to understand that they might have been embarrased and they were tired after a days work to care too much I think.
There were two star housekeepers,one served lifelong ,I guess we were his family and the other more than twenty years.One was a brahmin from Nepal apparently from a good family and the other had family members in the oppositte hill but no home as such.Their faithfulness to the family are legendary.Then there were people who came and went,many of whom we never got to get acquainted with. I remember the season for rice harvesting,it used to be a busy time.Host of men and women in colourful clothes used to dance on the rice sheafs in the field.These were labourers from nepal and they made a proper occasion of the event.The place used to come alive with people making rice flakes and I used to be the rare child who loved it and so used to sit with the servants eating it straight from the crusher even as it took shape.My parents used to find it amusing.
Cardomom harvesting time was a time of family gathering.All our cousins from the town used to camp in my hometown to take stock of their own produce.It also used to be a time when we had our family dinners almost every night,picnics and invitations to the house of the sarders who managed our cardomom.We loved the traditional meals in these houses.We used to weave our imagination around different landmarks and spend time with our tenants who would go out of their way to keep all of us entertained.
Thank God,there was no television when we were kids.I remember mom playing the early morning christian programme in radio Ceylon.
I have been blessed by parents who have all their lives lived a life of living faith.Their prayers have been a lifeline that has carried them through life.Now when I look back I wonder at their wisdom and the richness of their lives.My mother taught the sunday school and then carried it onwards to teach small kids their first ABCs in the church in the week days when our district had no concept of primary schools.She read us bible stories from small children books and we had our family prayers every night at home.Often you would find dad and mom spontanaeusly share in the course of the day how the Word of the lord reprimended them in a certain course of action.It was never preachy,it was very often shared in a sheepish manner.
The other culture my parents cultivated with great care is entertaining missionaries .We had men and women of God visit and stay in our house all our lives.My mother never tired of hosting them with a certain amount of reverance.
Living in the countryside has it's advantages,we are in very many ways not counting the pennies like the city folks.With very faithful people who served us,some actually life-long we lived ,now I gather a dream of a childhood.I remember us five siblings sitting by the fire in the evening and watching the servants eat the mountain of their meals and my brother doing a running football commentary as they made their way through the pile.We were too young and innocent to understand that they might have been embarrased and they were tired after a days work to care too much I think.
There were two star housekeepers,one served lifelong ,I guess we were his family and the other more than twenty years.One was a brahmin from Nepal apparently from a good family and the other had family members in the oppositte hill but no home as such.Their faithfulness to the family are legendary.Then there were people who came and went,many of whom we never got to get acquainted with. I remember the season for rice harvesting,it used to be a busy time.Host of men and women in colourful clothes used to dance on the rice sheafs in the field.These were labourers from nepal and they made a proper occasion of the event.The place used to come alive with people making rice flakes and I used to be the rare child who loved it and so used to sit with the servants eating it straight from the crusher even as it took shape.My parents used to find it amusing.
Cardomom harvesting time was a time of family gathering.All our cousins from the town used to camp in my hometown to take stock of their own produce.It also used to be a time when we had our family dinners almost every night,picnics and invitations to the house of the sarders who managed our cardomom.We loved the traditional meals in these houses.We used to weave our imagination around different landmarks and spend time with our tenants who would go out of their way to keep all of us entertained.
Thank God,there was no television when we were kids.I remember mom playing the early morning christian programme in radio Ceylon.
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