April 27, 2018, Prescott-
You sent me a letter,
“Save with us!”
On a whim,
I checked out your offer.
“We represent a new way of thinking”,
you said.
I checked out your offer.
Your answer, as I expected,
was “No”.
This is your pants on fire moment.
I’ve never been much for liar’s poker,
and I will sit this one out.
I go on my way,
with my own resources.
Meager as they are,
unlike you,
I came by them honestly.
April 26, 2018, Prescott-
I walked, and stood alongside, my co-workers this morning. We are among many, in several states, who are making a statement in favour of actually showing the nation’s public schools that they are important to our nation’s security. This includes granting teachers and other school workers a living wage. By living wage, I mean that a family of four can pay its rent/mortgage/ property tax, insurance, utilities and basic living expenses, which include savings and modest leisure pursuits, without the need for one or both parents to hold down two (or more) jobs. Most people in this community get that. There are a few who think otherwise, and I note that they have theirs.
Let’s be clear: I believe in EARNING one’s way. I do not believe in indentured servitude or de facto slavery. A job well done should be a job well remunerated. A few conservative thinkers, believers in the free market system, have shown how this can be done- without shorting the colleges and universities, or the public health system. (Both are cited by some legislators, as reasons why the schools should make do with less.)
I do not buy the argument that “only Communists” want teachers to get higher pay. (Yes, this has been advanced by some legislators here, because ONE teacher admires Noam Chomsky.) For the record, I have co-workers who love President Trump and who are adamant about raising revenue to improve the schools. Also, I am a political independent, who loathes dictatorships of any kind.
There are other chains I want to break. More is coming, as is Part II of the Antonio Ribeiro story.
April 22, 2018, Prescott-
I am not given to talking so much about myself, but yesterday, I received a nomination from someone who has been friendly and supportive, of late: Amberley Griffin.
This is to invite me to list five things I like about myself. So, here goes.
First, I like my resilience. I have been able to bounce back from several mishaps, setbacks, or what not- from bankruptcy and the loss of my wife, Penny to having the brake linings of my car cut, a few years back and losing it in a ditch.
Second, I like my health. I have been able to maintain good health and a somewhat youthful energy level. It takes fastidious practices, including essential oil-based supplements, chiropractic treatments, power naps after work, regular work-outs and a fastidious attention to diet.
Third, I am fairly pleasant company. I get along well with most people and am doing better at not taking offense when people are standoffish or cross.
Fourth, I have a quick, though situation-based, sense of humour. I cannot produce jokes on demand, but things come to mind at the oddest of moments, while being apropos to a situation.
Fifth, I am a loyal friend, even to those who, for philosophical differences, I have not seen or heard for a few months, or years. If those people needed me, I would do the best I could to be there.
I am a work in progress, and so, while I have irritated some here, lately, bear with me. My whole is pretty good, overall.
April 21, 2018, Prescott-
I was brusquely informed, this morning, that I was headed for Hell. My crimes? I believe in the unity of spiritual truth. I believe that it was last revealed to mankind by God, come in the Spirit of the Father, in the person of Baha’u’llah, just as it was revealed to us, some 1, 987 years ago by Him, come in the Spirit of the Son, in the person of Jesus the Christ. This is a threat to those whose purpose is to keep us divided. This is a dire catastrophe to those whose grip on power over the common people depends on a belief in us vs. them.
The fact remains- I will continue to work with everyone, serve anyone, love even those sworn to enmity- because Baha’u’llah said so; because Jesus said so; because every religious Teacher since the world began has said so. Only the inner cravings of humans, for power, for control, for dominance, say otherwise. Our lower nature-personified, in the Words of Zoroaster, Christ, Mohammed and Baha’u’llah, as Satan, the Demon, is behind all work to maintain division.
So, I’m not concerned with the allegorical Fire. I won’t stop serving, loving and looking towards the Light, in this life or the next. My next act of non-remunerated service will be among Baptists, in fact, on Monday evening, helping my friend, a Baptist youth pastor, named Randy, in his humble soup kitchen. Randy doesn’t care that I am Baha’i. To him, it is our shared love for humanity that counts the most.
Funny, that my accuser of this morning should have touted her admiration for the late Billy Graham, whose attitude in his later years, towards the advocates of division, was: “Get thee behind me, Satan”.
That’s the end of my preaching and screeching, for now. I just needed to clear the air.
April 20, 2018, Prescott-
The day begins with the news that there will be a teacher walkout, across Arizona, next Thursday. What that means for us, at Prescott High School, remains to be seen.
In the meantime, here are some answers to questions posed by gaillovesgod.
April 19, 2018, Prescott-
I appreciate the attention so many have paid to my reblog of the post on Bleach Enemas. In what dimension anyone could think such a procedure is anywhere near good, I don’t know. My blessed mother fought tooth and nail for our well-being, and would have clobbered anyone who even dared hint at something of this nature. Dad loved us dearly, and would have had one thing to say to the suggestion of bleach enemas: “Pig’s neck!” (His polite term for BS.)
Barbara Bush left a grand legacy of literacy promotion, continued by her daughter-in-law. The gift of literacy is one key element, in the package of empowerment that loving people can offer to others. Long may her legacy thrive!
Ridvan begins tomorrow evening, at sunset. It is the twelve day festival, commemorating Baha’u’llah’s Proclamation of His Mission to the world and His departure from Baghdad, towards Constantinople (Istanbul), on horseback and on foot, in April and May, 1863. My Lord lived a life of exile, imprisonment and torture, yet, like unto Christ, never once turned His back on humanity.
Chalk-It-Up is Prescott’s annual art fair, at which a wide variety of chalk art is available for public view and on which viewers may vote. I will be insanely busy on Saturday, but Sunday will find me taking in the wonders of human imagination, in that temporary gallery.
Arizona’s educators are winding up a vote, as to whether to walk out, or not. I’ve cast my vote and will keep my own counsel on the matter. My first loyalty, in any event, is to the students.
Speaking of whom, several students at our school will be out on the front lawn, in a 17-minute vigil, tomorrow morning, honouring the memory of the Parkland shooting victims. They will then return to their studies.
Have a blessed day, my friends.
There are no words that can fully describe my disgust and anger at the way the filth of sexual violence is deepening, in too many parts of the world. That it is being defended at all is even more disdainful.
This poem is fifth in the anthology of poems based on Social Evils.
Please read the previous ones here
I have seen how the definition of this heinous act has degraded over the years.Initially, just being raped was a taint to someone soul and body and now as the humanity degrades further and flushes the morals down the drain even more, just being alive after being raped is considered “lucky”. So where are we heading?
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April 15, 2018, Tempe-
I felt like a fish out of water,
yesterday and today.
It’s not that
the place is awful.
It’s quite beautiful here.
It’s not that
the people are disagreeable.
Even in expressing
an alternate opinion,
my fellow Baha’is
are quite loving.
No, the problem was,
I left my do Terra supplements
at home.
These make all the difference,
in my body chemistry.
(Two hours later, in Prescott, I am back on an even keel. This is not a mistake I’ll make again!)
April 11, 2018, Prescott-
It’s no secret, among those who know me, that I am a loving soul. I have no reason to despise anyone, among my wide circle, either in real time or online, and disagreements about politics or religion cannot negate that, at least on my end.
I have had only two real romantic relationships in my life. One lasted a whopping three months, in 1972-going nowhere, because of my immaturity. The other, as most know, was durable, a thirty-year courtship/marriage, cemented by adversity and challenges. My lover became my angel, my spirit guide.
Of course, like many who go through the trauma of loss, there were a couple of cases, after Penny went homeward, where I imagined myself having feelings, above and beyond those of friendship. Fortunately, for all concerned, these did not go very far. No harm, no foul. Both women have fallen off my radar screen, so I hope they are okay.
Right now, other than an occasional message from someone who imagines herself having post-traumatic feelings for yours truly (also not going anywhere), romance and I live separate lives. I enjoy real friendships with several women, across ages, faiths, political mindsets and national boundaries, and very much like it that way.
Friendship has the strictures of honesty, loyalty and mutual respect. Romance, if it does not remain rooted in mutual respect, becomes toxic. Therein lies the fallacy of an affair that comes solely as the result of trauma-based illusion. I thank my loving angel, for guiding me away from the toxic.
April 8, 2018, Prescott-
I dreamed, last night, that two of my students were on a planet where people looked like us, but were not able to communicate verbally. The boys watched people talking to them, and to one another, but noticed that there was no sound coming. Photos were taken and sound waves were visible on the pictures, looking almost like bubbles.
I wonder if this is how the students feel, sometimes, given their own speech difficulties. We are usually able to determine what a student wants, based on body language, requests made in basic language or, in one case, apraxic compensation.
There is another takeaway from this dream. People have been talking past one another, for nearly twenty years. It’s almost as if they are afraid of “catching” a disease, just from hearing a contrary opinion, similar to the way some white folks would wash their hands after contact with a person of colour, or some Native Americans would shake their hands in the air, after a handshake with a white man.
Society is constipated, to put it indelicately. How else can we be in a situation, where anyone can see racism as the reason behind “Black Lives Matter” or fascism as the reason for expanded background checks for gun owners, or for denying a firearms purchase by someone who is known to be mentally ill? How else can a woman be seen as the perpetrator of her own rape, or sexual abuse that stops short of rape? How else can teenagers, on both sides of a debate, be viewed as mere pawns of the same adults who have punted the school safety can down the road, since 1990?
My students, in real life, are loved and well-understood, even with speech impediments or non-verbality. Those around us, regardless of viewpoint, have the right to speak and be heard- as well as hopefully being understood.
Let’s start thinking outside the bubble.
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