Category Archives: Community

Just Cause

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 7, 2022- An infringement on the right of a child to a safe learning environment led me to try and summon an administrator, with the response that someone would be right along. Several minutes went by, and I was perfectly content to wait-knowing full well that dozens of other matters could interfere with anyone getting to our room. Another student began to complain, after a half hour of inaction, so I made a second call-again knowing that we would make sure the matter was resolved by day’s end, yet wanting all concerned to know that the administration wasn’t just bluffing. The matter was resolved in due course and the guilty party called to account.

Life brings both small and great challenges to peace and order, oftentimes because one group or another feels rightfully aggrieved, without knowing the best way to get resolution. Litigation can bring monetary compensation for wrongs done, but there is likely to be a goodly amount of resentment left over. Legislation can bring changes to social systems and practices, often merely tipping the balance of power from one group to another-leaving those who are in neither group feeling, again, left in the cold.

True jurisprudence puts an equal emphasis on both parts of the word- “juris”- legal structure and “prudentia”-practical knowledge”. Any decision that is not based on current information is bound to boomerang. In the above incident, the administrator focused on the wrongdoer-and left several cases of side drama that emerged to the discretion of the classroom teacher. This is as it should be. Too often, legislators or public safety officers set out to resolve one issue, only to be sidetracked or stampeded into covering a host of other matters-often in the same piece of legislation or investigation, in the name of equanimity. Thence, comes the social phenomenon of “whataboutism”, or false equivalancy.

Everything deserves consideration-in its time.

One Year Later

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

January 6, 2022- Epiphany, the recognition of Christ by the Three Magi-or kings from the East, if you wish, either is commemorated today only-or is a season of commemoration unto itself-lasting from today until Ash Wednesday. I stick with the former.

I wonder what we recognize, about our country today- a full year after what, to me, was a reckless, misguided attempt to begin solving deep-seated problems in our society by unilaterally installing-not electing- a claque of self-appointed experts who are used to making executive decisions on important matters. Sometimes, they get it right. Other times, the results, from unintended consequences, are catastrophic.

The delusion is the same, whether the oligarchs rule from the right-or from the left. The nomenclature itself, taken from the French Parlements’ practice of conservatives sitting on the right hand side of the chamber, with liberals sitting on the left hand side, is tellingly simplistic. The very idea, of people who posit opposing ideas being one’s mortal enemies, is so ludicrous as to give ridiculous a good name-but here we are.

A conservative friend did ridicule the comparison of 1-6-21 to the Holocaust, the Pearl Harbor attack and 9-11-01. He’s right, in terms solely of human casualties. He’s wrong, in terms of long-term effect on the democratic process. In each case, authoritarian forces tried to undermine American participatory democracy. Each attack is one in a string of a thousand cuts-regardless of the surface ideology of the assailants. In real terms, authoritarianism is a complete circle; there is no difference between Right and Left, if in each case the boss is always correct. In each case, the attackers draw-and are buttressed by, those on the ground whose grievances are given surface recognition by the wirepullers of the attacks.

The sole antidote to such attacks is for those on the ground to recognize that both sides of the continuum offer solutions to some problems and exacerbate others. This is why we need both sides to hear one another out and think their respective opinions over.

The main entrance to a building is most often in the center of the frame-not tucked away in a corner.

Seeing Behind the Acorns

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

January 5, 2022- The young man hemmed, hawed and came up with a lame excuse for his behaviour. He tossed a few insults, albeit without using profanity. Then, the story came out that someone he should be able to trust was barely in control of self-and that the place where he should feel safest of all, at the time of day he should feel safest, was far more perilous-not directly, but by implication.

In my years of work, I know how indirect threat can become very, very direct-and in short order. The person who relayed the story to me is a mandatory reporter, and will take the lead on proper notification of the authorities. I’ve been in that situation, also, and have faced the wrath of a perpetrator-in cases of both physical and sexual abuse of minors. I changed nothing, about being faithful to the child(ren) and to the law, as a result.

The child in question had to let his anxiety out somewhere, and so verbal acorns were tossed at me, with physical anger directed at objects in another classroom. Such is the small price we pay for working to ensure a child is safe, in the long run.

I am no worse for the wear. The door and walls have a few scuff marks and no computers were harmed in the course of the afternoon. We will keep close watch on the boy, for the next two days that I am at that school-and long term, he will remain in good hands.

The Pain at the Edge of Town

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Striving

January 4, 2021-

The phone call detailed things that I can only imagine: A roof leak, which nearly eight attempts to fix have failed, and made worse by the landlord “testing” sealant, by hosing it to see whether it leaked. (Voila! La deluge!!); damage to at least half of everything the tenants own, because of the ongoing roof leaks; water seeping into the electric grid of the house-thus putting the tenants (trailer-bound, outside the house, for now)- at risk of being burned to death, from having to run extension cords from the house.

All this, with a rental market that is non-existent for anyone in their situation, at least in this area. No one wants to let out a house, or even apartment, without a year’s lease, least of all to a dog owner. Yet, the bottom line is, it is the dead of winter, and only by Divine Grace is the weather moderating to dry, mild conditions, at least for the next two weeks. That could turn on a dime.

If I thought anyone reading this would know the people of whom I speak, I would never have written of the situation here. I will do what I can to help, though, through contacting friends of other friends-and being a constant listening ear, praying voice, until this whole thing is resolved. Somehow, the pain on the edge of town can be relieved.

The Team Option

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 3, 2022- I sit here in my living room, and think that a year ago I was in the company, of first a pack of coyotes, howling and warning me not to go any further east-then amongst a small family of cattle, who let me pass after I spoke to the bull, in a low and steady tone. I was then alone, wandering steadily south and west, through the night-until eventually I reached the highway-and by 9 a.m., the following morning, I was back here in Home Base.

That was one struggle made in solitude. I did not have the same experience today-as I was pitching in with the first day back, at our local middle school. Today, and tomorrow, my charge is a young man with whom I have worked on several occasions before. His inherent, and infectious, blithe spirit is coupled with an intense work ethic-so we got much accomplished today and will do so again tomorrow. Besides, the students collectively are glad that I am here, sharing their morning cold and gradual return to a structured environment-after the two weeks of time off, that brought varying degrees of happiness and cheer.

I also talk with my colleagues, and hear stories with a common thread-Stress, leading to burnout and the departures of many who started the academic year. I could, very easily, jump back in and be on the job more or less fulltime, thus chucking the messages I receive from my spirit guides- and the plans emanating from that counsel. I would then be one finger in the dike. Such false egotism is not the answer to the larger problem, however- and is barely a bandaid, no matter how much the kids and I love one another.

Classroom teaching, especially in the Special Needs classes, must be reworked. High stress situations-with much of the stress caused by Federal and state reporting requirements, and by the egos of those who enforce these mandates, call out for teaching to be accomplished by two certified instructors in EVERY class. There also need to be paraprofessionals, as there are now-but these individuals also deserve both continuous training opportunities and a serious upgrade in pay. Even when, as in this school, the students respond quite respectfully and consistently to a grounded, well-organized learning program, the team approach allows for due attention to be paid to extrapedagogical concerns-like record-keeping for the powers that be, without the least jeopardy to the students’ well-being.

For now, I will help out in certain schools and classrooms, in the months and days when I am called to stay close to Home Base. Enough other people are doing this, around the county, that most classrooms have one form of coverage or another, on most days. The long term, though, calls for a serious reworking of the classroom format.

So Onward It Is

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

January 1, 2022- We received our first, and possibly only snow of this new month, right about the time that the Boot dropped and the fireworks went off. It was also the time that I called it a night, as well as a year.

Prescott, January 1, 2022

People have been wishing for 2022 to arrive since a) the inauguration of President Biden; b) the Delta variant started worming its way around; c) New Year’s Day of 2020. I personally adopted the time-honoured practice of taking one day at a time-back in 2002, when Penny first began showing real signs of decline. I have seen no reason to change that practice, since. Still, life does require some sort of planning.

So, today prompted me to think, first, about this day-which has ended up being largely a restful Saturday, aside from going to Farmers’ Market and helping scrape some of the ice off the asphalt in front of a good friend’s stall, and picking up a few items-including a beeswax candle. Then came a stop at Peregrine Books, for a journal, wall calendar and a copy of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “The City of Mist”. The laundromat was closed, so that’s put off until tomorrow, as is the carwash.

Then, I thought about this month. Visiting with Baha’i friends in western and southern Arizona will take up the second and fifth weekends. There are commitments here at Home Base, the third and fourth weekends. Work? I will choose my assignments carefully. After this past week’s fires in Colorado, I am also leaving myself open to Red Cross activity.

February looks quiet, right now. March will find me hopping on a train, a bus or some combination of the two-plus spot car rentals, and visiting family and friends in the Southeast, particularly Georgia and Florida. April and May will be a bit less frenetic, though visits to southern California Nevada are likely during that time. June and the first part of July will see a train trip up the West Coast, to several places in Canada and back across the U.S. The rest of July, August and September are open, and will be quiet, unless duty calls. October hopefully means Europe (Iceland, Sweden, Poland, Croatia, Bosnia, Germany and France-with a bit of Scotland possible). November and December will also be open. All of this depends on God being willing and the creek staying in its bed. After all, the last two journeys have been postponed twice. The postponements are probably a good thing. We Baha’is have received important guidance on the nine year spiritual plan that will certainly determine the basis for many, if not most, of my activities going forward. A spiritual element is present, whether I am at Home Base or going about the wider world. It is not, as someone once remarked, a simple matter of “going about here and there, taking photographs”. God knows, I could rent a drone to do that.

Having covered the “What” and “Where”, it’s time for the “Why”. Basically, I thrive on both connections with people-and on those connections being both virtual and real time. Rudimentary networks were established in 2014 and 2015, which I want to strengthen-along with making new connections, this year and in the four years to follow. This is how, to my mind and heart, the planet may be unified- with my doing a small but worthwhile part.

Happy 2022, and as another friend said yesterday, it’ll be a year-no promises, either way. We just set our courses and do our level best.

A Brief Look Backward

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Education, Family, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 31, 2021- Betty White chose an awkward time to leave, but it was her time. It was almost a fitting end to a year that took us up, down and sideways-and turned us every which way but loose. I don’t want to say that last one too loudly. We could use a few more years of Clint Eastwood being among us.

As it was, there were a number of people dear to my heart, some of renown and some not, who left this earthly plane in this year now itself winding down. My extended family whittled down, just a tad: My aunts-by-marriage-Sabina Kusch and Dorothy Madigan; Aunt Dorothy’s stepson, John-one of the cousins closest to me, over the years; Charlie Kusch, Jr., another cousin who made his friends and family laugh, much as his father did before him. Diane “Dee Dee” Bean- was the first girl I ever dated-not that it ever worked out. Richard “Dick” Dow, was a next door neighbour, from childhood, who kept his family home and his father’s business running, until he could scarcely move, himself. Two educators from my scholastic past, Anthony Struzziero and Eugene Hughes, both of whom I knew as fair-minded administrators. The bulk of the losses were fellows in Faith, Baha’i teachers, one and all: Val Latham, Jr., Gisela McCormick, John Eichenauer III, John Kolstoe, Joel Oron’a, Ethelene Crawford, Wilfred Smallwood, Donald Streets and Dwight Allen. I lost a car, and gained an SUV.

It was not a year defined by loss alone. A grand nephew, named Liam, came into our lives, early on. Strong new friendships emerged. I was able to return to California and Nevada, after a year’s hiatus. I made two long trips across country, both largely around the sale of our family home, and mother’s voluntary relocation. A week spent in Texas was a perfect springboard for my seventy-second year. I was able to pay respects to those fallen in the name of freedom, though not to the extent I might have. Still, time spent in north Tulsa and in Minneapolis was a step forward, for this one who preferred solitude, for so many years.

Our community has held its own against one or another viruses. As if to seem a strange return of normalcy-the flu is back. The nation resisted the temptation to default on democracy. Both major parties are learning that complacency is dying out among the masses-and a moribund attitude will not fly. We Baha’is paid homage to ‘Abdu’l-Baha, marking one hundred years since His passing-and renewing our commitments to live as He did. That renewed spark of Faith is finding its way to friends of other religious traditions as well-as witness the Baptism, on Christmas Eve, of a man who had found his fortunes sinking.

We did not master disaster, and there were far too many lives lost-in California, the Pacific Northwest, western Canada, Montana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Illinois. The latest conflagration, in Colorado, took no lives, but left another pair of communities with scenes out of a war movie. Two dozen other countries, from Mexico and Peru to Kenya and Indonesia, saw tragic losses in both infrastructure collapse and from the forces of nature. Then, there was/is Ethiopia, a country I only recently was hoping to visit in a year or two. Now, it is riven in pain, and we can only pray for sane attitudes to rise to the fore.

2021 will be history, in short order. How different the year that is thirteen minutes away will be, depends largely on how many of us have absorbed this year’s lessons-and to what degree.

Strength Shines Brightly

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Travel

December 30, 2021- The server/manager was sitting quietly with her toddler daughter, as I entered the otherwise empty room. There is that ting, ting ,ting that goes off, when the door opens, so she quietly arose and, with her regal bearing, greeted me with a slight smile and took my order. Shortly afterward, a local couple entered, followed by two other parties, and the restaurant’s owner, there only to give her hard-working friend a gift bag. Such is the way, at Double C Diner, in Moriarty, New Mexico.

I first happened by this spot, two years ago, whilst staying at the nearby Lariat Motel, on the first day of a cross-country drive. Back then, the little girl was just learning to get around on her own and was into everything. Moriarty is a town of close-knit families, so the mother was able to focus on her serving duties, while a fair number of aunts, uncles and cousins tended to the child, until her father showed up and took over.

When I choose places to patronize, the quality of the product does matter. Equally important, however, is the character of those who work there, their inner strength, work ethic, demeanour and the resulting radiance. That has made me go back to places like Zeke’s, The County Seat and Raven Cafe, here in Prescott; Macy’s, in Flagstaff; Harbor Breakfast, in San Diego; Henry and The Fish, and The Pantry, in Santa Fe; D’s Diner, in Wilkes-Barre-and Double C. The energy of the young staff helps, but it is the ambiance of joy and warmth that makes all the difference.

J had almost a sixth sense, quietly and seamlessly moving between her motherly duties and running the restaurant that was getting busier-while the cook and the dishwasher were going about their tasks. Everything happened in an atmosphere of calm strength. (Eventually, from watching another patron, it dawned on me that J was not going to run my bill back and forth to her register, so I got up and paid. Her twinkling eyes said it all- “You’re okay”.) That, too, characterizes every one of the places I mentioned above-and many others. Jess, (not her real name), is symbolic of what has kept, and will continue to maintain, our world in good form. It is focused energy, mindfulness of surroundings and recognition that all that is successful in life happens in its due time which will keep our Race on track.

As I drove back to Prescott this evening, that awareness, and the sense that all is going to be alright in our world-regardless of setbacks, or temporary misunderstandings, kept my thoughts in perspective.

Fragile Trust

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

December 26, 2021, Holbrook- The words came, swiftly, and with the harshness of those who have seemingly felt misunderstood and unappreciated, for a good many years. In each case, they were heard by people of good heart, and we at least know how to respond in a fairly positive manner.

The days after Christmas are frequently a time for harshness between intimates, or even between long-time friends. It is best to not put too much stock in them, if it is just a natural reaction to having felt forced to be on one’s best behaviour for the previous few days. Such lashing out is also a result of having been under the stress of staging holiday gatherings, trying to please everyone and perhaps not getting enough rest. Then, there is the Omicron factor and all the back and forth between those who favour public restrictions and those who want to tough it out on their own-or for it just to go away (which will happen, but in Mother Nature’s time.)

It’s generally been a good day, though, with another well-prepared and well-attended breakfast at the Prescott American Legion Post, a pleasant and re-assuring phone chat with Mom and my brother, Dave, seeing pictures of the remodeled house of my youth and enjoying a smooth drive from Prescott to this high desert town, in northeastern Arizona. 66 Motel is a clean and comfortable place for the night and Mesa Italian Restaurant compares well with ristorantes in Phoenix and Prescott.

Tomorrow, I will make a brief visit to Petrified Forest National Park, then head east to Albuquerque-and Old Town, before spending a couple of days in Santa Fe and vicinity. A ticket to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is the impetus for this trip. There are, of course, other places that will emerge on the itinerary- weather-permitting.

To those who are keeping track, today is the first day of Kwanzaa, and celebrates umoja, or unity. It is also Boxing Day, a British holiday that traditionally entailed giving Christmas boxes to servants, postmen and errand runners.

20/20 Hindsight

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

December 23, 2021- There is much hand-waving and fake cringing going on tonight, about the remarks being made about COVID home tests and the sudden emergence of Omicron. The comments coming out of the White House are, truth be known, no different from any number of hindsight-based remarks that any one of us have made, at various points in our lives.

Not every awkward remark, made in response to an unforeseen event, is evidence of dementia, or even of fatigue. We all wish things had happened differently, at various times in our lives, and say so after the fact. I can look back on whole chapters of my life and see how I might have made different choices, and experienced different outcomes, than what I actually did.

What I do know, as well, is that it is far better and more reassuring over time, for a person to be upfront about their thinking and their concerns, especially about public health, than to pretend there is no issue or that the concerns raised by others are much ado about nothing.

We will always have one public challenge or another. How we deal with them as a society, and as a species, will have lots to do with our trust of one another-or even of ourselves. Feigning shock, or pretending to be unnerved, by another person’s forthrightness, does no public good.