April 20, 2019-
Look beyond the slight,
which a tired, downcast soul,
hurls at the unsuspecting.
Look towards the joy,
that the angels of the Sun
are holding,
in their outstretched hands.
Look past the taunts,
which the fettered ones shout,
at one who struggles.
Look outwardly,
to the breaking
of all chains,
and to the rising
of every good heart.
These verses come to mind, as I complete a long, and mostly joyful, day of service, at the beginning of Ridvan, the Eastertide and “Earth Month”.
April 19, 2019-
God has never left Man alone. In times past, the Divine has sent Guidance, in the form of Scripture and in the Personage of a Holy Being, to lead us away from the promptings of self and desire, which Zoroaster, Jesus the Christ, Mohammad and Baha’u’llah have each personified as Satan. Our lower, animal nature gets us in all sorts of difficulties, by interposing itself between God and our spiritual sense.
So, it seems that when the conditions of the world are darkest, we have the bounty of the sacred days of many faith traditions falling in the same time period. This year, for example, the Baha’i Festival of Naw-Ruz occurred at the same time as the Hindu Festival of Holi. A scant month later, Jews are observing Passover; Christians, Christ’s death and the Day of Resurrection and Baha’is, the beginning of the twelve-day Festival of Ridvan, (commemorating Baha’u’llah’s Declaration of His Mission to the world.)
God never leaves Man alone. The message that seems clear, from these conjunctions of spiritual celebration is that we ought each honour our neighbours’ spiritual traditions, as we honour our own. There is, in essence, one continuous flow of spiritual energy. I could never dishonour the Name of Christ, or those of Moses, Krishna, Gautama Siddhartha or Muhammad whilst claiming to honour the Teachings of Baha’u’llah.
Every one of the Divine Teachers has suffered immense physical pain, whilst on this Earth, at the hands of those who enjoyed earthly power and prestige, as well as at the hands of the uneducated and ignorant who chose to follow those in power. This is the timeless lesson of Good Friday-the goodness of which stems from the fact that we are so loved by the Divine that the Purest of Beings submitted to unimaginable torture and humiliation. It is thus, that people of all faith traditions would do well to contemplate the nature of Divine Love and Sacrifice, on this solemn day.
This Sunday, the Day of Resurrection and First Day of Ridvan, will find me celebrating both events of the continuous flow of Divine love and inspiration. May many find it in their hearts to do the same. The Divine never leaves us alone. Let us honour one another.
April 16, 2019-
Yesterday was a bear, for many. The damage to Notre Dame Cathedral (which I have only seen from outside) and to Al Aqsa Mosque (in which I had the honour of praying with the Imam, in 1982) was serious, but in both cases, not irreparable.
For me, it was a productive day- visiting the new Cuppers Coffee House location, attending a Baha’i study circle and getting in another exercise session were pluses. A new online acquaintance asked me what I was doing for the day, and my response was “Tending to my personal affairs”, which at the time was weighing on me and not what I wanted to detail, to a relative stranger. Turns out, the whole process took less than ten minutes, and all’s as well as it can be, for the time being.
I was brought further out of my shyness and awkwardness, at Cuppers, when several young people chose to sit down on either side of me. Something refreshing about Millennials, and more so about Gen Z people, is their overall forthrightness. Growing up always questioning my worth as a human being was a real pain. The younger generations see no reason why anyone should do that, though I’m sure they have their moments of insecurity. Nonetheless, Gen Z’s mantra, “I got you”, obviating any lengthy explanation of one’s feelings or opinions, is actually a treasure.
I see intuition becoming a hard-wired thing. Yesterday, there was a post about five teenagers who helped an elderly man get up from the sidewalk, where he’d fallen, walking home with him and cleaning his wounds. Goodness prevails here, and is more common than its opposite. The media has a label ready for those born since 2010: Generation Alpha. I haven’t had much contact with younger kids lately, but judging from the intuition levels and cooperative spirit of my grandnieces and nephews, and online friends’ children, I would say the label, as contrived as it sounds, is actually spot on. They, with their immediate elders, will be the ones working to reverse a host of problems that foolishness and greed have bestowed on the human race. All this makes New York’s recently enacted “nonmedical abortionist” law that much more ludicrous, besides being downright menacing. The world needs its rising generations, even those who have some physical or mental flaws.
So, on we go, and I feel more confidence than at this time last week.
April 14, 2019-
Such was the message on the t-shirt worn by another patron of today’s Powwow, at Ken Lindley Park, across the main street from my apartment. I saw no one being anything less than nice and I was certainly my usual self. The words kept coming back to me, throughout the day.
The full range of dancers performed this afternoon, from 5-year-olds to senior citizens, with male and female dancers, in each age category, from Juniors(10-12), teens (13-17) adult (18-550 and Golden Agers (55>), performing in one of three categories: Traditional, Grass and Fancy, which refer to the type of regalia worn.
I sat comfortably in my “director’s chair”, for most of the afternoon. Though while still in shy and awkward mode, I got up and joined in the Round Dance, a social dance in which everyone sidesteps in a circle. Being among Indigenous people is a balm.
I didn’t take photographs, as those gathered here asked that no one take pictures of anyone they didn’t know personally. As everyone else who was there was not known to me, the camera stayed off.
After the Powwow ended, and my laundry was done, I stopped by the grounds of Chalk-It-Up, to get photos of this year’s entries to the annual chalk art festival. The actual work took place earlier, but a small group was still there-likewise taking photos.
Here are my candidates for the most memorable.
To anyone who has felt overcome by the careless judgments of others, there is this:
It was ironic that, shortly after I took the above photo, I was approached by a couple of school district employees, who found it uproariously funny that I would appear at a public event. Leaving them to their giggling and derision, a much warmer atmosphere was a block away- at Two Mamas Pizzeria, another place where I can say I feel welcome and safe.
I can say this: Neither those foolish women, their co-workers, nor anyone else will run me out of town. Shy and awkward as I feel right now, I take solace in knowing I need run no more. I will define my place.
April 13, 2019-
I cam close to making what would have been a pre-mature, and perhaps reckless, decision. It basically would have meant leaving my Home Base, earlier than expected. It became unnecessary.
Although, I have felt a good deal less welcome here, since the events of April 3- and yes, people in this growing town still do talk and pass judgement- there are still a few pockets in Prescott where I can go and feel safe. I spent an hour or so at such a place, Ms. Natural’s, where the owner is relatively friendly and glad for my business-even if her helpers are a bit on the hostile side. I also went to Farmers’ Market, where a few of the vendors remain friendly.
The Arizona Department of Education has decided to renew my substitute teaching certificate. This at least will give me the opportunity to maintain a flexible work schedule, bounce back from the most recent assaults on my reputation and show, yet again, that I am basically a loving and competent educator. So, the notion to retire early, leave this area and re-establish myself, somewhere else, is not something I need to pursue for the time being. I will be safe enough, among the Baha’is and a few other friends. Hopefully, things will even out and I can follow my game plan until December, 2020.
April 4, 2019-
This morning, I read a news report that a recently dismissed Arizona state legislator had remarked to a fellow diner, at a recent luncheon, that, hypothetically speaking, sexual behaviour towards children, by adults, would be “part of the experience” The comments are supposedly on tape, having been streamed. Sexually activity should not be part of any child’s experience.
In all my years of working with children and teens, I have seen this mindset rear its ugly mug, time and again. It has never been part of my own mindset. Many of us, in the course of our daily work, have hugged or held our charges, boys and girls alike. It is not for our own physical or emotional gratification. The child comes up to us, is reassured that all is going to be okay and goes off again, free of any trauma.
This same ex-legislator, in a couple of instances, has minimized the extent of sex trafficking of minors. That mindset is, woefully, far more rampant in our society-and globally, than one might imagine. The judiciary is rife with men and women who pronounce themselves “disgusted” with the young people brought before them, on charges of prostitution. The implication seems to be that the poor, deprived old man who is found in the child’s/teen’s company is actually entitled, under the law, to gratification.
I am an older man, and I will pass on that entitlement, thank you. I agree with the judge who stated: “Children should be at home, with their parents.” That is why human trafficking, especially of minors, is an abomination. Children, under normal circumstances, ARE at home, particularly at night, especially after hours. This is true, even if they run away, for a bit, in fits of pique. Many runaways find their way home.
Normalcy, though, is not always on everyone’s plate. The streets abound with teens, and children, living in insecure environments. Predators smell money and power, and the hook-ups happen. The causes of the kids being away from home are almost as many as the number of young people. Generally speaking, though, it boils down to a person-parent, parent’s live-in friend, other family member not regarding a child or teen as fully human, totally worthy of respect.
Having grown up in a home, where even my deeply-flawed person was loved and cherished, with parents who blocked my running away-more than once, my deepest inclination is to love those who aren’t. I have seen adults who were battered, pummeled, sexually-assaulted as children. The resulting human being is an horrific sight. That visage underscores the vileness of the comments made by the above-mentioned ex-legislator, the judge who sentenced two teen girls to the maximum penalty, for “being aggressors” towards the man who purchased them from their pimp, and the Catholic priest who told me, during an interview in 1975, that there was “no such thing as child abuse”. Shame on all such blinkered mentalities.
I stand ready to help any victimized, trafficked human being mend and heal.
March 31, 2019-
I made it to Planet Fitness, despite a sense of fatigue after a trip to Phoenix and back, having attended a worthwhile, but somewhat tiring, meeting. I was glad to have not had to drive, with a competent friend at the wheel instead.
Tonight’s workout came after a twenty-minute catnap. I feel better, having done the 30-minute express, followed by ten minutes on the hydrobed. Bittersweet March has thus, in the end, affirmed that there is still quite a bit left in this sexagenarian frame. I get appreciative glances from ladies, the younger among them knowing, as well as I do, that that is as far as it goes. It feels nice, regardless.
It is now full-on Spring. Tomorrow, we will see what practical jokes remain to be played. Later in the month come Chalk-It-Up, Earth Day, Easter and the Twelve Days of Ridvan, commemorating Baha’u’llah’s Declaration of His Mission. I will get my annual physical at the VA, sometime during the month, and will visit the Grand Canyon, on Good Friday.
April, as a wise colleague once remarked, cannot be the cruelest month. Sorry, T.S. Eliot.
March 28, 2019-
There is one more work day and one more trading day left in March. A quarter of my sixty-ninth year will end on Sunday. March has been roiling, as we have seen, in the areas of weather-based crises and human conflict. It has also been a time of great joy for me, personally.
As I get ready for the last two months of a fairly successful work year, and begin to ponder what life might be like, after I leave full time employment and devote my time to family and to several months of the year as a traveling writer, there may be a catch.
Having said, a few times, that I am likely to leave Prescott, and Arizona, after nearly thirty years straight and thirty-eight years, all told, in the Grand Canyon State, there is the matter of who might prevail on me to remain here. Most of my friends here will wish me well, regardless of what path I choose to follow. There are some, not counted as friends, who will be glad to see me leave. One or two special people, who will remain nameless, could yet get me to stick around. In any case, I know my meanderings would bring me back here, time and again.
This is all conjecture, at present. I have two very full and rewarding years left, before “retirement”. The March Lion will bow out, and April will bring pesky standardized testing, the beauty of Ridvan and of Easter, and the Proms. May will likely see the first 90-degree day for Prescott, and 100-degree day in Metro Phoenix. The weekends seem to be fully-booked, but I could very well get in a day trip to Grand Canyon, on the Centenary of its National Park. This one would be to the east side of the Park, and Desert View Tower. That was my Dad’s favourite spot, when he and Mom visited, in 1985.
Enough meandering, word-wise; I had a busy day and rest is of the essence. See many of you, tomorrow.
March 26, 2019-
For a good part of my time with my little family, in Korea, I was drawn away from anything to do with the wider world. It felt only natural to narrow my focus, with only a relatively brief microburst of heavy rain, upon our return to Busan from Jeju, on March 15, to let the potential of havoc remind me that there was indeed “life’s mud and stone”, in the words of the great Kenny Rogers, of which to be ever mindful.
Nothing was more jarring than the shootings in Christchurch, something for which I ached, for days afterward, upon reading a digest of news in a copy of The Korea Herald. Spiritual truth is one, continuous flow, throughout history and will remain so. The wanton slaughter of 120 people in northern Nigeria, yet another episode in the back-and-forth atrocities between Christians and Muslims in that country and the ongoing bloodbath in Mali, orchestrated by the Islamic State and pitting the Peuhl people against IS’s Dogon opponents, have stayed on the back burner of the world’s awareness. This is the wrong approach. At the very least, what happens in Africa, especially in the west and north of the continent, will spread to Europe, eventually, just as conflicts in the west of Asia are feared to do. More essentially, the deaths of hundreds-anywhere- is a humanitarian crisis, worthy of the full attention of the wider world.
We seem to at least be paying closer attention to the horrific cyclone-caused damage and casualties in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Americans can identify with such events, especially when simultaneous horrors are ravaging the North American Great Plains and riparian areas of the Midwest. Nature is in a highly-charged state right now. Whether it is cyclical or the result of intense man-made climatic disruptions, unified responses are necessary.
Then, there were the more personal individual tragedies: A young lady who had survived last year’s Parkland, FL shootings was overcome by her emotional pain, and took her life. A week later, the esteemed economist, Paul Krueger, overcome by suffering of his own, followed suit. Closer to home, two teen girls in our area and a Phoenix police officer were killed by inattentive drivers.
I learned my lesson, that even during the most basic and intensely personal of life events, there is no separation from all that surrounds us. Meanwhile, family thrives, near neighbours may struggle-and those who live in areas, where life’s larger problems seem intractable, continue to warrant our love and efforts to help, where possible.
The “meanwhiles” never take a vacation.
March 16, 2019, Busan-
This ancient port has become, like many large cities across the globe, a place of high rise, high density apartment buildings and intense, often grid-locked, traffic. Nowhere is this more clear than in the area called Marine City, close to the popular Haeundae Beach and Strip.
We used our God-given feet today, the final day of my entry into a Korean family. Our foci were two: Dongbaek, site of the 2005 Convocation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Council and Haeundae itself.
The night before, shortly after our arrival back in Busan, we headed directly over to an older section of the city, to patronize a restaurant owned and operated by family friends, the Paks.
As the sign implies it is a place for people to get a dose of quality American-style food. The father and son also serve what I regard as the best coffee in Busan, if not in all Korea. I was fortunate to have been given some, to bring back with me to the U.S.
Here is a view of Dongbaek, from Gwangan Pier, near Marine City. Conversely, once at Dongbaek, we had a fine view of Gwanggalli Bridge. It is said to rival the Golden Gate and George Washington Bridges, when lit up at night.
We spent several minutes looking at the APEC House, site of the aforementioned conference. We joined a group of visitors from west Africa, on this fine morning.
Miniature pines abound, on this small headland.
Below is a fine view of the traditional pavilion and of Dongbaek Lighthouse.
This mural of a Korean country scene greets visitors to APEC House. I refrained from photographing the auditorium, to protect the privacy of a young Korean family, who were making a detailed visit to the conference center.
Above, is a statue of Choi Chi-won, regarded as the first great Korean advocate of Confucian teachings and etiquette. He lived during the Silla Dynasty, in the Tenth Century A.D. Below, is a shrine to the great teacher. At the summit of Dongbaek, it is a serene place, most of the time. We were there only briefly, as an older man started to pester us.
Here is a view of Dongbaek’s southern tip.
This Mermaid Statue commemorates the legend of a princess from a foreign land, who pined away for her homeland, day and night.
Haeundae Beach Park includes this shady, forested area. We walked there, easily, from Dongbaek.
Modern Korean etiquette eschews photography of people, without their consent. I was able to catch a glimpse of Haeunedae Beach, sans bathers.
Rabbits are seen as good fortune, as well as being symbols of fecundity.
Here is the southeastern edge of Haeundae Strip, a bustling commercial tourist area, where we had lunch. Looking for a chicken restaurant, we found they open at 2 p.m., which is averse to my schedule. So, we settled for more burgers-at one of the ubiquitous Hello, Patty cafes. The people in this photo shrugged their shoulders at being photographed, so no harm, no foul.
With that my time in Korea is drawing to a close. My time as a member of a gregarious extended family is, however, just beginning.
NEXT: Further reflections on Korea-and the trip back to Arizona
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