Tag Archives: families

The Road to Diamond, Day 111: Yin/Yang

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

March 19,2025- The little girl holding an arm load of red and green tennis balls looked plaintively at me, through the chain-link fence of the tennis court, as I was walking back from downtown. There, near my feet, was a stray ball, with the same yin/yang design as the ones she was holding. I picked up the ball and tossed it, underhand, over the fence to her waiting, appreciative father.

Earlier, while I was on the way downtown, a man and his three sons were riding their bicycles, with a good heady speed, up the slight hill. This sort of exercise is vital to people, especially children, so I gladly stepped aside. Kids on bicycles or on skateboards, deserve all the support they can get, from adults. It was a joy to see the father engaged with his children.

These families are not uncommon in Prescott. People are always gathered outdoors, in this manner. It made the message I read when I got home, from the Baha’i Faith’s Supreme Body, all the more cogent. The Universal House of Justice wrote us on the subject of the importance of family, as the basic unit of society. ‘Abdu’l-Baha said, in the early 20th Century, that the family was the miniature of a nation. In today’s letter, the Institution noted that there is a struggle between forces, which are pulling society in opposite directions. The family, in its functioning, needs to steer a middle path between the two extremes, and focus on building character in its children-a character which will serve the person well, throughout life.

Towards evening, I learned that someone in our neighbourhood, an obviously troubled individual, had to be jailed for lewd and lascivious behaviour. There are small children next door to Home Base I and two teenage girls live in houses across the street. I look out for these kids, while knowing they have loving and dedicated parents. The miscreant will not harm any of them, even if released for some reason.

There is always a yin and yang.

The Tight Little Circle

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

September 24, 2023- As I placed my portable chair down, amongst strangers, at this afternoon’s Peacebuilders concert, a pair of familiar faces zoomed past me, delighting in the warmth of an early autumn afternoon. The little boy, in an open shirt, with a smile as wide as the Atlantic, shrieked in delight, whilst his slightly older sister, in a proper full-length dress, was looking more towards re-joining her newborn brother on the family’s blanket. They didn’t recognize me, though somehow, their toddler sister did; it’s been almost two years since we’ve seen each other.

I have always been drawn to loving families, but they have not always been drawn to me. The brood in question is of a couple who are welcoming of older people, on occasion, but are very suspicious and formal, much of the time. We quietly drifted apart, two years back, and this was the first time I’d seen them all together, along with the children’s equally reticent nanny, since the last time I was at their residence. At that time, there was nothing to indicate I’d offended them, in any way. The distancing was just one of those happenstances that come about, for God knows what.

The gathering itself had the energy of “You came alone, so sit alone”. I broke free of that barrier, towards the end of the concert, and bounced, sore toe and all, to a lively German polka-offered by a group who are themselves very much welcoming to all who attend. Basically, though, New Age people here are a rather reticent, tight-knit tribe, perhaps because they find themselves surrounded by Cowboy Culture and a machismo that would deny free-thinkers their due. It takes almost as much energy to make friends among neo-Hippies as it did befriending people in small-town Maine. When one goes away for a time and comes back, as I do, it’s almost necessary to start all over again.

I will nonetheless keep showing up at community events, and performances at The Raven or Elks Theater, and let the New Agers’ energy flow, as it will. Sooner or later, the hermetic circle will melt, of its own. They will see that I mean them no harm.

Sixty-Six for Sixty Six, Part XXVII: The Only True Network

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Posted by on in Family, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 26, 2017, Prescott-

I’ve had a good amount of time to think about the people and things that have come my way, over the past six years, especially the past month or so.  I came upon what turns out to be an intensely spiritual little community of a few dozen good friends, anchored by two remarkable couples, who I met, in their entirety, last night, while online.  The women, one in particular, showed a high level of concern for my well-being, last month, when I stopped by their coffee shop, after a long hike.  I was fine, but that level of love resonated, deep in my heart.  Maybe I’ve been on the go, and semi-independent, a bit too long, and the message is to savour connections, more than I have up to now.

There is, from my having met the rocks, the diamonds, of two large and loving families, a deeper lesson.  My travels, here and there, will continue, as will my being active in the community that serves as my home base.  There is, though, thanks to Mrs. Willa Ficarra and Mrs. Kathy Barga, a reminder that there is no real heart connection, without a sense of family.  In all my travels, with three notable single-adult friends as exceptions, it has been the families who have befriended me, who have provided the most consistent support, admonition and encouragement.

As this academic year enters its final month, I look ahead to two months of connection, and re-connection, with friends, new and old, and with my own family, in strengthening the network that will help each of us, in whatever lies ahead.