There is much happening around us, that we maybe often do not notice, as we go our hurried ways about our own ‘busynesses’. My golden retriever companion and I walked by a very poignant and thought provoking sculpture, tucked quite away from mainstream footfall, quite near a railway station… early, spring morning today, on a ‘hubby’s taxi’ train station chore, before our greener walk for the day. It was carved out of grey Scottish granite … one of a scared broken-looking female face, with her affectionate soulmate rock (hubby?) blending into her face from the right (right, as it should be), scarcely with a breath in between, with an arm around her, holding her close & warm. The plaque below showed it was a sculpture sourced from Netherlands, and was named after that favourite Scottish poet Robert Burns’ lines. The faded poem on the plaque started with this line therefrom as Title : ‘O, Wert Thou in the Could Blast.’ From 1984… a very poignant year, from a certain extracorporeal ‘Glenfield’ of memories. I shall leave the reader to ponder on the name, and the year of its dedication. In the backdrop were a sunshine-tinged, blue patchily cumulus-dotted morning sky, some hopeful homeless campers staked out, a bunch of seemingly abandoned bicycles upon a double-storey rack, and more significantly…. the towering glass-and-steel outlines of some mini-skyscraper commercial financial institution. I wondered – about the plight of many families, forlorn – and often the bleak futures and prospects of many unseen around.
Look for it. It is a poignant poem…much worth reading – kindly and yet fierce, altruistic, in its verse – about misfortune’s bitter storms and yet offer of a resilient espousal – a stoic bosom in solidarity, ready to comfort, intercede and ready to let rest upon; like a crag against the wilderness wind… for the needy. I thought of the 5 Spiritual Wounds concept – Neglect, Rejection, Abandonment, Cruelty, Betrayal, and Injustice. Away from all empty religion subtypes, and shallow commerce, to a more real religion with Faithfulness at core – that says: ‘Lo, I make all things New!‘ All curiously on a day of much convergent significance to me? Serendipity?
I bring your attention now back to more Scientific papers yet in context, on the Blog stream – On Neonatology: looking at another little tribe that needs family integrated protective co-parenting from us the ‘society’ of ‘neighbours’, if at all. Vulnerable. At our mercy, if we do have some left over. Among others, look at some studies from China – looking closer at BIND ( Bilirubin Induced Neurological Dysfunction) through MRI tensor diffusion imaging lenses at subtle micro-anatomic clues and perfusion alterations – signs that may warrant more tailored and cautious approaches than complacent ones; validity of certain tests like Procalcitonin (over and above CRP etc, that we chase ) that may help avoid unnecessary treatment and cost burdens, if viewed through balanced, multiple lenses in wisdom; Also a paper on maternal, child and infant situations in border refugee camps Myanmar way – perhaps sparks interest to look at places a bit far away from our ‘comfort(able) zones’ …and seek to simplify our own lives, and generate surplus, to seek equity for neighbour unknown – that the excess of one may bridge the lack of another, neither suffering. I thought of a local religious ‘complex’ nearby, that reconfigured, transplanted a sign twice relocated & repainted, a landscape done over, and a perfectly good wall torn down to aesthetically replace with a ‘fence’…that has begun to look more & more dark in meaning – perhaps like those fences around one of those concentration camps like Belsen or Sobibor, perhaps only sentry towers missing? To keep in, or keep out, or both? And I thought of the cold, shivering, granite couple out there – survival versus aesthetics. Priorities. Symbiosis. Kindness. Good morning all!?
