November 20, 2015, Prescott-  I spent today at Mile High Middle School, here in town.  The classes’ focus for the week was facing prejudice.  The main class had been watching “The Diary of Anne Frank” (2009 miniseries), and finished today.  The Honours classes viewed “Simon Birch” (1998), a film that examines institutionalized, “faith-based” prejudice in a small town. The clever teacher, for whom I was covering, had done a fine job in responding to the events of Nov. 12-13.

My response to those has been engaging in Positivity Week, an annual project of the blogger Cherokee Writer.  Today, I’d like to note my life’s ten positive themes:

1. Children and youth- I so deeply love the younger generations, that helping them build on their personal strengths, and their futures, remains my central focus.

2.  Faith- I am a Baha’i, because of the comprehensive, all-inclusive and forward thinking that infuses every Word of Baha’u’llah’s Writings.  No nation or group need be left out of the World Order, as He envisions it.  It was nice to finally feel like I belonged somewhere, beyond immediate family, and  I still feel it.

3.  Family- My son, mother, siblings, in-laws and all extended family bring me great pride and solace.  That the holidays will find me among many of them offers yet more of these.

4.  Nature- I will elaborate a bit more in the next post, but being in a natural setting gives me all manner of reassurance, that life is resilient.

5. Music- Various genres alternately soothe and energize me.  One of my earliest memories is of marching alongside the Varsity Marching Band, in the Independence Day parade, when I was about four.

6.  Heritage-Both history and lore have fascinated me, since I was small.  Growing up in a town which honoured both Indigenous peoples and settlers from Europe helped engender this focus.

7. Literature-  Fiction and nonfiction alike led me to learn to read early on, and I often had my nose in a book, when others would be watching TV.

8.  Justice- I have been urgently concerned with having the right thing happen, since I was in grade school.

9. Personal development- Largely due to my personal challenges, a major focus of my being has been to own up to, and address, defects and weaknesses.

10.  Mercy-  I have tended to forgive and move on, after slights or mistreatments.  Though I am less forgiving of hurts to children or vulnerable people than I am of injuries to myself, there is still a sense that it falls to the Divine to exact true justice.