A Search for Meaning in a Child's Art

A Search for Meaning in a Child's Art 

 Mateo M Rotor, 9 

Interpreted by Dr Abe V Rotor

Sparse clouds floating free in the sky;

how I wish they fall into rain 

on the arid mountain and dying trees,

and not just pass by in vain. 

It's full of controversies, yet rich in meaning;

sunset in midnight, or the other way around;

 a quarter moon with a child happily fishing

  amidst silhouettes of trees and stars falling. ~  

Christmas Season Offering: Mother Teresa Nobel Peace Prize Lecture on LOVE. "We have been created in Christ's image to love and be loved,"

Christmas Season Offering:

Mother Teresa Nobel Peace Prize Lecture on LOVE

"We have been created in Christ's image to love and be loved." Selected parts of Mother Teresa's lecture on peace. Nobel Lecture by Mother Teresa. Oslo, Norway - December 11th 1979

xxx "We have been created in his (Christ) image. We have been created to love and be loved, and then he has become man to make it possible for us to love as he loved us. He makes himself the hungry one- the naked one - the homeless one- the sick one- the one in prison- the lonely one - the unwanted one- and he says: You did it to me. Hungry for our love, and this is the hunger of our poor people. This is the hunger that you and I must find, it may be in our own home.

I never forget an opportunity I had in visiting a home where they had all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them in an institution and forgotten maybe. And I went there, and I saw in that home they had everything, beautiful things, but everybody was looking towards the door. And I did not see a single one with their smile on their face. And I turned to the Sister and I asked: How is that? How is it that the people they have everything here, why are they all looking towards the door, why are they not smiling? I am so used to see the smile on our people, even the dying one smile, and she said: This is nearly every day, they are expecting, they are hoping that a son or daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten, and see- this is where love comes. That poverty comes right there in our own home, even neglect of love. Maybe in our own family we have somebody who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried, and these are difficult days for everybody. Are we there, are we there to receive them, is the mother there to receive the child?

I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given into drugs, and I tried to find out why- why it is like that, and the answer was: Because there is no one in the family to receive them. Father and mother are so busy they have no time. Young parents are in some institution and the child takes back to the street and gets involved in something. We are talking of peace. These are things that break peace, but I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing- direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child- I will not forget you - I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God. And that is what strikes me most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible - but even if she could forget - I will not forget you. 

And today the greatest means - the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And we who are standing here - our parents wanted us. We would not be here if our parents would do that to us. Our children, we want them, we love them, but what of the millions. Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child- what is left for me to kill you and you kill me- there is nothing between. 

And this I appeal in India, I appeal everywhere: Let us bring the child back, and this year being the child's year: What have we done for the child? At the beginning of the year I told, I spoke everywhere and I said: Let us make this year that we make every single child born, and unborn, wanted. And today is the end of the year, have we really made the children wanted? I will give you something terrifying. We are fighting abortion by adoption, we have saved thousands of lives, we have sent words to all the clinics, to the hospitals, police stations - please don't destroy the child, we will take the child. So every hour of the day and night it is always somebody, we have quite a number of unwedded mothers- tell them come, we will take care of you, we will take the child from you, and we will get a home for the child. And we have a tremendous demand from families who have no children, that is the blessing of God for us. And also, we are doing another thing which is very beautiful- we are teaching our beggars, our leprosy patients, our slum dwellers, our people of the street, natural family planning.

And in Calcutta alone in six years- it is all in Calcutta- we have had 61,273 babies less from the families who would have had, but because they practise this natural way of abstaining, of self-control, out of love for each other. We teach them the temperature meter which is very beautiful, very simple, and our poor people understand. And you know what they have told me? Our family is healthy, our family is united, and we can have a baby whenever we want. So clear- those people in the street, those beggars- and I think that if our people can do like that how much more you and all the others who can know the ways and means without destroying the life that God has created in us.

The poor people are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. The other day one of them came to thank and said: You people who have vowed chastity you are the best people to teach us family planning. Because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other. And I think they said a beautiful sentence. And these are people who maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home where to live, but they are great people. The poor are very wonderful people. One evening we went out and we picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible condition- and I told the Sisters: You take care of the other three, I take of this one that looked worse. So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, as she said one word only: Thank you - and she died.

I could not help but examine my conscience before her, and I asked what would I say if I was in her place. And my answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself, I would have said I am hungry, that I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain, or something, but she gave me much more - she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face. As that man whom we picked up from the drain, half eaten with worms, and we brought him to the home. I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die like an angel, loved and cared for. And it was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man who could speak like that, who could die like that without blaming anybody, without cursing anybody, without comparing anything. Like an angel- this is the greatness of our people. And that is why we believe what Jesus had said: I was hungry- I was naked - I was homeless - I was unwanted, unloved, uncared for - and you did it to me.

I believe that we are not real social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of the people, but we are really contemplatives in the heart of the world. For we are touching the Body Of Christ 24 hours. We have 24 hours in this presence, and so you and I. You too try to bring that presence of God in your family, for the family that prays together stays together. And I think that we in our family don't need bombs and guns, to destroy to bring peace - just get together, love one another, bring that peace, that joy, that strength of presence of each other in the home. And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world.

There is so much suffering, so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do. It is to God Almighty- how much we do it does not matter, because He is infinite, but how much love we put in that action. How much we do to Him in the person that we are serving.

Some time ago in Calcutta we had great difficulty in getting sugar, and I don't know how the word got around to the children, and a little boy of four years old, Hindu boy, went home and told his parents: I will not eat sugar for three days, I will give my sugar to Mother Teresa for her children. After three days his father and mother brought him to our home. I had never met them before, and this little one could scarcely pronounce my name, but he knew exactly what he had come to do. He knew that he wanted to share his love. xxx

And so here I am talking with you- I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people. And find out about your next-door-neighbor - do you know who they are? I had the most extraordinary experience with a Hindu family who had eight children. A gentleman came to our house and said: Mother Teresa, there is a family with eight children, they had not eaten for so long - do something. So I took some rice and I went there immediately. And I saw the children - their eyes shining with hunger - I don't know if you have ever seen hunger. But I have seen it very often. And she took the rice, she divided the rice, and she went out. When she came back I asked her - where did you go, what did you do? And she gave me a very simple answer: They are hungry also. What struck me most was that she knew - and who are they, a Muslim family - and she knew. I didn't bring more rice that evening because I wanted them to enjoy the joy of sharing. But there were those children, radiating joy, sharing the joy with their mother because she had the love to give. And you see this is where love begins - at home. And I want you- and I am very grateful for what I have received. It has been a tremendous experience and I go back to India- I will be back by next week, the 15th I hope - and I will be able to bring your love.

And I know well that you have not given from your abundance, but you have given until it has hurt you. Today the little children they have- I was so surprised - there is so much joy for the children that are hungry. That the children like themselves will need love and care and tenderness, like they get so much from their parents. So let us thank God that we have had this opportunity to come to know each other, and this knowledge of each other has brought us very close. And we will be able to help not only the children of India and Africa, but will be able to help the children of the whole world, because as you know our Sisters are all over the world. And with this prize that I have received as a prize of peace, I am going to try to make the home for many people that have no home. Because I believe that love begins at home, and if we can create a home for the poor- I think that more and more love will spread. And we will be able through this understanding love to bring peace, be good news to the poor. The poor in our own family first, in our country and in the world. 
xxx Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society - that poverty is so hurtable and so much, and I find that very difficult. Our Sisters are working amongst that kind of people in the West. So you must pray for us that we may be able to be that good news, but we cannot do that without you, you have to do that here in your country. You must come to know the poor, maybe our people here have material things, everything, but I think that if we all look into our own homes, how difficult we find it sometimes to smile at each other, and that the smile is the beginning of love.

And so let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love, and once we begin to love each other naturally we want to do something. So you pray for our Sisters and for me and for our Brothers, and for our Co-Workers that are around the world. That we may remain faithful to the gift of God, to love Him and serve Him in the poor together with you. What we have done we should not have been able to do if you did not share with your prayers, with your gifts, this continual giving. But I don't want you to give me from your abundance, I want that you give me until it hurts.

The other day I received 15 dollars from a man who has been on his back for twenty years, and the only part that he can move is his right hand. And the only companion that he enjoys is smoking. And he said to me: I do not smoke for one week, and I send you this money. It must have been a terrible sacrifice for him, but see how beautiful, how he shared, and with that money I bought bread and I gave to those who are hungry with a joy on both sides, he was giving and the poor were receiving. This is something that you and I - it is a gift of God to us to be able to share our love with others.

 And let it be as it was for Jesus. Let us love one another as he loved us. Let us love Him with undivided love. And the joy of loving Him and each other- let us give now - that Christmas is coming so close. Let us keep that joy of loving Jesus in our hearts. And share that joy with all that we come in touch with. And that radiating joy is real, for we have no reason not to be happy because we have no Christ with us. Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor that we meet, Christ in the smile that we give and the smile that we receive. Let us make that one point: That no child will be unwanted, and also that we meet each other always with a smile, especially when it is difficult to smile.

I never forget some time ago about fourteen professors came from the United States from different universities. And they came to Calcutta to our house. Then we were talking about that they had been to the home for the dying. We have a home for the dying in Calcutta, where we have picked up more than 36,000 people only from the streets of Calcutta, and out of that big number more than 18,000 have died a beautiful death. They have just gone home to God; and they came to our house and we talked of love, of compassion, and then one of them asked me: Say, Mother, please tell us something that we will remember, and I said to them: Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family. Smile at each other. 

And then another one asked me: Are you married, and I said: Yes, and I find it sometimes very difficult to smile at Jesus because he can be very demanding sometimes. This is really something true, and there is where love comes - when it is demanding, and yet we can give it to Him with joy. Just as I have said today, I have said that if I don't go to Heaven for anything else I will be going to Heaven for all the publicity because it has purified me and sacrificed me and made me really ready to go to Heaven. I think that this is something, that we must live life beautifully, we have Jesus with us and He loves us. If we could only remember that God loves me, and I have an opportunity to love others as he loves me, not in big things, but in small things with great love, then Norway becomes a nest of love. xxx

Mother Teresa Speech (Nobel Lecture Speech, Internet) 

Living with Nature School on Blog - Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School on Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, Evening Class, Monday to Friday

STOP THE SPIRALING PRICES OF FOOD! Build a Homesite based on Bahay Kubo Concept

STOP THE SPIRALING PRICES OF FOOD!

Build a Homesite (Bahay Kubo Concept)

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

This article has be adjudged one of related projects that won the Ist Oscar Florendo Awards for Developmental Communication. 

Home gardening is fun, exercise, and source of food and medicine - and a source of income. Study these models and find out which ones are applicable in your area. Share your experience with the members of the family, school and your community.

This is a floor plan of a homesite you can build, adjustable in area, design and components.  Shift your efforts and finances into an investment, short to long term.  Be healthy and happy with your family.  Learn to live within your means, with less and less food to buy, simple technology, recycling, and many other advantages. Redesign this model to your own situation and need.

These gardening models have been developed from studies and observations of successful projects locally and abroad. They serve as guide to participants and listeners of Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (School-on-Air) to help them in their projects, particularly in times of food scarcity, such as the present situation caused by the El Niño phenomenon.

But even during normal times, these models are useful to gardening enthusiasts, especially children and senior citizens who find this hobby highly rewarding to health and leisure, and as a source of livelihood, notwithstanding. Those who are participating in projects in food production and environmental beautification, such as the Clean and Green Movement, and Green Revolution projects, will find these models similarly valuable.

One however, can modify them according to the peculiarity of his place, and in fact, he can combine those models that are compatible so as to develop and integrate them into a larger and more diversified plan.

One who is familiar with the popular Filipino composition Bahay Kubo, can readily identify the plants mentioned therein with those that are cited in these models. And in his mind would appear an imagery of the scenario in which he can fit these models accordingly.

Here is a plan of a Homesite - an ideal integrated garden around a home in a rural setting. Compare this with Bahay Kubo. Update it. Innovate it according to your concept, situation and needs. Allow innovations as long as these do not lose the essence of the plan. You can even expand the area, adding more features to it.

In effect, this Homesite model becomes a model farm, a Homestead - one that has economic and ecological attributes that characterize the concept of sustainable productivity cum aesthetics and educational values.

Keep track with the development of this project, learn more about its practical methods and techniques, and participate in the open forum of the radio program. Most important of all, share with the millions of listeners your experience with your project on how you made it a successful and rewarding one. Which therefore, makes you a resource participant to Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid. 

LESSON on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School on Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 Evening Class, Monday to Friday

I love to paint fish.

 I love to paint fish 

 Their rich diversity and wide habitat make them a favorite subject of art.

Paintings by Dr Abe V Rotor

Fish imprisoned among the weeds, 

their nests, food and other needs.

Which way is in, which way is out?

a school of fish moving about.

Piggy ride for joy in the deep, 

a mother for its young to keep.

The color red to revere,

to rule the deep by fear.  

 Forest of the sea, forest on land, 

 the Creator's contiguous plan. 

Riddle in hide and seek, 

mimicry of the meek.

Christmas every day among the coral reefs,

to humans, save a Season, the world sleeps. 

 Like cavemen before, fish live in cavern,

allegory of the cave they didn't learn. 

Survival -  bloody, rough, ruthless, yet the rule,

like men, the brave triumphs, woe to the fool. 

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success." - Albert Schweitzer

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success." - Albert Schweitzer

Researched and organized by Dr Abe V Rotor

 

 

"Laughter may be brief and spontaneous, but its effect is lasting."- avr

 Photos taken by the author at the Living with Nature Center,

San Vicente Ilocos Sur, 2022. 

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. Albert Schweitzer (PHOTO)

A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer, faith, courage, contentment, happiness, love, and well-being. James E. Faust

"The only joy in the world is to begin." —Cesare Pavese

"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a daily basis." —Margaret Bonanno

"The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us greatest delight." —Epictetus

"Remember this, that very little is needed to make a happy life." — Marcus Aurelius

"I wake up every morning with a great desire to live joyfully." — Anna Howard Shaw

"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"Happiness depends upon ourselves." —Aristotle

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." -Mahatma Gandhi

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill

"The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us." —Ashley Montagu

"Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it." —Jaques Prevert

"One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats." —Iris Murdoch

“The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only make others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”  - Dalai Lama

Art Expression with Wood, Glass and Rock

                Art Expression with Wood, Glass and Rock

Dr Abe V Rotor

The Unwilling Waterfall

Make the waterfall fluid, though unwilling,

like Dali's Melting Clock;

then down escapes cascading and free,

 today's life is like that. 

Pebbles - Unending Treasure 

Survivors of eons of grinding and polishing

into gems along the stream onto the shore,

I pick these pebbles for my indigenous art;

 orator Demosthenes for his voice culture;

and craftsmen for their source of treasure.

Tree sentinel at a cave's entrance

Once standing firm and proud,

you hid our ancestors' abode 

for generations like shroud -

your demise unknown, untold.

Eyes of a Rocky Cliff

Watchful all night through like an owl,
sacred to the primitive to keep; 

spirit of their ancestors on the prowl,

while the little ones sleep. ~

Reverse Evolution in Man's Hand

                              Reverse Evolution in Man's Hand

“Man has reversed the process of evolution and he has put into his hands the pattern and trends as he wishes, playing the role of his Creator.” - AVR

Dr Abe V Rotor

Reverse Evolution, acrylic painting by the author 2022

1. The world everywhere, from the tundra down to the rich tropical forests, faces unabated threats to wildlife destruction, as human activities continue to defile nature not only of its flora and fauna but of natural habitats.

2. While the target of conservation is the protection of plants and animals particularly those that are considered to be facing extinction and are being endangered, the greater concern of ecology is the protection of natural habitats and ecological systems.

3. On another front of human activities often characterized by man’s quests for the “good life” through industrialization he believes to be the prime mover of progress and development, the production of unwanted by-products threatens the earth’s dynamic processes, Already the emission of gases from burning fossil oil has resulted to two serious consequences; thinning of the ozone layer, and the building up of heat of the atmosphere resulting to global warming.

4. As human population continues to escalate which is going to double the present 8 billion mark by 2025, more and more people now believe that only by heeding the Malthusian prediction that our world may be spared of unimagined scenario of mass starvation and death.

5. On the other hand, quests for new frontiers of science has led us to the fore – unlocking the code of heredity that may soon replace conventional breeding, resulting thus far in the production of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and Genetically modified Food (GMF).

 

6. The other frontier is man’s interplanetary travel beyond the distance of the moon, and for such ambitious adventure, man will have to learn to adjust to life in space and in the planets, he targets at visiting. Interplanetary travel takes years, many years. Into the unknown man carries the environment of the earth in a capsule or bubble. Space biology studies not only the effect on man but to plants and animals as well – some kind of man-made ecological system in space. We have virtually started a new field, space ecology.

Ecological devolution in acrylic by the author

7. If a third world war is to come, what kind of war is it? People are in a quandary, even those who are witness to the last world war and different wars after that. On media, a third world war is really global and the enemy stalks, respecting no boundaries of politics, culture and faith. It will be a war everyone is concerned of – real or psychological, covering the ultimate warfare materiels - nuclear, chemical and biological.

8. On the concept of human habitat, how ideal can planning get close to it has been demonstrated in some models, which is far from the answer of what a human community should be. The crux of the problem is in drawing up a treaty between nature and man. Could this be an alternative to cities and high rise buildings?

9. Terms like ecotourism, ecomigration, ecozones, etc. are jargons often disguised economic programs, rather than ecological in purpose. As such, projects of this kind must be reviewed in the light of ecology rather than economics.

10. Zero waste management is ideal, it is a utopia of a modern world. But looking at the experiences of industrialized countries like Japan, Germany and Norway waste is just another resource waiting to be tapped. Why not? Isn’t garbage the excess of our wasteful luxurious living? ~