Category Archives: Service Activities

Strength Shines Brightly

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Travel

December 30, 2021- The server/manager was sitting quietly with her toddler daughter, as I entered the otherwise empty room. There is that ting, ting ,ting that goes off, when the door opens, so she quietly arose and, with her regal bearing, greeted me with a slight smile and took my order. Shortly afterward, a local couple entered, followed by two other parties, and the restaurant’s owner, there only to give her hard-working friend a gift bag. Such is the way, at Double C Diner, in Moriarty, New Mexico.

I first happened by this spot, two years ago, whilst staying at the nearby Lariat Motel, on the first day of a cross-country drive. Back then, the little girl was just learning to get around on her own and was into everything. Moriarty is a town of close-knit families, so the mother was able to focus on her serving duties, while a fair number of aunts, uncles and cousins tended to the child, until her father showed up and took over.

When I choose places to patronize, the quality of the product does matter. Equally important, however, is the character of those who work there, their inner strength, work ethic, demeanour and the resulting radiance. That has made me go back to places like Zeke’s, The County Seat and Raven Cafe, here in Prescott; Macy’s, in Flagstaff; Harbor Breakfast, in San Diego; Henry and The Fish, and The Pantry, in Santa Fe; D’s Diner, in Wilkes-Barre-and Double C. The energy of the young staff helps, but it is the ambiance of joy and warmth that makes all the difference.

J had almost a sixth sense, quietly and seamlessly moving between her motherly duties and running the restaurant that was getting busier-while the cook and the dishwasher were going about their tasks. Everything happened in an atmosphere of calm strength. (Eventually, from watching another patron, it dawned on me that J was not going to run my bill back and forth to her register, so I got up and paid. Her twinkling eyes said it all- “You’re okay”.) That, too, characterizes every one of the places I mentioned above-and many others. Jess, (not her real name), is symbolic of what has kept, and will continue to maintain, our world in good form. It is focused energy, mindfulness of surroundings and recognition that all that is successful in life happens in its due time which will keep our Race on track.

As I drove back to Prescott this evening, that awareness, and the sense that all is going to be alright in our world-regardless of setbacks, or temporary misunderstandings, kept my thoughts in perspective.

Unlimited

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 15,2021- When I was much younger, I walked just about everywhere. Balance issues and impatience with myself kept me off bicycles, until I was about 32. Peddling uphill is still problematic. When I was much younger, impatience and fear kept me from swimming with my head above water. To this day, I content myself with navigating a pool, by swimming underwater, end to end. When I was much younger, self-consciousness and a self-imposed stiffness made my dancing look foolish. Practice helped me get over that, and now, even though I am over a few hills, it’s a pleasure to join in group dances at music festivals, now and then.

I learned, somewhat from Penny and somewhat by watching others who are more unfettered than I, that the human spirit is unlimited-and that by both playing to my strengths and not being concerned with anything that transpired in the past, especially the distant past, I create both a wholesome future for myself-in the decades that remain here in the flesh and in the spirit realms to follow, and I create a bank of energy that will hopefully be transferred to those I love most-and those I will love when they arrive.

These things occurred to me, after having to own up to a couple of errors I made recently, which affected a few other people. Thankfully, this was discussed with a loving group of people.

A Small Laboratory

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 13, 2021- The young lady doubted herself, as soon as one of her actions as “producer” of a school newscast was challenged by a teammate. It is a minor issue and I’m sure that the regular teacher will help set things right, tomorrow-in plenty of time for the broadcast. This is a little laboratory, scheduled at the end of the school day, representing an ambitious effort at tapping into the technological precocity of many eleven-year-olds.

Life itself is a laboratory, and many of its experimenters fall back on the opinions of those around them, when engaged in uncharted territory. This is all well and good, when someone is mature enough to have trust in both own abilities and in the process of peer review. The peers also need to exercise good judgment, and maturity, in their own work.

Had I ten extra minutes, it would have been time well-spent to sit the group in a semicircle and make sure everyone understood the process. As there was only enough time to actually put together a preliminary product, for the regular teacher’s review and critiquing, tomorrow, we made do with what there was-which except for the small error, was quite good. The fledgling producer will learn to listen more carefully and the earnest critic will learn patience-and hopefully to shed any sense of rivalry.

In the laboratory of life, both the feelings of people during the process AND the final result are equally important.

Valley of the Shadow

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 11, 2021- The workers were making and packaging candles and their accessories, following protocol for producing one of the season’s most popular gift items. It was the nightshift. 196 miles to the northwest, workers at a night shift in an Amazon distribution center were preparing various parcels for transport on the logistical giant’s fleet of trucks and planes.

It is a given, in most lines of work, that the employee will likely make it home, at the end of a shift. The workers at these two facilities most likely bid their loved ones good night, perhaps tucking their children into bed and kissing their significant others, before heading out.

Perhaps unknown to both crews, two lines of deadly storms, one tracking north east and the other, due east, had the buildings in their sights. In the early morning hours, in the middle of the shifts, tornadoes pummeled the communities of Edwardsville, IL, Bowling Green and Mayfied, KY. At both facilities, it became graveyard shift for one too many.

As is now known, the roof and at least one long wall of the Amazon facility, in Edwardsville, were shorn by one of the deadliest tornadoes ever to strike Illinois. It had already wreaked havoc on communities in southern Missouri. In the more southerly band of storms, another horrific twister slammed into a nursing home, in Monett, AR and leveled the hamlet of Samburg, TN. The tornado was far from spent. Veering north from Samburg, it pummeled Mayfield, the site of the candle factory, dealt glancing blows to Hopkinsville and Cadiz, Ky and bore down on Bowling Green. The death toll from the aggregate of the storms may well exceed 100.

This is not the time of year when people in our nation’s heartland normally live in dread of twisters. Normalcy with respect to climatic events has, however, gone on extended hiatus. There is no time of year when one may let down guard, no time of year when families can bid farewell to their loved ones, expecting a humdrum work shift followed by their safe return.

This will be a strange Christmas, as survivors inch their way forward, through the Valley of the Shadow. Let us fear no evil, and let us stand together. (I may very well make my way to one of the affected areas, as a Red Cross Disaster Relief Team volunteer, after the end of this week of local obligations. It will be a time of muted colours, of quiet thanks to our Creator, whilst appealing to His good graces towards the suffering.)

Acker Night, 2021

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

December 10, 2021-

For some, it was a chance to engage in a mass dance performance, based on the pop song “Baby Shark”. For another singer, it was a chance to regale an infant girl and her family with that same silly little tune.

For most, the evening was a chance to raise funds for arts education programs in our area. It was also a chance to get yet more photos of the magnificent light display on Courthouse Square. I have posted such photos, in years past and may yet get better shots this year.

For some, it meant crowding into Raven Cafe, The County Seat, or other such eateries, to relax as much as one can in a standing room only setting. There were also those who stood in a long line, outside a real estate office, where live music was also on offer. Then, there were those places, like two of our three downtown bookstores, which opted out of the festivities. Bill’s Pizza had no choice in the matter-Omicron is believed to have come calling, earlier this month and one of the best little pizzerias in Prescott is temporarily closed.

For me, it meant taking in a couple of performances, and leaving a tip in each fund-raising jar. It was quite a crowded event, but with so many places opting out of this year’s participation, the mood was a bit more subdued.

I think, though, that Acker Night will endure, and be a fine fundraising event for years to come.

Standing One’s Ground

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 6, 2021- Two things of note, one personal and the other of wider import: Today marks forty-one years since I met Penny, in Zuni, NM. Former Senator and Presidential candidate Bob Dole died yesterday, at the age of 98. Both people suffered mightily, in the course of their lives. Both people were notable for not giving an inch, to anyone who pushed at their boundaries.

This came to me, all the more clearly, whilst working with seventh graders at a nearby middle school. There was a fair amount of obstinacy, that comes with being twelve. The difference, though, is that the insolent ones were fairly easy to set straight. More discernment was in order, in dealing with those who had a fair point to make, in their disagreements with policies and expectations.

This is the beauty of a day with those for whom adulthood is the light at the end of the tunnel. For all the concern with a dearth of formal civics education, the fact is that those at the tail end of Gen Z and the advance guard of Alphas have begun to do their own civics homework-both with regard to rights and to responsibilities. Group members at a table keep one another in check-not in a “crabs in a bucket” manner, but with the view towards “a tide that lifts all boats”.

There is a process, at the school, for correcting undue insolence, and it works. There is also the caveat that the teacher is the adult in the room, something that is not universally followed by all teachers, everywhere. I follow that caveat, having long ago seen the consequences of behaving otherwise. So, when a student, with a strong sense of both personal power and responsibility, questioned something I was doing, reason prevailed with both of us. No adult is diminished by acknowledging a child who stands their ground, in a judicious manner.

She left the class, at period’s end, on good terms.

The Realization Road

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

December 3, 2021- The three ten-year old girls giggled and smiled at me, whispering, while going about their work, in the minutes before it was time for the class to be dismissed for lunch. This has been part and parcel of many preteens’ growing into a world where they must size up even those furthest from them in age, getting a sense of whether theirs is a safe environment or their guard needs to be raised up. I have seen it for nearly five decades now.

It was more uncertain, when I was younger-and in the years before I was married. Throughout, however, my main concern with all students has been to keep them focused on acquiring thinking skills and making sense of what they might want to do as adults. The process starts, really, when a person masters mobility, then speech. However nebulous it seems to both the little one and to those around her/him-basic interests and skills can be ascertained from the child’s play habits and choice of activities. My son was interested in motorized earth movers, even before his dinosaur phase. His 4-year-old second cousin alternates between building things and driving his Tonka truck around. Another second cousin is strictly into his drivable toy truck. The girl second cousins have a wide range of interests, from chess and the ecology of construction work (an eight-year-old) to ecofriendly farming practices (a ten-year-old).

The students with whom I worked today are well-spoken, very much into independent learning and still keep the spunkiness of preteens. They are at once capable of handling a lot more responsibility than many of us Boomers were given at their age and remain very much in need of respectfully offered adult supervision. There will always be a need for this last, no matter how empowered and enlightened a person is in middle childhood, or adolescence, for that matter.

On this fifth day of “Seventy-One and Counting”, I felt equally valued by both the kids and by the mostly contemporary adults with whom I enjoyed a pre-Christmas Dinner, at the American Legion Post. It was our first such dinner in two years, and all the stops were pulled out. The Prime Rib and fixings were well-prepared by a seasoned chef and her 22-year-old sous chef. The pianist played tunes designed for relaxation and the sometimes raucous conversation just added to the enjoyment of the evening.

I can envision a similar gathering, maybe sixty years hence, of those who sat in the classroom today, maybe not under the same auspices, but in celebration of their camaraderie and a shared joie de vivre.

May they long walk the Realization Road.

Seventy-One and Counting-Day 1

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

November 29, 2021, Grapevine- With the four-day holiday at an end, and my weeklong visit with Aram and Yunhee nearing its close, the matter of the year just entered comes into focus. The format of these blogposts will be altered, just a bit. When I change topics, within the framework of a single post, there will be boldface subtitles.

Today, in an effort to support my little family in their individual endeavours, I have fended for myself, resulting in things like checking out a podcast.

Breaking-Points This is an independent podcast site, presenting a variety of topics, within the span of an hour to one and a half hours. Their main philosophical thrust is very much my own: It is past time for elites to stop glad-handing one another, stop tossing out ideological breadcrumbs at members of the economic lower and middle classes and connect with us based on the bread and butter issues that matter most, day to day.

Individual vs. Group Support, in Building Up Communities- For some time, until three months ago, I was being solicited for individual assistance, by someone in another country, who played upon compassion, that I might fund his efforts, singly and alone. After giving a modest amount, and attempting for some time to educate him on groups that might help him, more locally, I found that he was not listening to, or accepting, my suggestions. Thus, the decision was made to cut him off, and I have so communicated this to him.

There are two factors at play here: One is the notion of individual and group empowerment, among citizens of the developing world. The worst legacy of colonialism has been, and remains, the concept that only through financing by individuals who live in Europe or North America can development projects be accomplished.

The second concept is the corollary of guilt. There is much made of the Teaching that wealth is not acceptable unless the whole community is wealthy. That has been taken out of context, quite liberally, by those who do not understand that real wealth is not fleeting, or the result of a windfall. It is something that needs to be sustainable. Pointing to something that a person has and crying out: “Not fair! Give me part of that, NOW!!” is also an outgrowth of colonialism-the “divide and rule” part.

This leads me to: What IS Owed To The Developing World– Omicron Coronavirusdisease 2019 has cast a spotlight on the practice of providing vaccine to those nations whose populace can PAY for the medicine. I understand that the present vaccines are “experimental” and that Research & Development needs a reliable cash flow, in order to be sustained. Yet, there is, at present, enough supply of vaccine to inoculate a hefty percentage of the world’s population. There is enough money in Big Pharma’s coffers to accomplish this, without mass layoffs or bankrupting the industry’s leading executives. One commentator has divided the human race into two segments for the pharmaceutical industry- The developed world as its bankroll and the developing countries as its Petri dish. Simply put: It’s time, past time, to devote humanity’s energies to building humanity’s collective immunity to the pestilences that ravage us-and will continue to do so.

Now, it’s time for me to go and exercise.

Seventy-One Years Down

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 28, 2021, Grapevine- It was the best Korean lunch I’ve had, and I am not just speaking out of prejudice. My daughter-in-law prepared a soup of seaweed, braised beef and garlic, accompanied by several side dishes (kimchi, small grilled and shredded mushrooms, grilled tofu and pressed, layered vegetable roll) and steamed rice. Yunhee has learned a highly-developed cuisine form, very well. This was my birthday meal, though we would have a late supper at a nearby burger joint, this evening.

The early evening saw us take in the latest James Bond film, “No Time to Die”, the apparent swan song for actor Daniel Craig, in the role of the legendary secret agent. No spoilers here, but it was faithful to the Bond narrative of fantasy car chases, explosions and mass disruptions of fancy, gala events.

It has been a most eventful seventy-first year of earthly life. My childhood home was sold, as Mother moved, of her own volition, into an Assisted Living residence. One of my closest cousins lost a battle with cancer. Two trips eastward, in May and in July, were both generated and affected by these events. Concern with justice, both deferred and realized, led to visits to the Greenwood community, in Tulsa and to George Floyd Square, in Minneapolis. I was able to reconnect with two cousins and their wives after many years. Strong new friendships were made at my Home Base of Prescott. COVID19, while still influential in my public and private activities, ceased to be an overwhelmingly restrictive force, especially after my receipt of two Moderna vaccines (with the understanding that these are strictly season to season in effectiveness), which combined with a proactive immunity regimen and being blessed with O+ blood, have allowed me to move along with a moderate level of caution. Three minor, but nettlesome, skin tumors were removed. Visits to Carson City, in the spring and to northern New Mexico and the San Diego area, this Autumn, were thus able to take place without any negative results.

As Year 72 begins, I join my fellow Baha’is in entering the second century of what is called the Formative Age of our Faith, a time in which its affairs are managed by ordinary people, acting in elected assemblies, following the guidance of its Founder’s Teachings, as explained further by ‘Abdu’l-Baha and His grandson, Shoghi Effendi, who served as Guardian of the Faith from 1921 until his passing, in 1957. We are all charged to advance spiritually, both individually and in groups.

My work with children and teens continues, though not on a full-time basis, given official retirement last November. So, too, does work with non-profit agencies, including the Red Cross. Hikes and travel will continue, of course, though the latter will see more use of trains and buses, with my Saturn Vue staying within the areas of California and the five southwestern states.

I look ever forward to what further challenges and blessings may arise.

Exhausted

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

November 15, 2021- The young woman looked at the police officer who had come to her assistance, and said, flat-out, “I am just…so…tired. There is no end.”

I am not exhausted, though there have been times….. Dan Rather posted a provocative essay, entitled “It’s Okay To Be Exhausted”, in yesterday’s edition of the Blogsite “Steady”. He listed all the things that this modern world has thrown at us, which lead to so many being at the point of zero returns. Part of the issue is the ubiquity of information. No matter where one lives in the world, he or she can be, and often is, bombarded with the plights of those less fortunate-often with urgent pleas for help (preferably financial), on the double. This, on top of politics, social (in)justice, false equivalence, restrictions on travel, restrictions on parental involvement in the schools, ham-handed governance (from both ends of the spectrum, and all points in between), climate change, pro-choice, pro-life, Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, vitriol, supply chain issues, inflation, Paul Gosar’s anime, AOC’s pickle jar, Michael Flynn’s Theocracy, income inequality, double taxation of estates. I almost miss the days of “Where’s the Beef?” Wow, I didn’t even mention the pandemic.

What matters to me the most is the well-being of those around me-either physically in the community, by my side when on the road, and children/teens-anywhere I happen to be. What seems to matter the most, to those with whom I talk, is being heard and respected. None of us really need to be told how to raise our children. None of us really need to be told to look out for our sickly loved ones. None of us really need to be told that we’re doomed unless we follow _______________ (fill in the blanks).

What matters most is love-the only source of energy that can restore the exhausted ones who are all around. It is not a product of ideology, of lifestyle choices or of political affiliation. It is not demonstrated by giving all one has, willy-nilly, and making oneself a ward of someone else. It is bestowed on us at birth, and hopefully nurtured by family, community and one’s affiliates-near and far.

“Love gives life to the lifeless”-‘Abdu’l-Baha