Category Archives: collaborating

Self-Image

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 12, 2026- Dessert time, this evening, featured ice cream for the three adults, and a back-and-forth laughing contest between Hana and her mother. They made each other laugh, continuously, for about fifteen minutes. The laughter of a baby is always extra sweet.

Hana can now recognize herself in a mirror, and smiles at what she sees. She has also managed to get herself to sleep and can turn right or left, when she gets to a barrier during her scooting. That last has become her preferred self-directed activity, and she works hard at it-even inside her crib. Of course, this makes it all the more imperative for us to watch her constantly. The danger of suffocation is very real, for infants between 3-6 months of age. Hana is ten days shy of 4 months.

So many of us derive our self-image from how well we do our tasks, both assigned and self-appropriated. For many years, I let the expectations of others determine my esteem levels. After doing the best I could for Penny, during her long illness, I stopped worrying about what anyone else had to say. That has led to occasional tension with some family members, but in general, I feel good about how I have completed any work that I’ve shouldered.

Nowadays, my main concern is that Hana feels good about herself, even at her very early age, and that she is able to minimize her frustration at not being able to do everything she sets out to do, as the months and years roll by. She has dedicated, loving parents-and I want them to feel good about themselves, as well. They are proving to be an imaginative and loving family.

True Blue

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 11, 2026- The penultimate speaker, in this evening’s memorial to the late Baha’i teacher, Glenford Mitchell, began by noting that the hour was getting late, and saying he would be brief. He then went on for ten minutes. No reminiscence about Mr.Mitchell could ever be ever be brief, though he himself was the model of brevity, in his talks and speeches. He simply meant too much, to too many people.

I sat for the live-streamed broadcast of this memorial because of the tenor of Mr. Mitchell’s work. An early founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (“Snick”) and co-author of “The Angry Black South” (1962), he became enamoured of the Teachings of Baha’ullah, first taught him by his paternal uncle, in his native Jamaica and coming again to the fore of his heart while he lived in Raleigh, NC as a student at Shaw University. Glenford threw himself more fully into Baha’i work and by dint of his devotion and work ethic, was elected to one Baha’i administrative body after another, serving fourteen years on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States, then twenty-six years on the Faith’s Supreme Body: The Universal House of Justice.

In his later years, Mr. Mitchell’s health declined, but his spirit kept on and he continued to welcome friends and family to his home, even if he could no longer walk or speak. His wife and family stood by him, and saw that his declining years were not those of misery. Glenford Mitchell’s spirit remained true blue-even through his passing on February 7.

Randy Smith, who also passed on recently, served the Baha’i Faith in Washington State and in Prescott Valley, AZ, for nearly thirty years. I knew Randy, and his wife, Linda, as steadfast, long-suffering community servants, in the Prescott area. Others recall the same about them, in the Olympia and Longview areas.Randy was most often found in his shop/garage, attached to the family home. He welcomed neighbours, including youths, who were either interested in his various projects or who simply wanted to borrow tools. He also spent long hours with his grandchildren, either when the family came up from the Phoenix area or when he and Linda went down there for a visit.

Randy was a quiet man, who shunned the limelight, but he was most often the first to arrive at a gathering, and one of the last to leave. Making sure a job was complete was his trademark. If that involved learning a new skill, well, that was a natural outgrowth of his upbringing in Ketchikan, at the southeastern tip of Alaska. Randy was also true blue.

It was my good fortune to have become familiar with Mr. Mitchell’s life and work and to have known Randy as a personal friend. May there more people who show themselves, like the scholar and the tradesman, as True Blue.

Time Frames

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 9, 2026- I was the first person top arrive at Baha’i Feast, this evening. Sometimes, this is awkward, if the host is busy setting up at the last minute, but tonight’s host was gracious and we sat in conversation for several minutes, until the next few friends arrived. As it happened, they dawdled on the sidewalk and steps, finishing their own conversations, before entering. The host opened and closed the door a couple of times, before the friends were ready to come in.

I was raised to arrive on time, preferably five minutes early. On my own, I have adhered to that- and in Prescott, I made that ten minutes early, as many of the members of any given group were transplants from places where “if you’re on time, you’re late” was the mantra. In one situation, a few people decided they would be the first to arrive-and they were, getting to the gathering ( a breakfast) even before the cooks!

In my married years, Mr. On Schedule was happy with Last Minute Lucy. Penny was determined that she would finish what she was doing at home, before we set out for an engagement. That left a few feathers ruffled, over the years, but I always took her side. The punctualists, though I agreed with them in principle, came across like Der Burgermeister- more officious than humane.

Aram has grown to be committed to being on time, simply because,as with me, that strikes him as being courteous. Yunhee is usually ready to also be ahead of schedule. Hana, so far, goes by her body clock and wakes pretty much on time for every feeding, having enough energy to do some activities for an hour, or ninety minutes, after her meal. She is fairly easy to get to nap, when it’s time and sleeps pretty much through most nights.

I still wake with the birds and get to bed well before midnight, each day. The fullness of a day’s schedule, whether caring for my granddaughter or meeting an occasional appointment, is perfectly satisfying.

Scapegoats

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 8, 2026- I recall my father telling me, when I was nine, that President Harry S. Truman said “The buck stops here”, as a point he was making on taking responsibility for one’s actions. I largely managed to stick to admitting my mistakes and taking the consequences, for about the next twenty-five years.

As time went on, and life threw a few curve balls at me, and at my family, I fell into the habit of blame casting: “The politicians” or “Big Money” was responsible for my being let go from different jobs. I saw myself as an honest servant of the common people-and it was corrupt overseers who wanted me gone. That may have been the case, but the fact remains that I didn’t learn anything, or make any progress as a human being, by not owning my part in my own situation.

We seem to have created a situation, in which scapegoating is a national pastime: Depending on who is talking, the nation’s ills are being created by “the Democrats”; “the Republicans”; “drug cartels”; “immigrants”; “Fascists”; “Communists”; “Californians”; “New Yorkers”; “Texans”; “Europeans”; “the Chinese”; “Sleepy Joe”; “MAGA”.

My late father-in-law had a simple cure for my own blame-casting “No one is that powerful. Besides, even if there was a person who contributed to your being let go, you bear the ultimate responsibility. You don’t live rent free in anyone’s head. Why let them squat in yours?”:

Each of us can identify people who contribute to the nation’s well-being, or to the nation’s ills. In the end, though, how we fare depends on the actions of the citizenry as a whole. Scapegoats, as my FIL said, are little more than squatters.

Sanity Prevails-For Now

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 7, 2026- The only possible solution to the current stalemate in and around Iran has been reached-for now. Personally, I am most concerned for the safety and well-being of my fellow Baha’is in that country. They have, since the proclamation of the Babi Faith, in the days of the Qajar Dynasty, been relentlessly persecuted by the Shiite Muslim clergy and by elements of the government. This was as true during the Pahlavi Dynasty of the mid-Twentieth Century as it was earlier. The Islamic Republic has upped the level of persecution, to the extent of desecrating Baha’i graves, banning Baha’i marriages and refusing to let children of Baha’is receive an education, past eighth grade-if even for that long. Many Baha’is have been imprisoned, and several executed.

That said, the way to reversing the waves of prejudice against my fellows in Faith doe snot lie in “an eye for an eye” or “bombing the country back into the Stone Age”. ( Iran was a highly civilized place when much of western Europe was still a land of hunter/gatherers and North America was mostly settled and a place of organized agricultural communities, but not yet of classical, nation-based civilization.) Baha’is take the position that only consultation and equanimity can resolve the various conflicts, large and small, around the globe.

One of the tenets of the Baha’i Faith is to “regard the Earth as but one country and mankind its citizens.” This is accepted, in principle, by a good many people around the world. Some go back, though, to “What about national sovereignty?” or “Clean up your own back yard”, when I have raised this in the past. I say we can, and should, be concerned at all levels. Indeed, my most elemental concerns are for my own health and well-being, then for my granddaughter and her parents, and on up the family ladder. Neighbourhood, community, state, nation and planet do not, however, get short shrift. We all share the air, water and mineral resources.

The various leaders, when they take a break from screaming and yelling at one another, can surely bear witness to this reality.

Messy

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 6, 2026- Babies can be messy. They need to be bathed, have their diapers changed, undersides cleaned, faces washed and mouths rinsed with pre-dental solution.

Children can be messy. They need to be taught to take their shoes or boots off, when entering a house, or wipe their feet, when entering a public place. They need to be trained to wipe themselves after using a toilet, and wash their hands afterward, then dry them with a cloth or paper towel. They need to be shown how to make their beds and clean their rooms, putting things back where they found them.

Teenagers can be messy. They need to be held to account and actively encouraged to slow down and be present in a situation. They know how to focus on others; they do so with their friends, all the time. Extend that focus to people older and younger than themselves.

Families can be messy. Patience and communication are the cleaning agents. So is reflection-remembering when one was in the same position as the one who made the mess, or looking ahead to when one will be in the same position. The child will become an adult, and very well may be a parent. The parent may very well become a grandparent. The grandparent must never forget what it was like to be a baby, a child, a teenager, a parent.

Communities, and organizations, can be messy. Patience, and communication, are even more essential here, even as they become more complex. Technology can help, and it can also hinder; the way in which it is used determines which will be the case. The viewpoints of leaders, and members, will decide how tools, including technology, are used.

Life is messy; it can only be cleaned by those living it.

Still Afloat

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 4, 2026- I have always been a bit on the sensitive side. There have been a number of occasions when that sensitivity took the form of self- absorption, bristling at criticism-even when I knew, deep down, that the critic was onto something. Those were the times when my personal growth was short-circuited/

There were long stretches of my life, when I searched for someone who was as worthy of my love as my mother was. Indeed, it’s often said that a man marries his mother, and a woman, her father. My marriage to Penny did neither. Save for the fact that they each had a pleasant singing voice, Penny was nothing like my Mom. I, in turn, was nothing like her Dad. We were drawn together by Faith, a mutual love of learning, and a commitment to better the world. We fell truly in love, only gradually.

A lot of that was on me-the self-contained unit, who had to learn to consult with her about even those things that seemed, to me, to be self-evident. With time, and the resurgence of her congenital disease, I plowed through, and past, a number of personal flaws and reached a modicum of stability. Being a caretaker does that to one who survives.

She passed to the spirit world, in 2011. Since then, a number of people have come into my life. Those, both women and men, who recognized my strengths and weaknesses, and focused on the former, are still in my life. Those who chose to dwell on the latter, especially those who tried to take advantage of those weaknesses, are long gone.

I built a good life in Prescott, and a strong network across North America, and on opposite ends of the world. That network stays in place, even as my life has shifted to Plano, and my immediate focus is on my family-especially on my little granddaughter. I am still afloat on the sea of life, even during this time of wider storms.

Happy Easter and Joyous Passover, everyone!

Restoration

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 2, 2026- I watched an episode of “Chicago PD’ on restorative justice, this evening. Like all procedurals, this one took some twists and turns, but ended up with the back story of the attempt at restorative justice. The offender was killed, as it turned out, by his actual victim.

It became another case of a woman killing her male assailant. The police did everything they could, to advise the young woman and prepare her for what she might face in the correctional facility, pending trial. The story reflected what is an all too common occurrence in criminal law: A battered woman, or girl, fights back and either maims or kills, in self-defense. The legal system puts an emphasis on the “rights” of the male and puts the full burden on the female.

There are two aspects to this phenomenon that I would like to address here. First, there is an overemphasis, in popular culture and in its attendant media, on the physicality of human existence. The physical attributes of a human being are stressed, and become the initial basis for a relationship. Men feel pressured to “score” with attractive women. Women are held to a certain standard, from which deviation is grounds for various sanctions. Most of us have been there, to one degree or another.

We are though, at our core, spiritual beings. The most enduring relationships are always those that are rooted in a spiritual bond. Physical attractiveness is bound to fade, at one point or another. It is no mistake that the “ties that bind” are always based on the “inside” aspect of “beautiful, inside and out.” In my own life, I probably felt closer to my late wife in the time of her physical decline than in our earlier years together. The inner beauty never faded, but became clearer, as her life edged towards a close.

The second aspect is derived from patriarchy. The idea that men and women have set roles to play in the course of society, and there should be no deviation from those roles, is the mark of a culture that is hemmed in by its own hand-and is hoist of its own petard. It penalizes females who don’t play by the rules, which are, essentially, that there are separate codes for men and women to follow. In its worst form, women are categorized as property of a male. Men, from heads of family to pimps, have used this to maintain an inordinate amount of control over the women and girls in their midst.

A society, in which the unique gifts of every human being are valued and celebrated, will not continue to let such an unbalanced system continue to rule the conduct of daily affairs. Replacing patriarchy with equanimity is the only way out of the box in which we have, as a society, imprisoned ourselves.

A Day Without Foolishness

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 1, 2026- It was calm here today. Aram and Yunhee both spent the day working, and I looked after Hana. The parents each dealt with people who had dropped the ball; the baby and I re-focused on building her upper body strength, leaving more ambulatory skills for later on. She likes that much better.

I am finding that, if I watch her body cues and listen to her vocalizations, I get an accurate sense of what I should make my focus and for how long. A baby who feels understood is less likely to revert to crying, (Yes, one could pretty much say that about anyone.) If I acknowledge her feelings, with words that fall into her receptive vocabulary, I get the broadest smile. Those sparkling eyes tell me my efforts are registering and are appreciated. A little hug verifies that.

When Mommy and daddy got off work, I fixed a simple dinner, then we all celebrated Hana’s Baek-il (first 100 days). She wore a ceremonial dress and wore it nicely. The small head ribbon stayed on just long enough for her parents to take several photographs. A special cake and cookies made for an extra special dessert. Hana “cut the cake” with her hand on top of her mother’s,

I got my first of month bills paid and a long-standing project in the Philippines will now be completed. I hope that, all in all, today was a day without foolishness, for anyone who has been paying attention to what is most important.

A Hundred Days of Hana

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Education, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 31, 2026-A good report came back today, regarding an abnormality that had been previously diagnosed in my granddaughter. It turned out the diagnosis was wrong, and her functioning is normal. This was particularly welcomed, because today is Hana’s Hundredth Day, or Baek-il,

Korean Tradition of Baek-il *

To outsiders, celebrating a 100-day mark might seem excessive—but in Korea, it’s a milestone rich in history, emotion, and symbolism. Whether for a newborn baby, a blossoming romance, or a personal journey, the Korean “100-day” tradition—known as baek-il (백일)—represents survival, progress, and shared joy. Let’s explore the roots and evolution of this beloved custom.

Why Babies’ First 100 Days Matter*

Historically, infant survival in Korea was uncertain. If a child made it to 100 days, families would celebrate with a ceremony called baek-il. Traditional rice cakes, fruit, and prayers to ancestors were common. Today, modern parents mark this milestone with professional photos, private parties, and social media posts—still honoring life’s fragile beginnings.

As Hana is half Korean, we are making a big deal out of the milestone. We aren’t going in for professional photos, but a Baek-il dress, special rice cakes and giving thanks to all our departed family will be on the agenda. Due to a miscount, the celebration will be held tomorrow, but it’ll be joyful, nonetheless.

The little girl’s first hundred days have been a study in someone who pushes herself to develop skills: Ambulatory (Army crawling, sitting up with support), hygienic (holding a bib to her mouth to wipe any residue, readily taking and swallowing oral medication-without fussing) and communicating (using both babbling and about a dozen clearly pronounced one-syllable words, maintaining eye contact). She has a broad smile and an infectious laugh. Conversely, when she is upset,her voice can be thunderous. She has large, cerulean blue/green eyes that twinkle when she feels playful.

When she wakes up tomorrow, there will be a big sign, made of letter balloons: “Happy 100 Days, Hana!” She will go through the day with usual activities, then when her father gets off work, we will dress her and happy Korean songs will play. We adults will enjoy the goodies, but she is congenial about that. As long as she is sitting in her little chair alongside us, all is well for my granddaughter.

I look forward to the next 100 days, and all that follows.

*https://www.koreanhabits.com/2025/05/koreanhabits-20250512-70.html#