Tag Archives: Baha’i

Eastbound and Back, Day 22: Victoria Day

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 20, 2024, Moncton- There was fury, then consternation, on the face of the well-coiffed woman, as she pulled around Sportage, after blaring her horn, twice, after I stopped at the edge of the gas station driveway to take a stranded couple a kilometer or two, up the road. It was not convenient, or easy, for any of the four of us. She, however, was able to just go around, and on her way. I moved a few things in the back seat, making room for the young woman, with her husband getting in the front. After they were dropped off, I moved everything back.

Ernie, Meena and Theresa Johnson

This transpired a short time after I visited some Baha’i friends in Eskasoni, NS, apprising them of the concerns of another Miqmaq friend who I visited in Corner Brook, on Saturday night. Mr. Ernie Johnson listened to my account of our mutual friend’s concerns and offered a history of that family’s contributions to the growth of the Baha’i Faith in Ontario, Alberta and Nova Scotia, especially in Cape Breton and Ottawa. Now, he surmised, our friend has yet another opportunity. After suggesting that he and others pay a visit to the Baha’is of Corner Brook, and being showered with gifts, including two delightful tuna salad sandwiches, I headed out towards the lower Maritimes, bidding farewell to blessed Cape Breton Island.

After the above incident at the gas station, I pondered whether I was biased in favour of the poor and downtrodden, over the seeming well-to-do, in terms of service acts. It was not long, before the Universe called me on that one. By the side of the road there stood a forlorn-looking man, the trunk of his car raised, and a spare tire resting against the rear right bumper. I stopped the SUV, pulling well into the gravel breakdown area, and went to see if I could assist.

It turned out that a tire was flat. He was having difficulty removing the lug nuts, with his rather small tire wrench. I offered to give it a try, and after several toggles between my stepping on the long part of the wrench and his adjusting his car jack downward, we managed to get the lug nuts removed, the tire off, spare tire on and lug nuts returned and suitably tightened. His drive to a speaking engagement, some distance eastward was assured. The gentleman turned out to be a former councilman from the capital city of Ottawa, whose focus was on public transportation. He is also a poet, and in gratitude, he gave me a copy of his latest book of verse. So, it matters little whether one is prince of pauper. I will help anyone in need, to the best of my ability.

I drove on, through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, stopping only in New Glasgow, to pick up a couple of items and here, the home of Magnetic Hill, to rest at a lovely Amsterdam inn & Suites.

Sunset Pioneers

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

April 13, 2024- Last night, I pondered what role medication has played in my mother’s recent health woes. A friend here has had his medication adjusted, at his daughters’ insistence, and the barely cognizant soul, who had us all concerned , has resumed being his relatively feisty self. Apparently, Mom’s doctor had similar thoughts, and the resulting adjustments have made her a bit more like her old self.

This is good news for us all, and while we are not under any illusion, as to the long-term, being able to follow her instructions, that I not give short shrift to my obligations here, will be true to both her steadfast insistence over the years, that our word should be our bond and to my own sense of integrity. So long as her condition is stable, I will keep on with activities in Home Base I, both Baha’i and secular, and will head out across the continent, in the evening of April 28.

We are each pioneering our sunset years: Mom, my siblings, most of my cousins, surviving aunts, a good many of my friends, including my dearest, and yours truly. That means as many different things as there are of us. It means varying health challenges, of which thankfully I have very few, to date and which most have faced with a great deal of fortitude and resilience. I am proud of each one who has faced down aching joints, diabetes and macular degeneration, with corrective surgery, both natural and allopathic cures and a steady regimen of physical therapy. It means having a can-do spirit.

This most recent scare has reminded one and all that family comes first, then community and after that, the wider humanity. I stand firm on each of those counts. This pioneering life will continue in good stead.

Happy Places

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Hiking and Nature, Historical, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

April 6, 2024- As I drove into the parking lot of Mayer Fire Department’s central station, a day-glo sign on a house above the road proclaimed “This is My Happy Place”. A similar notice, “Welcome to Our Happy Place”, greets visitors to the Wildflower Bakery, on the edge of Prescott’s Pine Ridge Marketplace. This led me to once more reflect on my own happy places.

The list starts with Home Base I, the cozy one-bedroom apartment where I’ve lived for the past ten years, and by extension includes Prescott as a whole. Within its confines, the city offers other happy places: Raven Cafe, Peregrine Book Store, Yavapai College’s Sculpture Garden, Wild Iris Coffee House, County Seat Restaurant, Prescott College,Lazy G Brewhouse (I stick to their Non-alcoholic IPA), Lifeways Book Store, any one of four Mom and Pop pizzerias, which I visit sparingly, these days and any one of several Baha’i and other friends’ homes. In the periphery are Zeke’s Eatin’ Place, Highlands Nature Center, Thumb Butte, Watson Lake and the Granite Dells, Willow and Goldwater Lakes, Dharma Farm and Granite Mountain.

Once outside HB I, there are the Happy Places on the road-and over the ocean: Samesun Hostel and Ocean Beach; Copper Sands Motel and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument; Macy’s European Coffee House and Bakery-and the San Francisco Peaks; Brewed Awakenings Coffee House and Grand Canyon’s South Rim; Jacob Lake Inn (coming back in June, my friends) and the North Rim; every last one of the First Nations Pueblos; any number of Orange County beach towns; Santa Fe, with The Pantry and Henry & The Fish; Taos; Cuba (NM) and Ghost Ranch; Manitou Springs; Monument Valley; Tucson’s Old Town; High Desert Bakery and Coronado National Monument.

There are the Baha’i House of Worship and Wilmette Village’s center; Mishawaka and the Crisenberry Family Farm, in nearby Goshen; all of Massachusetts’ North Shore-and downtown Boston; Boothbay Harbor, Green Acre Baha’i School- and the entire coast of Maine; Cape Breton Island; Newfoundland; Vancouver Island; Amarillo, with the Fun Zone and Palo Duro Canyon; Gram’s Place-and all of Tampa Bay; Tonopah and Beans & Brew; Carson City and the Tahoe Region; Portlandia; the Olympic Peninsula; Crossville and the Cumberland Plateau; Aiken and Full Moon Coffee House; Osceola Tiger and Big Cypress; Philly’s Old City, and the Museum of Art in Wood; the ‘burbs west of Philadelphia and Glick’s Greenhouse.

There are Vannes and Daily Gourmand, in Bretagne; Makati, and Manila’s Rizal Park; Daet’s Bagasbas Beach; Luxembourg’s Old City; Frankfurt-am-Main’s Dom; anywhere on Jeju-do; Busan’s Gold King Coffee House.

Happiness, though, is in the mind and heart. The people in the above-mentioned places are what make each of them special. A few would call themselves acquaintances, most would count me as a friend and one has my heart, as no other person save my late wife, Penny, had it. Each of them, and their surroundings, bring me solace. Their list will, no doubt, grow.

Each substitute teaching job that did at least one child or teen some good, each volunteer shift that produced some good, each errand of mercy to needful friends accomplished, each hike done safely and each trip that was not a waste of time is also a happy place.

I salute everyone who offers their home or business in like manner.

It All Happened

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 5, 2024- Quite a deal, that New Jersey earthquake. It didn’t seem to bother any of my extended family, at least those on social media. It also didn’t seem to have inured anyone. Still, it was an earthquake, in New Jersey. What’s next? Snow in San Diego’s Gastown?

A lot happened here, also, but it was all related to making flight arrangements for autumn-and paying a huge bill for something else. The weather was rather wonky, so it didn’t bother me to stay in, most of the day and evening. I learned of another connection between my Baha’i friends and the local Red Cross team. A friend was helped and I got in a workout. Otherwise, it was me, my spirit guides and the keyboard.

As fulfilling as my full-on days are, I enjoy a day of relative solitude, now and then. So, even when it all happens, all at once or in short order, as long as there is a breather in there somewhere, I am good for another three or four decades-God willing.

As I write this, more snow is coming down. Maybe San Diego isn’t out of the woods yet.

Resurgent

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

March 31, 2024- There were a lot of plastic eggs, in baskets on the breakfast tables, at Post 6, this morning. When I picked one up and shook it, gently, to see if there was anything inside, the event’s organizer got a bit huffy and said “You’re all lucky we even decorated the tables!” Fair point, I guess, and in the scheme of things, jelly beans or chocolate bites inside a decorative Easter egg merit a .005 in importance, on a scale of 1-10-especially in the days of mass homelessness in Gaza and considerable destitution right here in the U.S.

What matters is faith. As a Baha’i, I hold firmly to the notion that spiritual truth is revealed progressively. The earliest books of the Bible deal with individual recognition of the Divine, as do the Teachings of Krishna. Moses stressed the need for family and tribe to be reverent. Zoroaster taught recognition of the power of Good, of Light. Buddha was all about detachment, even through suffering. Christ taught, and modeled, forgiveness based on love. Mohammad called for the spiritually-governed nation. Baha’u’llah calls for the spiritually-governed planet. None of them have taught that it is laudatory to slaughter one’s enemies. Moses and Mohammad make allowances for self-defense, but that is as far as actual scripture goes-at least as far as I can determine.

Christ, through His Resurrection, taught that no one is beyond hope. Each of us can be resurgent, and can transcend our limitations, even when appearing spiritually dead. None of us can really know and judge another soul, and so it is always best, on an individual basis, to offer love and support to those who are errant. Justice is best left to those in government, so long as it is applied in an even-handed manner. Any one of us can change for the better-and be resurgent.

That’s my “lay sermon” for this Easter, and I’m sticking to it.

Here, and There

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

March 24, 2024- I dreamed of Penny last night. Nothing new about that; she appears when I need to figure out what I should do, in a particular situation. The dream’s ending showed that I am on the right track, about certain matters. The spirit, on whom I depend for guidance, is always present. Any doubts or qualms are on me.

Today, Palm Sunday in Christendom, started off cold and with light snow. It was nice in the afternoon, and when I went over to work out, it was overcast and snowing lightly, again. The rest of the country is going through winter’s after market misery, and may everyone get through it safely.

While I was on the stationary bike, I was a captive audience for a troubled woman, who let out all the frustrations she has had, with certain employers and other people, for about fifteen minutes of nonstop chatter. I just kept on pedaling, and felt worse for the guy on the other side of me, but after she ran out of vitriol, she left. (If you wonder why I didn’t cut her off, we were in a public place and it would have been worse than if I just kept silent. That’s how it is, dealing with certain mental illnesses.)

Two Baha’i Zoom calls were well attended, and starting off the week when Jesus the Christ is especially honoured with our own spiritual focus will release a lot of positive healing energy. There will be other events, tomorrow and Tuesday, that will add to that energy. With the penumbral lunar eclipse on the occasion of a full moon, I suspect a lot of people will need that energy. I know I will.

Blessed Holy Week, everyone, and may you be safe.

Spirits At Work

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

March 20, 2024- An old friend, who I haven’t seen in thirteen years, gave me a call, and said that, among other things, she has a journal that Penny wrote, whilst we were on Pilgrimage to the Baha’i Holy Places, as well as to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the Galilee, in 1982.
I will retrieve that treasure, when I go to northern Nevada, en route to the Pacific Northwest, in July.

In our conversation, friend also referred to her deceased husband, sending her messages that he was engaged in productive work, in the world beyond. Penny gave me a similar message, in her last appearance in my sleep, about two months ago. The souls progress, and they do not slumber.

I’m pretty much convinced that all the good that has happened to me, in the past twelve years-and especially in the last five, has largely been due to personal growth, in which I have been guided by the spirits who love me. I have survived auto mishaps and a few personal attacks, because of their intercession. The same is true of all the journeys I have safely undertaken and the friends made. They have helped me shed baggage and demons, as I’ve mentioned a few times.

The work of the spirits continues-as we observe the Baha’i New Year, that is called, in Persian, Naw-Ruz. May this busy 181 B.E., that falls mostly in 2024, be a safe and healthy one for all.

No Backward Pivot

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

March 8, 2024- My mother was a stay-at-home housewife, who also had a marketable skill: Hairdresser/cosmetologist. Our kitchen was her workspace, and I was honoured to make runs on a bus, to downtown Lynn, MA, from our home in Saugus, to purchase items that she needed for her trade. She is well-read, well-spoken and has kept up with current events, even in her 90s. Mother is nobody’s fool, and the four of us, her adult children, are all the better for it.

Today is International Women’s Day. Besides the maudlin truth that I would not be here today, were it not for a woman, it stands that I would not have had any kind of a life worth living, were it not for the life lessons imparted by Mom, by the six women who taught in our Elementary School, by several of the teachers in Junior High and High School (most notably Mrs. Katherine Vande and Miss Gladys Fox) and the devotion of my late wife, Penny. I would not be living as full a life as I have now, without the friendship of at least two dozen women, including someone I adore the most., but ALL of whom I love dearly.

There are those, both male and female, who harbor a thinly-veiled desire to put women “back in their place”, harkening back to the time when Mick Jagger could sing an abysmal tune, like “Under My Thumb”, or John Lennon croon a wretched song like “Little Girl”, and get away with it, even making a fair amount of money in the process. Maybe they want to go even further back, to the time when women were legally their husband’s, or father’s, chattel.

The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. It is ironic that many of the women who spout “traditonalist” views are self-made professionals, who have even told me that they are perfectly fine without a male mate in their lives. In that last pronouncement, they are right, in my humble opinion. Going back to the time when I was first contemplating proposing marriage to Penny, I weighed, very carefully, just how much I would add to the already distinguished and successful life she had made for herself. I am glad to have fully supported her further achievements, of two more Master’s Degrees and the implementation of three innovative programs, in schools where she subsequently worked. The woman was a genius. She was a fine wife and mother, but she would never thrived in a stay-at-home role.

In the Baha’i writings, it is stated that, given a choice of only educating one of two children, a son or a daughter, it is preferable to send the daughter to school, as the first teacher of a child is the mother. Cases in point: It was my mother who taught me to read, and to write in cursive letters. She was professional and exacting, and the lessons stuck. It was Penny who taught our son, Aram, to read, and to be careful in researching various aspects of life, before making a decision. Every one of the mothers among my female friends has had an outsized influence on the achievements of those of their children who have reached adulthood. That includes my sister, who has raised four strong and successful professionals.

The clock cannot be turned back. Thank God.

Looney Tunes

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Posted by on in Community, Entertainment, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 8, 2024- I love February, in spite of itself. I love it, despite the lingering cold, the slowly receding dark and the icy roads of morning and late night. I love the second calendar month because we humans respond to dreariness, with festivity: Lunar New Year, Super Bowl Sunday,Mardi Gras (I will never willingly say “Fat Tuesday”, anymore than I would say “plastic silverware”, “six-month anniversary” or “Feb-yoo-ery”. -but that’s me.), Valentine’s Day, and Ayyam-i-Ha (Days of God’s Essence, or Intercalary Days), which are the Baha’i gift giving period. This last is called Intercalary Days, because the Baha’i devotional calendar consists of nineteen months, with nineteen days each. That leaves four days (five, in a Leap Year), at the end of the year. 

It is also a month when I see an increase in behaviour, of the kind that the late President Reagan would call “Looney Tunes”. Maybe it’s a reaction to lingering cold, slowly receding darkness, icy roads, or All-American malapropisms, but I have to ask: Why insist on driving 60 mph, in the dark, on an icy 35 mph road, with heavy snow coming down? Why refuse to shovel one’s section of sidewalk, or at least have someone else do it, when there is 5-6 inches of snow on it, and the Sun isn’t coming out for quite a while? Why make such a furious mess about Taylor Swift?, and my fave-Why go against your own bill that would restore some sense of order to the Mexican border?

I will leave those questions, and the proper pronunciation of “February”, to those with intelligence quotients that are several points higher than my own-people like Taylor Swift, for example.

On a more serious note: My sincerest wishes that there be a dry period in California, so that our western neighbours can get on with repairs to roads, bridges and beach fronts.

Torn Plastic

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

January 18, 2024- The technician went over Sportage, noting the areas that will be repaired, from December 4’s encounter with the traffic cone, and a small tear in the rear door lift-not part of the claim. I can mend the latter myself, using JB Weld, or maybe a clear epoxy. 

My recent time at Ghost Ranch restored a sense of competence in matters of handiwork. It had been a long time since I did anything that involved a degree of knowledge in one of the trades. I did paint my house in Phoenix, externally and most of the interior-just not enough to feel a sense of completion. Back then, Penny’s care was more important.      

I don’t have to do much, manually, here at Home Base 1-being a renter. If my life circumstances change, though, I would want to draw on the latent skill sets that served me quite well, last week. It boils down to patience, and being able to do things one step at a time. Multitasking often works against the craftsman, the manual labourer, whose work will never truly become outdated or inconsequential.

Tomorrow, I will prepare a small item for use as a necklace, which may be sent as a gift, for an upcoming Baha’i festival. That will be another affirmation of skill set. When Sportage comes back, next week, I will repair the torn spot on the door lift. It’s all a matter of self-confidence, and patience. 

Parents, raise your children in a degree of self-reliance. The Pros and experts won’t always be available to help.