Category Archives: impediments

Summits Are Only A Beginning

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Uncategorized

April 23, 2021- I have never been to Ciudad de Mexico. The fifth-largest metropolitan area on the planet, it is also the second-largest metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere. Ciudad de Mexico may soon become the locus of the worst ecological nightmare that humanity has seen, in several centuries. The Valley of Mexico, indeed, the entire middle swath of the country, is experiencing the worst drought it has seen, in nearly a millennium. Central Mexico, as a whole, may very well be running out of water.

We in the Southwest of the United States (including southern California) have also been experiencing drought. The occasional snow and rain that we have received, since last autumn, have not done much to put a dent in the dryness. Only more judicious use of our water has, and will continue to, keep our communities from literally blowing away in the desert wind.

It is an irony, that the first place to which people in Mesoamerica turn, when faced with economic hardship, or sociopolitical repression, is the American southwest-from San Diego to Houston-and everywhere in between. We have done relatively well here, economically, though the underbelly of homelessness and economic inequality is as much a concern in the Southwest as it is anywhere on the planet. A splinter wedged under my fingernail hurts just as badly as it would under anyone else’s. So we go about being concerned with our own, first and foremost.

All the same, those who express disdain for the current immigration impasse at the border between Mexico and the United States must brace themselves for what will happen, should the water crisis in central Mexico worsen. The six-figure populace massing near, and permeating, that arbitrary line could all too easily morph into millions, or tens of millions, of people.

The Group of Twenty summit, convened virtually, on addressing climate change, is a tad behind schedule, through no fault of those who gathered. That said, it is painfully obvious that every single person on the planet has a role to play in conservation and better use of resources-especially of our planet’s basic elements (water, air, soil/minerals, and fire). It falls as much to local teams, neighbourhoods and families to double down on meeting the challenge of climate change. Everything from taking shorter, though equally intense, showers to intelligently recycling items that won’t decompose (and not just depending on municipal contractors to do the job), is the responsibility of everyone who enjoys running water and non-decomposable packaging. Providing clean water for drinking and bathing, to those who lack this basic resource, is a whole other topic.

These are the thoughts that come to mind, after the G-20’s most recent summit.

Misfits Abound

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Posted by on in Community, distraction issues, Historical, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 21, 2021- The events of yesterday call to mind several aphorisms of my youth: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”; “People living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”; “The pot shouldn’t call the kettle black”; “What! Cast your finger at another? Behold, three fingers are pointing back at you.”

I thought of these, primarily as there were references to yesterday’s verdict, in Minnesota vs. Derrick Chauvin, as “mob justice”. Seems to me, there were such instances of mob justice in the cases of Emmitt Till, in the trial of the Mississippi sheriff’s posse (1965), and in the Central Park jogger.

Chauvin could have been railroaded, but he wasn’t. The crowd that gathered and yelled, outside the courthouse, could have intimidated the jury, but the jurors were not aware of them. This case, if there were to be an appeal, would have to be shown to have been influenced by the protestors in general and Maxine Waters in particular. Thus far, the walls of the courthouse have not been shown to have let the sound outside permeate the actual courtroom or the jury facilities.

While none of that excuses the pandemonium outside, the parallels between it and the all-too-common lynchings, which took place for over a century, ring a bit hollow. I daresay that, had there been no lynchings, there would likely not have been the welling up of anger among people of colour; there would have been no build-up of smugness, leading to the “gladiator” mentality that has led to excessive force ( in which none of the police officers of my hometown, in the days of my youth, conservatives to a one, would ever have indulged); there would not have resulted in tit-for-tat shouting matches between progressives and conservatives, in cities across the country.

It was the original presumption of superiority, among the de facto aristocracy, that led to the Civil War, to Jim Crow laws and, in our time, to the mass attempts to shrink-wrap the voting laws of various states. Misfits abound, and they are not necessarily those protesting outside the courthouses.

Ruling Myself

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Spiritual, Striving

April 20,2021- Today was essentially a good day-for my own self-control, in accepting the reality of a friendship’s nature. It was a good day for widening the scope of justice in our struggling nation. It was a good day for the Baha’i community, as we observed the First Day of Ridvan, the twelve-day period that celebrates Baha’u’llah’s declaration of His mission.

It was also a challenging day, in which someone on the edges of my circle told me, very bluntly, that he regarded himself and his children as my personal responsibility. To some extent, I have my own efforts to help him contact aid agencies to blame. I also recognize that he is an orphan, and as such cannot help but latch onto anyone who shows him kindness-demanding more and more, until the cord ends up being cut. I am playing out my endgame here, with a GoFundMe campaign and a continuing effort to match him with financial entities that are far better equipped to help, than is any lone individual.

I have waited a long time to be the ‘captain of my soul”. My actions will remain rooted in service to humanity-but NOT to anyone who barges into my space and expects fealty. I am involved in a far more global long game. Perhaps this is just another case of my holding someone, who wants to get close to me, at arm’s length-as another such individual told me, just before I blocked and deleted her from my life, nearly three years ago. More likely, I am figuring out how to handle someone who MAY be a grifter (most people who hound others for money ARE grifters). More likely, I am standing up and saying that my primary duty is to the Lord God; that my secondary duty is to my (biological) family and not to any interloper, no matter how many years he/she has been seeking my help.

As I said, today was a mixed bag-and this month, or next, may well end with some very emotional volleys being made.

The Unbroken Circle

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

April 18, 2021- One of the things I realized last night is that my true friends have stuck with me, over several ups and downs-and they are patient, through my peregrinations and inconvenient expressions of opinion. There are those, on the outer edge, who moved on at the earliest opportunity, but they never chose to come inside the circle.

There are friends who have worked at the most difficult of professions, and have shown nothing but fortitude. They are still delighted to see me, now and then. There are friends who are masters at making everyone who crosses their path feel welcome-and mean it. They wish that I would come around more often. There are friends who believe in the basic tenets in which I believe, and wish I could adhere even more to their way of thinking, but who make me feel cherished, anyway.

There are friends who hug, and mean every bit of it. There are friends who are content with a handshake-or an elbow bump, and will be glad when the pandemic is over. There are friends who prefer no physical contact-and that has nothing to do with COVID; it’s just who they are. Their hearts are still full of caring.

There are friends who are conservative, and merely want to see people earn what they get. There are friends who are progressive, and want to see long-standing wrongs get righted. There are friends who are in-between, and see worthy tenets on both sides. There are friends who are more comfortable with children and there are friends who prefer to be with elders. There are friends who prefer to be with only a few, select people.

They have all added a major blessing, or two, to my life, and I would be loathe to see any of them go. The true circle of friends remains unbroken, even as others come and go from its periphery.

Everywhere, and Nowhere

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Posted by on in collaborating, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Technical stuff

April 17, 2021- Eight years ago, I passed through the town of Magdalena, New Mexico, as it had run out of water, for the first time in memory. Since then, Magdalena has managed to keep its potable water supply above the minimum. The area is not “high growth”, so there has been a positive response to water conservation.

Arizona, southern California, Utah and Colorado, along with other parts of New Mexico, are high growth areas, with no corresponding stability in their water supply. We, in central Arizona, find ourselves in a place that is both appealing to those looking to relocate AND is in a period of lesser precipitation. The southwestern part of what is now the United States has known drought that has lasted as long as 400 years. During that time, the indigenous peoples of Arizona, California and Nevada packed up and left for other places which were not experiencing as severe a lack of precipitation.

The present, more transactional, society is, at least for now, both more numerous and more resistant to relocation, than were the somewhat simpler communities of the First Century, A.D. It is not hard to imagine just what chaos would ensue, in communities both densely populated and centered on high rise residential building, should the situation that faced Magdalena-and Cape Town, South Africa, a few short years ago, overtake them.

The present social climate has more than its share of denial-based, most likely, on the inability to imagine a world of dry taps. The technology for mass building of canals and distribution of water, from half a continent away, does not yet exist, nor does the public will to look into the matter. It will, however, present itself as necessary-and possibly as soon as the tail end of my lifetime, which is, as many of you realize, not all that far off.

We will need far more rain this summer, than has fallen in the past several years-and a much higher snowfall, come the winter of 21-22 and beyond, if the worst case scenario is to be averted.

Indy

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Posted by on in Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

April 16, 2021-

I have had the good fortune to have called many places home.

When good fortune meets the people of those communities, I feel the greatest joy.

When, on the other hand, tragedy strikes, it hurts my heart equally as much. Indianapolis was my home for a scant five weeks, in 1969.

I learned the skills needed to run a successful postal operation, and in particular, the skills needed to handle accountable mail. Only for the hiring freeze of early 1972, did I turn aside from being in the Registered, Insured and Certified cage, and follow through with a career in education. End of digression.

It was a maturational five weeks, at Fort Benjamin Harrison, in the leafy near suburb of Lawrence, and I began the slow, halting process of taking on a man’s responsibilities. Indianapolis has had a piece of my heart since then.

Many return visits have come to pass, since then; all of them have been times of welcome. So, it was with intense sorrow that I read, this morning, of the slaughter of eight people at a Federal Express site, not far from the old “Fort Ben”.

The debate about gun ownership will go on, and on. I know one thing, though. I was taught firearms safety, respect for a weapon and what it can do, at an early age. The men who taught me that respect would be aghast, livid, at the laxity with which the mentally ill are allowed to possess and use firearms, at will.

They were the true patriots of their time, and they cared enough to demand discipline-especially when it came to matters of life and death.

Heal, Indianapolis, as Boston, North Charleston, Atlanta, Blacksburg, Orlando, Sutherland, Fort Hood, Tucson, Las Vegas, San Bernardino, Aurora, Boulder, Jonesboro, Roseburg, Parkland, Newtown, Columbine and countless other communities have been healing, for so long, in the name of living in a free society that struggles to understand what freedom really means.

Bernie Madoff

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Posted by on in Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social

April 14, 2021- In 2008, when many of us were already experiencing financial setbacks and unanticipated high expenses, I received word that some who were very close to me had been bilked by Bernard Madoff and his pyramid schemes. One of these people was able to recupe much of what Madoff took, through other, wiser investments. Others are still feeling the effects of the entirety of their losses from that time.

Bernie did not “make-off” with very much, in the end. He died this morning, in a Federal prison, having outlived his two sons and having seen his once incredible fortune siphoned off by the Federal government and the more fortunate among his creditors. The fact that he lived a lie, for nearly forty years, off of other people’s money is a cautionary tale, and nothing else.

None of the grand experiences he may have had, during his halcyon days, could have come close to balancing the horrors that Bernard Lawrence Madoff visited upon himself and his family. His sons are dead; his widow lives on, and however comfortable her circumstances may seem to the outside observer, no sane person would trade places with her. Indeed, one can only call upon our Creator to exercise His mercy on her.

May the likes of the level of unconscionable greed, which the world witnessed in the 2000s, never be seen again.

Sane and Intelligent

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

April 13, 2021- I watched a small segment of a newsreel from the World War II era, which included a Disney cartoon, promoting payment of taxes as an act of patriotism-one of many ways in which the average citizen of that time could support the war effort, through personal sacrifice. Along with dehumanizing the opposing forces of the Axis (Germany, Italy and Japan), the appeal to acceptance of taxation, recycling, conservation and not spending on oneself was made so that the bulk of the nation’s resources would go towards support for the Armed Forces.

Defeating the most formidable opponents the forces of democracy had yet known required a fair amount of such sacrifice-and the burden was shared by Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several smaller nations. The Soviet Union was our ally, but its citizens were already living under onerous conditions-and knew little of personal freedom. Stalin’s sole recognition of individual dignity came in his decrees that men and women were equal under the law and that every child was entitled to a free education.

We, on the other hand, found some of our freedoms temporarily curtailed-as a means to focus the nation’s energy on defeat of the totalitarian enemy. That presented a conundrum to some people. As the bulk of the opposition to this temporary halt of free expression came from people who were not altogether opposed to the Fascist cause, it gained little traction. Besides, President Truman restored civil liberties, once the war was over.

Baha’u’llah teaches that the practice of a sane and intelligent patriotism is essential, for avoiding the evils of excessive centralization. This makes such a practice all the more vital, for the time, in the distant future, when a system of international governance becomes established. The Baha’i view of such a system is that it is built from the ground up-and thus, the more basic units of social structure: Family, community, city/town, county, state/province/prefecture, nation never lose their legitimate powers. The governance of the planet as a whole depends on the strength of the layers of society on which it is built.

There will always be times when temporary sacrifice is needed, in order to defeat a common threat. Certainly, the current fight against Coronavirusdisease2019 is such a time. That we are learning to make these sacrifices, and are making slow headway in overcoming this threat to public health, is a good lesson in learning what is sane and intelligent, in terms of patriotism.

Islands In The Stream

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 12, 2021- Most people I encountered today were on point with how their lives intertwine with the wider society. All of the students with whom I worked, save two, were focused and completed their tasks in a timely manner. Of the other two, one is a recent arrival from another country and not sure of his feelings towards this one, as yet. The second has focus issues and is given to being sneaky-which, he found, just brought about more vigilance on my part.

I did my weekly laundry run, after work. There are, quite often, some interesting characters at the laundromat. An inquisitive and energetic five-year-old decided I had a kind face and engaged me in conversation, a couple of times asking if I would join her outside in the “fresh air”. I agreed, the second time, after letting her mother know that we would be just on the landing outside the door. Of course, the Mini- Explorer wandered down the walk, just far enough to bring her mother outside, with the command to get back indoors. I knew she was safe, but it was more essential for Mommy to feel that way. Of course, also, the “Village Watchdog”, a woman slightly older than me, assumed the worst, began scowling at me and muttering about perverts. God only knows how far off the mark that woman was.

People whose sole frame of reference is themselves, whose views on anything under the Sun are rooted in fear and ignorance, are like islands in a slow-moving stream. My mother raised us to try to see other people as they see themselves. It is possible to do that with those who jump to conclusions, yet I always have this feeling that their game of parkour may find them falling short of the next roof, and on the sidewalk far below.

Narrow Passages

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

April 11, 2021- This afternoon, one of my friends and I were hiking in a park in Prescott Valley, which is one of Prescott’s sibling communities. We took a trail less trodden and found ourselves, briefly, in a slot canyon. This is a narrow passage, in which it is okay to walk when there is absolutely no precipitation, even remotely in the forecast. Rain and snow can turn even the dustiest creek or river bed into a deathly torrent, for anyone in a slot canyon. We got through the slot canyon and back onto the main trail, with no threat of water overtaking us.

This evening, a group of Baha’is presented an update on conditions on the Navajo Nation, which has had an especially difficult row to hoe, even before the pandemic hit. There is progress being made, in terms of infrastructure (Roads, running water, utilities and technology), but we are talking a decade or two, even with systematic dedication, before the Dineh (Navajo) can emerge from this narrow passage. COVID19 is a torrent that is slowing down their walk, and which has taken too many people downstream.

Indeed, far too many communities are finding themselves in similar slot canyons. We, as a species, and as a planet, are in a collective narrow passage, and vacillate between thinking we can inch our way out of it, by just going on as usual and flailing through the waters of tests and difficulties. There are too many who think this is something that can be negotiated individually-and too many who think that they can just appeal to others to solve the problems.

The fact is, we all are needed to think globally and act locally. Only then will the passage be widened and, with more room to walk ahead, the human race can bring the gifts of each and every soul to bear on the ills that have arisen because of the neglect and misfeasance of the past.