Category Archives: Inspiration

The Road to Diamond, Day 87: Home Stretch

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Family, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Slow Food Prescott, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

February 23, 2025- “Are you having fun yet?”, asked the random man standing at a corner, as if on guard. “All night long!”, I replied, “Have a nice night”, and kept walking, as someone striking up a conversation in the dark usually wants one of two things-neither of which is good. “Good answer”, he called from behind me. Hearing no footfalls afterward, I continued on to Home Base I, at an unhurried pace.

Days and nights, in general, around here offer a consistency. One accomplishes as much as one wants, with as much, or as little, help from others as is welcomed. That is the measure of a proper Home Base. It is a village that raises children. It is a safe place for those whose only wish is to grow old in peace. It is a forum for Right and Left alike. It is the recipient of my attention, for much of the next six months, as we anticipate a particularly challenging fire season, followed by a monsoon period, the strength of which has yet to be determined.

I will have journeys during this time: Southern California (March 10-13); Nevada (March 25-30), part of which will most likely be spent with Filipino friends who plan on visiting; eastward (May 5-23), to visit with family and friends, in the Midwest, Northeast and South. The rest of the time will be spent with my teammates in Red Cross, Farmers Market, Slow Food-Prescott and my faith community. I will get in more hikes and, given the cutbacks in National Forest personnel, be more given to taking drives to monitor abandoned campsites- shovel and jerry can on hand, to put out any lingering smolders. I will be at Coffee Klatsch most Monday mornings and Soup Kitchen most Monday evenings.

Our national government is, by default, summoning more of us to focus on the well-being of our local communities, and it may be quite surprised at just how many people care deeply-and how much they care. The last time I was this focused on Home Base was in 2020, during the midst of COVID, and I had a lot of company, between here in Prescott and in Alexandria, Louisiana, (the latter due to hurricanes that didn’t care there was a pandemic afoot.)

September will bring the seal to this Home Stretch: Farm-to-Table Dinner is returning on September 6. I will be there as a volunteer, before (world conditions permitting) heading to Europe, and possibly East Africa, for the rest of September and most of October. In the meantime, my focus is as described above.

The Road to Diamond, Day 85: Worn Out Phrases

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 21, 2025- “Woke” is worn out. So are “MAGA”,”DOGE”; and “Long live the king”. For that matter, “DEI” could use a vacation-as a slogan. Abraham Lincoln said “A house divided against itself cannot stand”. A country is like a house and for that matter, so is the human race.

Let’s look at the above-mentioned words and acronyms. Woke is the past tense of To Wake. It is also a term, taken from the Ebonics spoken by enslaved African-Americans and their descendants, to mean “aware of surroundings”,”paying attention”, and so on. That’s all it means and being “woke” does not, in and of itself, make one superior to all others. It just means that one is not easily fooled.

MAGA-“Make America Great Again”-catchy phrase, this-if one has been fooled into thinking that the change which this and other countries have been undergoing, in a time of global ferment, is somehow foreign to the human experience and thus should be resisted and counteracted. The United States of America has achieved several measures of greatness, precisely because of our diversity. White, male capital has needed the polyglot work force to bring its dreams into fruition. An educated work force is far more productive than a conglomerate of human oxen. This is one reason why Andrew Carnegie, no egalitarian by any means, nonetheless saw fit to relegate a hefty part of his fortune to a system of free public libraries, which became a model for such institutions the world over. The United States of America has never stopped being great. There is no “again”.

DOGE-“Department of Government Efficiency”: Here, we have taken our penchant for compartmentalizing aspects of our collective being to the next level. Efficiency, the good stewardship of what we are given, is somehow to be viewed as separate from every other element of our being. My parents, grandparents, parents-in-law- in short, everyone who survived the Depression, and before that, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Gilded Age, World War I, Influenza of 1918-must be spinning about, underground, to the extent that a 9.0 may be in the offing!

Every day of my formative years, I was told to count my dollars and cents, to know how much I earned per newspaper I delivered and to look about for further opportunities. I was taught to plan my day, each morning and to take stock of what had transpired, at day’s end. Efficiency has never been separate from any other aspect, of any enterprise that I have ever seen be successful. It falls to every entity to practice efficiency, in and of itself. We compartmentalize at our peril.

“Long live the king!”- That’s fine for Charles III or for Sultan, of Saudi Arabia. Kingship is their job. In a constitutional republic, kingship is a ludicrous proposition-even if the term is tossed out half in jest. No one man, or woman, can carry on alone. The above-mentioned monarchs know this-and thus, each has his Cabinet, his Prime Minister/Crown Prince, Parliament/Council of Elders. Only a lunatic actually believes in his own omnipotence. Shakespeare wrote King Lear, in reflecting on the reign of Henry VIII, for this very reason. No one of good will wishes death upon another person, but long life does not need to feature untrammeled obedience from one’s fellows.

DEI: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. When I was 17, I was taken aback, momentarily, by the sight of a person of colour in a small rural community in Massachusetts. Looking back, it is obvious how silly my reaction was. This planet has been a diverse community since Day One of living things. Sameness doesn’t exist in nature. It does exist in monoculture, to an extent, and we can see that monoculture ends up choking itself out of existence, in fairly short order.

Why, then, should we pursue either a forced uniformity or a contrived, artificial diversity? The former brought about the latter, true-but it is time to relegate both to the scrap heap, and let mature humans pursue their natural inclination towards diversity. This means allowing all who seek to join in a given activity or enterprise, the chance to take part. Inclusion is a natural process, not a feature of statute, to be enforced by fiat.

Equity? When my parents were raising us, my youngest brother needed things that the rest of us did not He was given what he needed, to the best of our parents’ ability to provide. I did not begrudge him this. He, in turn, was not given driving lessons, or expected to get a part-time job, in his teen years. Opening the way for a human being to meet individual or small group needs is not discrimination against all others. Helping People of Colour to overcome, in specific ways, the effects of institutionalized bias is not a travesty. It is true that none of us alive today are responsible for establishing elements of bias. Why, then, do we act like we have such vested interest in them?

DEI, as doctrine, should not even be necessary. Nor should MAGA, or DOGE, or rule by fiat. In this day, each of us is responsible for living an integrated, well-balanced life. Why, then, do we choose to compartmentalize?

The Road to Diamond, Day 84: Mixed Messages

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

February 20, 2025- On the one hand, Doc says that I have the constitution of a 45-year-old. I’ll take that for as long as I can keep it. On the other hand, my skin needs a few tweaks. I will go through the process of getting those treated, though thankfully, I don’t have anywhere near the horror blotches of the 2010s. Just a few small bumps is all.

We all go through the day and get some mixed messages. I got a few during my recent time in the Philippines. Now, though, I am getting much more clarity from my friend. We are still messaging back and forth-and the messages are straightforward, both ways. As with friends here in North America, our communication is honest, caring-and yes, loving. I feel blessed that everyone on my radar screen has my best interests at heart, and I, theirs.

Mixed messages come about when the messenger is not sure of self, let alone about feelings towards the recipient. There is, more essentially therefore, a primary duty to not send mixed messages to oneself. I have had to face this as often as anyone-wanting things that aren’t there, in an imperfect, phenomenal world. The solution to the latter is to get to work, and so I have.

Coming full circle, maybe this is the reason for my clean bill of general health. Proactivity reflects one’s work ethic.

The Road to Diamond, Day 83: True Friends

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

February 19, 2025- The ride back to Prescott had a nice twist of an ending. I was let off of the shuttle closer to Home Base I, as the driver was “running late” and my normal rendezvous point was out of the way. It helped that the driver was a former co-worker, who remembered me from one of the schools.

The person who was my prime reason for having gone to the Philippines, these past two visits, is the biggest fan of my work with Red Cross-and that is what matters most. She stands with me, the way so many in this town stand with me. She is keeping track of my experiences during these next six months.

I was welcomed back, by two friends in Phoenix, who have invited me to their home, early in March. These are people I have known for thirty-five years. One of them is Javanese, related to Filipino, and wants to hear more of what I experienced this past visit.

These are but three of the countless true friends who have stood by me, some for decades, others for the past fourteen years and still others of more recent vintage. True friends are not transactional or conditional with their loyalty. They are not sycophantic with their devotion. For me, thankfully, they are my source of heart wealth. They are found all over the globe.

The Road to Diamond, Day 82: Soft Landing

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

February 18, 2025, Los Angeles- The plane seemed to barely touch ground, here at Los Angeles World Airport, (as the Cathay Pacific pilot referred to this grand sprawl. It was, further, not a long wait to go through Customs and Immigration, or to find lodging here, in advance of my flight back to Phoenix early tomorrow morning.

The sometimes frenetic outpouring of “Welcome back! Now let’s do these two dozen things, in the next two days” was not seen tonight. I have a stock answer to that-“My schedule is set until Friday morning, and Saturday is already booked-by service activities”. That should take care of things for a few days.

Seriously, though, my next several months will be largely about preps for the Fire and Flood season. My friend told me, more or less, that focusing on one Big Thing at a time is really best, and it makes the most sense to me. Besides, every other thought that has come into my mind, over the past two weeks, has been about disaster mitigation.

I spent the waking portion of the trans-Pacific flight, about four hours, re-watching “Apocalypse Now” and watching the Italian film, “Familia”. The former, as many know, is about dystopia, in our time-a cautionary tale about megalomania and the hellscape of war. The second is about the inability of men, in particular, to get enough hold of their insecurities that the women in their lives be treated with the dignity due them-and about the dichotomy between the way a husband treats his wife and a son treats his mother. “Familia” also touches on the neo-Fascism of Italy, from the 1990s to the present.

We have our struggles in the United States of America, right now, but nothing like those described above-yet.

The Road to Diamond, Day 81: “The Last Ten Minutes”

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

February 18, 2025, Hong Kong- I actually have time to sit and enjoy this spacious facility, after a brief and pleasant hop from Manila.

My friend, Kathy, has a descriptor for the late phase of any event, activity or process: The last ten minutes. She mentioned, in last night’s coming to terms between us, that we were, generally speaking, in that phase of our lives. My silent retort was that I intend to soak up every nanosecond. She later, independently, gave voice to the same sentiment, regarding her own life. Vindicated!!

We have had far more interesting conversations today, with the vagaries of romance having been set aside. One of the points she brought up was that one can really only do justice to one major personal event or process at a time.

For me, this would be taking the lead in Red Cross Disaster Cycle Response for Yavapai and Mohave Counties, Arizona- particularly from late May to early September, aka the Fire and Flood Season.

It makes no sense to play juggler. Rushing back to Manila would be little more than an act of giddiness, and I’m a bit long in the tooth for giddy.

She has some equally cogent plans, helping her younger son complete his education and a possible upgrade to a Baha’i- owned property in Metro Manila. We are pulling for one another. At some point in the next few years, I will visit “the Phils” again, because several people would like to see me again, and some of them will be visiting here, over the next little while.

For now, though, I’m in a good place, headed back to a place where I might “shine” as my friend put it.

The Road to Diamond, Day 80: Two Views of Life

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

February 17, 2025, Manila- I left an umbrella at Glorietta Greenway Mall, in Makati. Someone who needs it will be out of harm’s way. I am not leaving my heart here. Out of the blue, K told me, this evening, that she thinks I need to serve the American Red Cross, which means staying in northwest Arizona. I will not make a knee-jerk decision on the matter of my future, yet. That will wait until the time between March 1-16. Part of the deal is that I need to prove to myself that I am able to set up a shelter from scratch, in the simulation exercise on 3/15.

The reversal of my relationship here is nothing new. On the one hand, I have not really felt really accepted as a life partner, completely, by anyone. It took a long time and a lot of work to secure my marriage, and only after 20 years or so was it a fait accompli. I wouldn’t have ever given my wife less than my all, and I never once considered abandoning her. This time, not much is lost, though it would be awkward to return to Manila to live permanently.

The other side of the coin is, unrequited is unrequited. There are women to whom I have not reciprocated a romantic interest, so maybe this is all a trade-ff, or cosmic payback. Most of them have, over time, remained my friends, and K, after a fashion, will likely see me in the same light, albeit from a distance.

Some people, usually men, see their partners or spouses as servants, chattel, part-time interests or outlets for frustration with life. Such people don’t show much in the way of self-respect, so it stands to reason they would not know how to treat others in a decent way. That doesn’t make it right. I have at least built an ethic of standing firm for the rights of others, even if they hold me in disregard or disdain. The Divine, not mortal man, has infused each creature with worthiness. We have yet to approach that sense of worthiness, in our views of one another.

I will head back to the United States, tomorrow evening, by way of Hong Kong. Chapter Two of this unnerving, but vital, year, will start fresh, on Wednesday morning.

The Road to Diamond, Day 79: Affirmations and A Temple Site

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

February 16, 2025, Manila- Two of the adults, of whom I spoke yesterday, have offered me a place of residence, in a city about an hour south of Manila. This gives me a landing place, once I am able to draw down my time in Arizona. That could reasonably be accomplished, in a caring and dignified manner, by the end of May, at the latest. There are organizations about whom I care deeply: Red Cross, Prescott Farmers Market, Slow Food-Prescott-and the Baha’i Community, in which I want to help foster and nurture leadership. There are friends who will never leave my heart, who need to know that they have nothing to do with my moving. I have made it crystal clear who the impetus for the transition is. She is still very much my primary focus, aside from my little family, who themselves would be cause for returning to the U.S., at the drop of a hat. I will have quality time with them and other family members, in early-to-mid May.

All these things come to mind, following my first visit to the site of a future Baha’i House of Worship for the Phiippines. It is in the city of Antipolo, about 17.6 km (10.9 mi) east northeast of Manila. There was a gathering for the election of a delegate to the Baha’i National Convention for the Philippines, which will be held at the end of April. There was the usual fantastic pot luck lunch (adobo, inasal and creamed cauliflower were abundant-as was white rice, of which I took only a small helping.) There was spirited, but always respectful consultation-most of it in Tagalog, so I understood only small snippets, but I could tell the civil and elevated nature of the discourse, by watching body language. K was busy elsewhere, but it was enjoyable to hang out a bit with a couple of her family members, and get to know them better. The vibrant gathering of 45 people was welcoming and supportive of my considering living in their country. Children were free to play at their own developmental games. Dogs, cats and goats wandered about the grounds, interacting with people-mostly for scraps of food, though they are all well-fed by the caretakers.

Here are a few scenes of the Temple Site grounds.

Gathering site for a small business meeting, future Baha’i Temple site, Antipolo, Rizal, Philippines
Fruit tree grove, Baha’i property, Antipolo
Gathering of participants at Baha’i Unit Convention, Antipolo

After the meeting, as we drove back to Manila, it occurred to me that I was becoming more familiar with the roads around the Metro area. I could even help navigate a driver, if asked. Just don’t ask me to drive in the Metro-there are too many motorcyclists, coming every which way.

The Road to Diamond, Day 77: Heart House

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

February 14, 2025, Manila- This woman I love looked appreciatively at the roses I had given her for Valentine’s Day-and gave one each to two of her friends who had not received flowers of their own. This is the mark of a human who has the true sense of what matters most in the world: No person needs to be left alone. This is but one example of why I am so close to leaving a comfortable life of fourteen years’ duration and adopting a simpler, but still salubrious, life, halfway around the world.

Anywhere K is, is a heart house. A group of six of us went to visit the home of the construction engineer, who managed the renovation of Manila Regional Baha’i Center. It was an exquisitely- crafted lunch of stewed barbecued chicken, with potatoes and eggplant. There was also a creamy dish of salmon belly, which I had never known was a dish. White rice, of course, was present, but neither K nor I took much of it. She was much more thrilled to have fruit cocktail in chilled milk curd, which I rather enjoyed as well. Earlier, K had asked me about three workers in the project, who were not riding with us to the event. Lo and behold, the three men showed up on their own, having been invited by the boss.

She leaves no one out, ever. After touring the boss’s home, we all went over, at K’s request, to visit a Baha’i friend who has been hospitalized. He was thrilled to see everyone and we spent almost an hour, before the Head Nurse announced it was time for him to rest. K and our hosts went to a nearby Jollibee and bought our friend his favourite chicken, as well as a dozen bananas and some over the counter medication that was approved by the Nurse.

Tomorrow, a small group of us will visit museums that are associated with Malacanang Palace, the residence of the President of the Philippines. Since I have never been in the White House and only on the grounds of Palais de L’Elysee, this will be yet another milestone that I’m sharing with the resident of my Heart House.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

The Road to Diamond, Day 76: Peeling Unripe Mangoes

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 13, 2025, Manila- I have, through careful attention to the matter, managed to peel three unripe mangoes and a ripe one, without slipping and slashing. This is something that is expected of people who live in tropical areas. Even in temperate places, like Malta, being able to peel fruit without cutting oneself is just a natural element in the rhythm of life.

Now, the present operation, if you want to call it that, of the United States government, looks for all the world like a combination of a Jackson Pollock paint-a-thon and a game of Crash-Cars. Whoever can cause the most distraction gets a prize. Whoever takes the most advantage of the distractions, gets a bigger prize. Those looking for services from the government get a booby prize.

There are solutions to some of this: Those government services that are cut can be replaced by services from non-profit organizations OR they can be provided by entrepreneurs, for a hefty fee. Time will tell whether the cuts take hod. If they do, then we will see which type of organization takes the place of government agencies.

Some of you are bound to tell me, “Oh, come off it! Human beings don’t do bad things to one another, on a large scale, anymore!” Hmm. Hitler’s genocide happened a bit more than 80 years ago. Stalin’s pogroms ended only with his death, in 1953. Mao’s depredations came to an end in 1976, when he died. The Ku Klux Klan only faded into the woodwork, in the 1970s-and it’s not dead. by any means. Pol Pot was ousted in 1979. Rwandan butcher Felicien Kabuga was only brought to justice in 2020.

Human beings may presently be less inclined, on average, to do bad things to one another on a large scale-for ideological reasons. (Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar and Sudan are exceptions) The profit motive and the personal power card, however, are still very intense incentives to do bad things, especially to people who one may never know on a personal level. Before you tell me that those now in power have no need of more wealth, let’s steer clear of that dis-ingenuity. Many have heard the fable of the man who asked a djinn for a larger house, then for a mansion, then for a palace and finally, to be equal to God. Guess how the story ends. Money and power fill a hole in the psyche of someone who has wanted to be needed, almost since birth and certainly since childhood. Read the biographies of anyone, from Chinghiz Khan to our current President-and that of the CEO of Space X, for that matter, and make the connection.

The mango peeling analogy is this: Sooner or later, those engaged in the devolution of the United States government are going to get carried away, depend too much on Artificial Intelligence and do something ridiculous, because they can. They will then engage in the equivalent of peeling the mango with their eyes closed, or at least whilst looking away from fruit and knife.

I was recently cautioned to not make key decisions while in a state of revelry. I repeat that caution to those who think they don’t need the good will of the common people. “The frowns on the faces of the jugglers and the clowns” that Bob Dylan mentioned, in “Like A Rolling Stone”, are mere grimaces now, but that will change and get more ominous.

Pay attention to your surroundings; the people in them are paying attention to you.