Category Archives: Service Activities

Elbow Bumps

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

May 1, 2021- May Day has traditionally been a day when I have looked back on my year of work, with a view towards successfully summing up what has been achieved and what remains ahead. This year will more or less conclude on May 7, the end of my series of special projects that has followed retirement. There could be other, unanticipated calls between now and May 27, or at different points next Autumn, and beyond. My major focus, though, will by and large be more a more fluid effort at community service.

Today was spent running a duffel bag filled with “Days for Girls” washable and reusable feminine products to a couple who met us in Flagstaff. The woman receiving the items was less than thrilled that I was the one who had driven them up there. Perhaps she was just embarrassed, though we have had a few issues in the past. We got the mission done, and a friend retrieved her truck, which had been used for water delivery on the Navajo Nation. I helped several girls and a long-time friend, which is what matter most. Connecting two equestrian friends was also accomplished, and I got to visit a bit with two wonderful horses.

I still found myself greeting my Dineh friend, in Flagstaff, with an elbow bump. We wore masks, for the benefit of those who remain immuno-compromised. Even if that benefit is merely psychological, it is worth their peace of mind. The residual effects of the virus will be with us for a short while longer in the U.S.-and longer still in countries, like India and Brazil, where it is still raging. While one can look beyond the present status of the pandemic in this and other countries, where it is under control, we must not lose concern for the well-being of the planet as a whole.

Elbow bumps will be a thing, for some time yet to come. We will, however, prevail as a species.

Renewal

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Posted by on in Assistance, Education, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

April 28, 2021- So often, when I think there is not much that might change in my little corner of the world, new experiences offer themselves-as a way of refreshing, renewing. There is also the continuing clean bill of health, from my chiropractor at least-and, I am anticipating, at my dental check-up, in two weeks. Sleeping more soundly is something to which I credit both the Thrive vitamins that are now part of my evening regimen and the letting go of left-over guilt, from not having met some people’s expectations.

The school year is winding down, with testing drawing to a close-and the focus being more on final class projects, at the intermediate and secondary levels. I am helping with intermediate students, working on science projects this week. Encouraging them to see the science behind everything from video games to pond scum is an exhilarating experience.

Next week, going back to primary level classes, will also provide some novel experiences, as the younger students, also, will be wrapping up some small exploratory activities. There is no end to what each of us can discover, as the world slowly opens back up, even as the technology which has sustained us through this pandemic offers new ways to maintain long distance connections.

I hope this last is not lost on many people.

Pressure, Real and Imagined

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

April 25, 2021- As I hau

As I hauled my laundry basket to the car, this afternoon, I spoke a few minutes with landlord, learning that there are a variety of infrastructure issues piling up, on and around the quad. This will most likely mean a rent increase, next year. I will face that issue, at that time. For now, there is no pressure on us tenants, but he will be pressed to come up with a game plan.

Whilst engaged in said laundry, I received another IM from someone whose basic message is that he needs help raising money. There was a time when I felt a welling up of pressure, with a measure of guilt at my relative level of comfort. I have since become more at ease with the situation, and my mantra is that people in a given country/community need to band together and make change happen-rather than keep the refrain that people in developed countries had better kick into the kitty , or at least make a loan to the poor souls. (Personal loans, even in this country, rarely are paid back, even in part. I have paid mine, but that’s a whole other matter.)

There is also pressure, both real and imagined, regarding one’s use of time. I have discussed the matter of proliferating Zoom calls, in an earlier post. Usually, there are at least two Zoom sessions, both of which are ABSOLUTELY URGENT, occurring simultaneously. I have learned to excuse myself, with a smile, from the less urgent of the two-or however many are scheduled at the same time.

It is a blessing to finally know how to distinguish true urgency from the urgency that exists only in the mind of the hearer.

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.

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.

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.

Samaritans

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual

April 9, 2021- There is a story of a man from Samaria, a region of what is now Syria and known for its enmity with Judea. The story goes that he stopped to help an injured man, on the side of the road, after the man had been left to die, by bandits. From his kind actions, we get the term Good Samaritan. Over time, “samaritan” has come to mean someone who helps strangers who are in difficulty, often stranded in a remote area.

There are many stories of people coming to the aid of the unfortunate. There are all kinds of samaritans: Some, with low self-esteem, seek praise, adulation, recognition and even a reward of some sort. Others may keep a tally sheet, and while paying it forward, seek recompense later. There is the “no-good-deed-goes unpunished” crowd-wanting any misdeeds to be overlooked, just because “on balance” they have helped some people, sometimes. The key to authenticity is knowing just how well one accounts for transgressions, without falling back on what one might have done for others.

I can only make sense of one course for my own state of being. Yes, I know there have been times when I have done good for people, without being asked. There have also been times when people have been hurt, on my account. The one good thing about “samaritan” acts is that no one needs to know about them, other than the recipients of such help. They need not speak of it.

Walking Gently

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Hiking and Nature, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 24, 2021- This morning, I introduced a hiking buddy to Thumb Butte, one of Prescott’s majestic surrounding promontories. I chose the route that allowed a gentler ascent, thus giving her a good first experience on the butte, which also offers a steep climb on its other main route.

In any encounter with other people, it is most often the best course of action for the individual to take a gentle tone. Of course, there are times when a firm “NO!” is, in the long run, the true gentleness. The key is always to attend, carefully, to the person or to the group. Intuition is far more important to me now than it ever was in times past. Maybe the times are tougher, but I doubt it.

I simply find that, day to day, my path and that of any given person who crosses it are intertwined, in ways that never occurred to me, even a dozen years ago. I find that a lot of the cues I missed, when clouded by both preoccupation with Penny’s state of being and my own baggage, are front and center now. If those situations that were so problematic, seven, eight, ten years ago, presented themselves again, at least I would know to tread a gentler path-both with myself and those I am sure that were hurt.

Coming out of the pandemic, which I feel we are now, I sense myself staying more in tune with those around me. The gentle path feels the better, stronger way.

Sarah’s Solution

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Historical, Service Activities, Social, Striving

March 11, 2021- In 1984, whilst in Guyana, I ran out of shampoo and went to the open air market in the small town of Bath. There, I purchased some Palmolive Shampoo, that had been made in Brazil. The product was much stronger than shampoos made in the United States, by the same company. My scalp was mildly burned.

This happened to me one time. I threw the shampoo in the trash, when I got back to the U.S. Until the 1910s, African-Americans had no recourse to hair care products that met their needs. The experience I had, once, was the lot of Black men, women and children-until Sarah Breedlove began her line of hair care and beauty products, marketed under the brand name Madam C.J. Walker’s . That name was taken, in honour of Sarah’s third husband, Charles Joseph Walker. It was the custom of many married women in that time to refer to themselves by their husband’s full name. Sarah divorced Charles in 1912, but kept his name until her death, in 1919. (Charles would outlive her by seven years.)

Sarah developed her line of Afrocentric beauty products, after suffering for several years with the use of products that led to severe dandruff and eczema-and eventually to hair loss. Experimenting, from the base line of products sold by one Annie Malone, Madam C.J. Walker became America’s first self-made female millionaire and brought attention to the skin and hair care needs of African-American women- bringing a host of products that moved beyond the folk remedies that had sustained people, both during and after the days of enslavement.

From this first line of such products, and from competitors such as Annie Malone and later, Sarah Spencer Washington, came a bona fide effort to teach African-American women the essentials of proper hair and skin care. This effort expanded, in the mid-Twentieth Century, to those Caribbean and Central American nations with significant Black communities. It has now gone worldwide.

Sarah Breedlove/Madam C.J. Walker brought grace and elegance to the lives of countless women whose needs had heretofore been ignored. She deserves a place of honour in this Women’s History Month.

Women’s Inventiveness

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

March 2, 2021- Mother always chortled at the notion that women were anything less than inventive. She essentially told us, “Anyone who thinks, for a minute, that a person can raise children without being the paragon of inventiveness, is nuts.

March is Women’s History Month, so I’d like to note the hugeness of this topic underscores the fact that men, by themselves, can only do a percentage of what needs doing, in moving the human race forward. Here are the stories of two women who invented objects that are today seen as ordinary, but which made a huge difference in everyone’s life.

Margaret E. Knight (1838-1914) was the inventor of the machine that produced the flat-bottomed paper bag, of lid-removing pliers, of a safety device for mechanical looms, of a numbering machine, of a window frame and sash, and of several devices related to the operation of rotary engines. Ms. Knight never married, regarding her inventions as her children. The flat-bottomed paper bag, alone, saved people from the carpal tunnel that resulted from dealing with envelope-style paper bags, day after day. The safety guard for mechanical looms, her earliest invention (at age 12), undoubtedly saved many people from being stabbed by sharp looming threaders and industrial-sized needles which could otherwise be jarred loose and become projectiles.

Bette Nesmith Graham (1924-1980) was the inventor of Liquid Paper, the first commercially successful correctional fluid. Her idea came from the remembrance that artists routinely paint over their mistakes, usually with white paint. Adapting this technique to the common business office, she managed to market correctional fluid, first for typewritten error correction, then for mistakes made using pen and ink. Liquid Paper remains useful in the latter instance, even in these days of largely computerized printing. Fun Fact: Bette Nesmith Graham was the mother of the musician Michael Nesmith, who performed as a member of The Monkees, a 1960s pop music group.

There are ever more far-reaching fruits coming from the human mind, which can never truly be compartmentalized according to physical gender, much less to the circumstances of one’s birth. I will continue, throughout March, to underscore the value of recognizing women’s contributions to our heritage.