Category Archives: Matters of Faith

Magical Thinking

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Fiction, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 7, 2026- Hana pushes herself to reach certain places on her crawling mat, but was showing a bit of frustration at being limited to the same route, day after day. It was time for another segment, so down went the multi-modal quilt, with its alphabet, colour bar, shapes and illustrations of animals and objects. This doubled the area that she has to navigate, and she took to it right away.

My granddaughter had been acting as if she should be able to go through walls or pieces of furniture, getting frustrated at this also, so Papa has the task of gently encouraging her to turn, when confronted with a barrier. I even showed her that my almighty self can’t go through a wall, which she found amusing, while getting the point.

Many of the old stories I am reading her now, European fairy tales, present magical solutions to harrowing scenes. I choose to focus more on the character-building elements that are embedded in the tales, rather than the amazing feats of derring do. It only touches a slight level of her consciousness, of course, but I can recall, from my own toddlerhood, having a sense that I had heard stories that pointed the way to correctness, even earlier in my life. So, we go down this path together, She will retain what sticks in her mind and re-learn the rest later.

Much magical thinking comes from being used to having certain things happen almost instantaneously- like fast food being prepared and served in minutes, or AI popping up with answers to questions, in mere seconds. Another friend, examining the matter, points out that experiencing something, even several times, does not mean that it will be integrated with one’s psyche or behavioural repertoire. “I spent a week in Sweden” hardly qualifies me to claim any more than cursory knowledge of the country and its people. “I changed the spark plugs in my Ford LTD, back in 1975”, does not make me anywhere near a skilled auto mechanic. It is integration, not encountering, that determines the level of any change one wishes to see in life.

There is also a larger process at work, sometimes called “the arc of history” and in other forums, “the Major Plan of God”. We on the ground can only understand a smidgen of it, but here’s the thing: Just as a motor vehicle can go either forward or in reverse, it moves most efficiently forward. Reverse is meant only for short distances, like backing out of a parking space, or going a few yards back to where a loved one is waiting to communicate a last-minute thought. Going backwards in society can only be temporary, mostly to correct errors made in moving ahead too quickly. It cannot be done with a view towards reinstating the “Golden Days of Yesteryear”.

I will have more to say about this in an upcoming post.

His Declaration

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

April 29, 2026- On the ninth day after His and His family’s arrival in the Garden of Ridvan, Baha’ullah summoned His eldest son, Abbas*, into His tent. There, He announced to His son that He was the Promised One, mentioned by His immediate Predecessor, Ali Muhammad, known to posterity as al-Bab (“The Gate”). Baha’ullah would make the same announcement to four other people, later that same evening, under a promise of confidentiality. This was due to the tight surveillance imposed by their Ottoman overseers and to the presence of operatives of the Persian Qajar Dynasty, which had initiated the exile of Baha’ullah and His family from Teheran, some ten years previous.

Baha’ullah, like the Great Teachers Who came before Him, intended His Teachings to redound to the benefit of all humankind. Coming as He did on the cusp of global connectivity and accelerated communication technology, His words can have an enormous impact-for the betterment of the world. Indeed, studied carefully, without coercion, the Teachings of Baha’ullah can lead to a greater understanding of the forces of change that have been extant in the world since the middle of the 19th Century and which are accelerating today, even as many of the institutions that have underpinned both Western and Eastern civilizations,for nearly 500 years, are fading away.

It is a given, that when one system draws to an end, another rises to take its place. This does not have to be frightening or debilitating. Rather, careful study of Scriptures, both past and contemporary, can offer solace that the Age in which we live is a period of birthing. There is no one who needs to be left out or excluded, in the civilization that is slowly rising, even as many time-honoured institutions are falling away.

Take your time with understanding all of this, and hang on-the world needs you.

  • Known to posterity as ‘Abdu’l-Baha

Well-Tended

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

April 27, 2026- My four-month dental check-up and cleaning, by a new provider, touched all the bases that the team at Desert Dental, in Phoenix, did for thirteen years. New Bite is our family’s dental care provider, so I helped Aram get a small sign-up bonus, and I get one as well. The practice is state-of-the art, checking sinuses and thyroid, as well as teeth, tongue, gums and jaws. I will be well-tended.

Hana had her four-month physical this morning and is on track in all her growth areas. This morning, she greeted me with “Hi” and when I asked her if she had a good sleep, she answered “Yeah”. It happened that she slept through the night, so things are going well, for her and for Mom and Dad.

The house is far more comfortable now, then it was last week, before the HVAC work. There is still a little left to straighten out, here and there, but we should be in good shape for the height of summer. The three of us share every task pretty much equally. Whoever comes upon something that needs doing, does it first. I even whipped up some pancakes, yesterday morning, like my Dad used to do on Sundays. Yunhee covered the lettuce bed with a “critter proof” mesh, so the rabbits will take what is theirs and leave our greens alone.

The country can be well-tended, if people work together. A few days ago, the governing body of the Baha’i Faith in the United States, our National Spiritual Assembly, put forth a reasonable call to action. I leave you with a link to this document, in the hopes that it might inspire some to take concerted action of their own, for the good of the nation-and of the planet.

https://www.acommonendeavor.org/

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.

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.

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!

Springing Forward

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

March 21, 2026- Hana came into the world with winter, being born on the December Solstice, last year. It was a day later than usual, but that worked for my granddaughter. Early this morning, as her second season began, she turned over, from her back to her belly, and quickly turned her head to her left, as her father came over to see what had happened. I watched it all on the monitor in my bedroom, glad to have been in on the milestone.

Today is Naw-Ruz, which for Baha’is begins a new spiritual year. Iranians, Tajiks and Pashtuns have celebrated Naw-Ruz (“New Day”) for over 3000 years, since the Dispensation of Zoroaster. In the latter tradition, it is a twelve-day celebration. For Baha’is, it is this one day, and our local community gathered at Plano Baha’i Center, a spacious and lovely facility, for two hours of readings, songs, a Q & A game for children and youth and a large, delectable spread.

What was most heartening about this gathering is that, when children under 12 were presented with gifts by the Spiritual Assembly, and there were more kids than gifts, the children made sure that each of their fellows had a gift, even if it meant dividing up a whole gift. One girl was given a snack wand and, since her brother already had a wand, she gave hers to a girl who had a small bag of chocolates. The second girl brought over half of her chocolates to share with the first.

Ours is one of the strongest models for a society which is now struggling. It remains, though, a matter of acquiring knowledge, adopting volition and taking action. This is the bounty given to every person, in these days of confusion and disruption. I invite anyone reading this to check http://www.bahai.org.

Happy Equinox!

Re-assessing and renaming

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Posted by on in children, Community, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 19,2026- I propose, as some others already have, renaming the commemorative, unofficial holiday known as Cesar Chaves Day, National Farmworkers Day. Juneteenth is, rightfully, a Federal holiday; so should there be a day to honour all farmworkers. How many of us chowhounds would willingly pick potatoes and carrots all day long? How many would work the fields picking melons and strawberries? Even emptying trees of citrus fruit, apple, peaches and pears is backbreaking work!

A social justice movement is far more than the one or two who are its public face. I prefer to call the January holiday that has been focused on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights Day. As much admiration and respect as I have for Dr. King, he himself would have been the first to say he was not a perfect individual. He had his lusts and pitfalls, though he has never been accused of such atrocities as those or which his contemporary, Cesar Chavez, has been posthumously charged.

The revelations documented in the New York Times illustrate the folly of adulation. Small children idolize their parents and grandparents. As they get older, they learn of their elders’ imperfections. Hopefully, they continue to love those elders, but they will know that they are not amidst living saints.Along those lines, we were wise, as a nation, to recast George Washington’s Birthday as Presidents Day- honouring at least those whose terms in office added luster to the nation’s history and offering a fair assessment of those whose terms did not.

Cesar Chavez apparently gave in to the worst elements of the culture in which he was raised, compounded by the bright lights and hero’s welcomes he received. It will be a step forward, for any future leaders, to transcend the impulse of feeling that there are lesser human beings, who owe them favours for what they have achieved.

There are no lesser human beings.

Fifteen Years

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, Family, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 5, 2026- It was a mild, crisp Saturday morning, when I got the call that I had been expecting, since having woken to a heavy presence in the bedroom that Penny and I had shared for nearly twenty-nine years. I was told that I didn’t have long to get to the Hospice, if I wanted to “exercise the option” of being with her when she passed. I had not taken the spare room that the Hospice provided to those who were expecting a loved one’s imminent passing. because we lived thirty minutes away and a gentleman from Nashville was present, waiting for his mother’s demise.-

This was a case of trusting the Universe to arrange everything nicely. As it happened, the entrance ramp that would have gotten Aram and me there on time, was blocked. The detour added an extra ten minutes to our drive and we arrived, on a still morning, to be greeted by a slow spiral of leaves and dust, swirling near the door. Three minutes had gone by since Penny’s departure, so quiet that the nurse, who had checked her ten minutes earlier, was taken aback. Still warm to the touch, eyes still open, I know that my beloved would have preferred to wait, but it was not to be.

My task, in the years that have gone by, has been to make a concerted effort to live a far better life. It took a few more years, after that day, to vanquish my demons and accomplish most of what we had planned to do together. Here I sit in a comfortable open office, in our family’s home, looking at our infant granddaughter, via a monitor. She is asleep in her crib, with plenty of room, on a soft but firm pad. Helping to raise her will be my lasting gift to the wife who sacrificed everything to help me turn my life around.

It’s been a long process, but I really think I’m there, at long last.

No Infantilization

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

February 21, 2026- Hana was squalling about a break in the feeding action, until I came downstairs and reminded her, in a calm voice, that being burped was part of the feeding process. She stopped squalling, let herself be burped and went back to feeding.

I know all the warnings given to grandparents about not spoiling their little darlings. As loving as I am to her, though, I will never jive the little girl. Those cautions and that guidance which her parents have in place have my backing as well. I want her to succeed and to enjoy the best that life has to offer. Those things don’t come to someone who throws a fit, and that realization comes with the first sets of delays and procedures that an infant experiences.

I will not infantilize my granddaughter. Her feelings, and her language, when it comes, will be honoured with respect. I will hold her and comfort her as often as she needs; I will not, however, enable her intemperance. Calmly, but firmly, we are checking all reasons for any distress she is exhibiting, and she is most appreciative once the hunger, the gas pains or soiled diaper have been addressed. She already knows, after only two months, that she is being taken seriously by all three of her adults.

I learned a lot from the parents at Dharma Farm, in Paulden, AZ, about not babying infants. That does not mean skimping on nurturing. It means teaching patience, consideration and gentleness, from the time a child can recognize faces and voices. It will also mean being considerate of others, from the time Hana can walk and speak.

I look at the larger situation around our country today and see that there are far too many, even in positions of power, who have been infantilized and pampered, and who have learned to fulminate at critics; manipulating people and situations to their advantage, Whether this has come from a lack of spirituality or from overemphasis on the material side of life, it has laid low any society where people have become numbed to the machinations of the overindulged few.

While I shudder at some of the behaviour of people both in positions of authority and in positions of civic responsibility, I see where it started, and will do my small part to make sure a little girl coming up in the world doesn’t follow poor examples.