Category Archives: service

The Road to Diamond, Day 161: The Long Repair Job

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

May 8, 2025, Williamsport, PA- From the time I got onto I-80, in Mishawaka to the time I left the road, at the junction with U.S. 15, fifteen miles south of this headquarters city for Little League Baseball, there was virtually nonstop road construction. It resulted in closed lanes, almost every 15-20 miles or so, for a length of 2-3 miles for each segment.

I am told this is one of the major projects that is being funded by Build Back Better, the program that some say is a “left-wing, Green New Deal” boondoggle. Note that this work is focused on shoring up the concrete median, between eastbound and westbound lanes of the Interstate Highway, and fixing guardrails. While it was initiated by Progressives, a better roadway system is in the best interests of anyone who drives, both commercial and recreational. Stopping the work now, or even soon, would not save much, if anything, and would leave remaining fixes undone. While it is inconvenient for those of us driving now, it is best to get the work done before schools let out and families hit the road.

Most of the day was highway-bound. I came upon Ridgeway Inn, just south of downtown Williamsport, around 8 :30 pm. This lovely little motel is managed remotely, but apparently by someone who is close enough that major issues could be addressed readily. Williamsport itself is a clean and, in places, somewhat upscale community, with a strong tourist base that derives from its association with Little League Baseball. Several years ago, one of my nephews was on Saugus, MA’s Little League championship team, which faced against a team from Japan, in the Little League World Series. The Japanese boys won, but Saugus has named a public athletic field as World Series Field. It’s right across a lea from my boyhood home.

For this, and the general ambiance of the city, Willliamsport is another Pennsylvania city that has a place in my heart-along with Bedford, Wilkes-Barre, Exton, Oley and Clarion, to say nothing of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and York.

The Road to Diamond, Day 158: Small Service Bookends

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

May 5, 2025, Wellington, KS- Cinco de Mayo was marked at Mama Fina’s, in Plains, Kansas. The unofficial holiday has nothing to do with the United States, per se, but does commemorate the victory of the Mexican people over French invaders, in 1862, at the Battle of Puebla. It is said that we just love a good excuse to party-which seems to be human nature, and doesn’t hurt anything, unless carried to excess. Serafina produces both mild and spicy Mexican fare. Her smothered burrito is of the former variety, but filled the bill for the evening. A local high school student was the server, and spoke of her experiences at the small county-wide school. She also shared that she prefers watching Netflix to being on her phone-as a live action “Peter Rabbit”, featuring a kung fu Peter, was on the wide screen-with its video off.

Earlier in the day, I drove from Socorro to Mountainaire, NM, and found a small deli- cafe, nestled inside B Street Market, the town’s grocery store. The proprietor served up a fine breakfast sandwich. While I was waiting, a lady came in and asked me whether there was any hot food available-so I pointed her in the cafe’s direction. Ten minutes later, there was another satisfied local customer for the deli-cafe.

The day rolled out nicely, and connection with a Zoom call, over the phone and Bluetooth, proceeded, intermittently but basically well, as I rolled through the High Plains of eastern New Mexico and the upper Texas Panhandle, on the way to Dalhart, Guymon and Liberal (KS). Covering four states in a day, even driving fairly straight roads, is a good effort.

Kansas is often treeless, but seldom featureless. The glaciers of the last Great Ice Age did not spare this area, especially in the region known as Flint Hills. The red soil evokes some of the lower hills of Sedona.

Red Hills of western Kansas (above and below)

I rolled in to Wellington, around 10 pm and chose Travelodge, looking ahead to tomorrow’s breakfast, as a Penny’s Diner branch was next door. This is one of those properties where two separate hotels are managed by one desk, so I went to the Baymont office to register. Back across the street, i found a man looking in the window of the former Travelodge office, and scratching his head. I called to him to go over across the street, and ended up repeating the instruction in Spanish. He was happy to have his confusion resolved to say the least.

It was a fine thing, to be able to offer small services, in morning and evening.

The Road to Diamond, Day 156: Heroes, Super and Otherwise

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Entertainment, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 3, 2025, Phoenix- The comforter on the bed I am borrowing for the evening is Superhero-themed. I am now safe from anything that could threaten the well-being of a six-year-old boy. Since he’s away, this seventy-four-year-old, overgrown kid can expect the same. Monsters and villains, be gone!

Heroes, in real life, come in many shapes, sizes and guises. The people who seem to stand in our way, and keep us from what what we think we might want, will sometimes turn out to be our best friends-and unlikely heroes in our lives. Remember the tale of Majnoon, searching for his beloved Layli (Layla, of the Eric Clapton song). His path was blocked by one or another watchman, until he vaulted himself over a wall-and found her looking fr a ring she had lost.

Heroes can be full of bravado, or they can be ordinary people (as in the Dave Grohl song). They can be constantly in action, in the limelight or just be around-for one day (as in the David Bowie song). Yes, we have been celebrating our deliverers and saviors from time immemorial. From the Epic of Gilgamesh, to the Iliad and Odyssey, the Tales of Hiawatha, Icelandic sagas and stories of the Samurai, all the way to the Marvel and DC characters, we derive much comfort in the idea that someone has our backs.

It is best, though, that we are our own, and one another’s champions. Acting in the interests of each person in our world-starting with ourselves, but not stopping there, can be challenging. The alternative, though, is to let someone else determine the entirety of our existence. That may seem easier, but recall the fates of those who acquiesced to tyrants, throughout history. Were they happier, in the fullness of time? Were their needs met?

Today, in conference with many of my fellow Baha’is, at the Center where Penny and I spent many happy hours, in the often troubled 2000s, I was reminded that “heroism” is hard work and that it is often not intentional, but the result of just putting oneself out there, on behalf of humanity-and of all creation. It most often involves teamwork, and always involves discernment and fortitude.

After our long day of consultation, my host and I joined several old friends, and many youth, in honouring a hard-working college graduate. It was a joy to see people I haven’t seen in fifteen years and to witness how several of them have grown from childhood and become successful adults, in various fields.

Heroes-some of them “super” come in all forms.

The Road to Diamond, Day 154: No Worries

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

May 1, 2025- I woke this morning with a minor headache. After drinking a liter of water, the headache was gone. I greeted the month of May with a renewed sense of purpose. Staying extra-hydrated is a key part of that, as the weather will soon warm up.

As I get ready for a visit back east and down south, over the next 2.5 weeks, there are priorities to be set, but also a need to have a path open to electronically assist those here who contact me by Messenger and IM while I am away. The need to be acknowledged does not stop at the city limits or state line, so I have time to assist some friends who seem to have nowhere else to turn and point them towards those here who can help-and probably be of more help than I am when at Home Base I. For that matter, I have done the same for people in other parts of the country and in other countries, whilst here. That, to me, is one of the prime purposes of the digital realm.

There were about twenty of us who celebrated the Twelfth Day of Ridvan, marking the 162nd anniversary of the departure from Baghdad, by Baha’ullah and his entourage. They would cross the mountains and desert of Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, going by land and sea to what is now Istanbul. It would take them a little over three months. We celebrate, because we know that they made the journey successfully, joyfully, with a sense that their journey was in service to the Divine. Every place that Baha’ullah was sent, ostensibly in exile and as a punishment, was made better by His presence.

That is the reason why, on this day, and in this Day, I feel no worries. No matter how difficult things may sometimes get, the right thing happens in the end.

The Road to Diamond, Day 151: Parties Large and Small

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Posted by on in Community, Historical, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

April 28, 2025- The wind was still a bit brisk, as is the norm for April here. There were eleven of us gathered, in a large park at Prescott Valley. The occasion was the celebration of the Ninth Day of the Ridvan Festival. The twelve-day festival marks Baha’ullah’s Announcement of His Mission to the world and His departure, along with His family and closest associates, from Baghdad to Istanbul (Constantinople). Day 9 was the most likely day of His revelation to His family, of the true nature of His being in the world. It was after that, when preparations for their departure began in earnest, to be concluded with the actual beginning of the journey northward on the Twelfth Day.

Many Baha’i gatherings during the work week are small, but no less festive. We had a bit of music and an intrepid dancer engaged the birds, who were not all that interested and flew off. As always, the food was plentiful and devotions, heartfelt.

Later, I helped serve dinner at the Monday evening Soup Kitchen. This gathering is no small party,with probably 80 people getting a full, well-prepared and varied meal. The camaraderie, among people who are not living in the best of circumstances, is still heartwarming. Here, they know they are wanted and cared for. Despite the still-cold nights, they are able to mostly find shelter and the left over food can go with them, for further meal security, as well as to other shelters in need of food security.

I was asked this afternoon where my next journey will take me. After a fairly large two-day conference in Phoenix, this coming weekend, the road goes north and east-to other gatherings large, small and in-between. It is the warmth that counts.

The Road to Diamond, Day 149: A Slight Mismatch

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Personal goals, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 26, 2025- Four of us gave a concerted effort, in trying to put a tent inside a bag, at the end of the school district fundraiser. Realizing that the bag was too small, we found the equipment manager, who remembered how easy it was to put a smaller tent into another bag, earlier in the day. Mismatch!! Two of us took the smaller tent out and put the larger tent in the big bag. Then came small tent reunited with small bag.

Many of us go through mismatches in life-usually, as with the tents, a combination of feeling hurried, thinking there is no alternative and thinking “I know I can make this work!” So, jobs don’t get done quite as well as they might; relationships founder and end up either broken or stale; programs are left to grow sclerotic and useless. A handy equipment manager can’t always come to the rescue.

So, it becomes a matter of proactivity. Plan, one must; plan, we must. As I consider what lies ahead, calling on those who are on my team-for Baha’i community activities, for Red Cross events and responses to emergencies; for get-togethers during my time back East, seeking rightness of fit is a big item. It has been a fairly good run, these past several years, with few mismatches. Much of that was from what I learned in marriage-“Consultation is finding out”, was Penny’s mantra. It still serves me well.

The Road to Diamond, Day 142: The Long of It

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

April 19, 2025- Today was the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which are seen by many as the beginning of the American War for Independence from Great Britain. It is also the twelfth anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, by which two men and a woman tried to make the claim that the American Experience was ignoring the plight of Muslims in Western and Central Asia, and thus Americans deserved to suffer.

A conservative friend recently pointed out that the basic conflict in our society is between those who believe good actions should be the result of free choice and those who believe that good actions often have to be coerced. I believe that most people start out the socializing portion of their lives (around age 4) wanting to please the people who are most closely in their view (parents, siblings, grandparents and, if they are lucky, extended family like aunts, uncles and cousins). Friends begin to be made around that time, as well. If that love is not reciprocated, for whatever reason, the person will devise other means of obtaining goals. Thus, greed, aggression and devious behaviour (such as lying or fantasizing) take root.

So, until such time as the spiritualization of the entirety of the human race is realized, we need some governmental safeguards, to serve as prompts, in moments of feckless, antisocial or exclusionary activity. We needed government to put a stop to slavery, then to two-tiered education systems and institutionalized racism, then to the same discriminatory practices regarding the treatment of women-and by extension, homosexuals. We needed government to protect workers from the excessive greed of employers. To some extent, we still need these laws, to guard against backsliding.

Freedom is never going to be free, so if we as a species want to be able to function without coercion, there is only one long term answer, the development and maintenance of self-discipline. My life has only become freer since I made a disciplined lifestyle my reality. I am quite certain that the same is true of anyone else who truly feels personal freedom.

The Road to Diamond, Day 141: Good Friday

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Posted by on in Education, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 18, 2025- The day was marked here by rain, throughout the day, and snow in the early evening. As I sat with friends at American Legion Post 6, enjoying a fish fry, the snow continued to fall, adding a rather surreal touch to what is, for many, a solemn day.

When I was a child, in a Roman Catholic home, the day marking the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus the Christ was the saddest day of the year. I didn’t feel like there was any reason for mirth or celebration, of anything, on Good Friday. As a teenager and young adult, I would invariably turn down invitations to join my friends, in whatever routine Friday night celebration they had planned. Even Catholic friends viewed my stance as sanctimonious, but I felt it deep in my heart.

As a Baha’i, I still view the Sufferings and Death of Christ as a tragic rejection by humanity, of His Message of peace and spiritual reconciliation. The day was spent in service, albeit in the covering of a Band class at a local intermediate school. Despite the odd weather and the approach of Easter weekend, students maintained a certain focus and kept on with their tasks. It did help, though, that it was a shorter day.

In the scheme of things, I continue to wonder: “How might our world be different, if the powers of the day had heeded Christ’s Message, and followed Him, at the time of His pronouncements?”

The Road to Diamond, Day 140: First Dibs

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Family, impediments, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 17, 2025- I checked online, about a request that I made to be relieved of a volunteer slot at an upcoming charity event. The request was denied, due to a shortage of other interested volunteers. I could very well take the stance that it’s my time, something more important, further afield, has come up and life is just too bad sometimes.

I will do nothing of the sort. My word is good for a lot more than convenience. The event in this community will benefit a lot of children and teens. The event for which I might have traded my time would primarily benefit only me, with Kathy getting a video of a place which I have already taken several photographs. So, the edge goes to Home Base I.

There are several choices that will need to be made, both on an individual and on a collective basis, over the next several months, and likely well into next year. I can only control what choices I make, so here it is: With Baha’i Teachings as my road map, my little family and Kathy come first, followed by extended family, then this community-including Baha’i friends and finally, all those across the continent and the world. I guess I put myself somewhere in the middle of it all, yet I will survive just fine.

I know, in each situation, who gets first dibs.

The Road to Diamond, Day 138: Biology and Belief

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 15, 2025- A strange dream, just before I woke this morning, presented me with an alternative version of my late twenties. I was tooling around a remote area of the Great Plains, and connected with a young lady, much more easily than I actually did, back then. When I awoke, it occurred to me that, while the dream was pleasant, I would not give up one minute of the life I actually ended up having, for even such a comforting revision. The idea of not having my Faith, Aram and my twenty-nine years with Penny is really beyond my comprehension.

This morning, I brought a friend to inquire about getting an appliance, at one of the area’s thrift stores. For one reason or another, though the appliances in question had arrived last Thursday, I was only able to help her today. All the appliances were sold. This, she quickly determined, was the result of inherent bad luck and the system being stacked against her. My take was, “first come, first served”, though I recognized how painful it must feel to her, to have drawn the short straw, again. We found ourselves hitting every red light, at the intersections going back to her house, another indication that there was a “conspiracy afoot”. Well, no-it is just a day when I paid the universe back for all the other days when I caught every green light, from here to Spring Valley.

I have seen self-loathing or a victim mentality draw the worst energy, from random mishaps to disease. The latter, of course, perpetuates the dark energy, to the point where the poor soul often ends up being socially isolated. Many of the emotionally down and out of my past have died prematurely. This is all the more reason why I have cast aside my own self-loathing, with a view towards living several more years, to the fullest, in good health and surrounded by family and friends.

So, after this morning’s errand of mercy, I joined Akuura on another exploration of the Williamson Valley trail system. This time, we found the previously elusive water tank, that is a landmark for the trail to petroglyphs that lie somewhere atop a hill. We will have to locate the ancient scripts on another adventure, but here are the things we did find this afternoon.

Williamson 1
Akuura and a boulder
WV 2
Rock Madonna
WV 3
Dino Head
WV 4
Bowling Ball, or dinosaur egg?
WV 5
The elusive water tank

The upshot of the hiking story, as regards biology, is that this hobby is one of the factors in my own relatively good outlook on life. Of course, good friends, a healthy diet and maintaining a realistic view of both good fortune and misfortune, have their places in the game plan of longevity.