Does anyone want to take the world and act on it? Lao-tzu

While I was baking some scrumptious boysenberry-whitechocolate-spelt scones this morning I had three things on my mind:

1. I need an apron.

2. How will I get my regular sized baking sheet to fit into my apartment sized oven.

3. September 11.

Accepting my seven-year old navy Maxwell sweatpants, with holes in at least three places, as an acceptable place to wipe my flour covered hands and finding a muffin tin that fits in the oven just fine, and not being picky about the shape of my scones, I moved the trivial items aside in my mind and have spent a lot of time contemplating the date today.

Eight-years and five hours ago I was a blonde, lipsmackers wearing, ninth-grader about two weeks into living at my new home; an international boarding school. My new best friend, a fellow blonde, lipsmackers wearer, was, along with probably one third of the school's population that year, American. I had never heard of the World Trade centers, and genuinely thought that The Pentagon was something from the movies. That morning was probably no more unique for myself than most other fourteen-year-old-Canadian girls, with one exception, having just moved into an international home on Vancouver Island, there was not a moment of finger pointing, or hatred, or judgements towards anyone middle-eastern or muslim. The year proceeded, as it always will, winter break came by and there were indeed airplanes flying and airports open so most kids could get home to see their families and in Social Studies we memorized maps of all the continents and the capitals of every African, European, South-American, and Middle-Eastern country.

Over the years nine/eleven has come to mean something different for everyone, but something I hope that the american-nationalist, the blonde-canadian, the african-american, the muslim-american, the iraqi mother-of-four, the conspiracy-theorist, and the skeptic can all agree on is that it was a tragedy. I have the utmost respect and gratitude and admiration for those who were first responders on that day, and those who lost family or friends, so this is in no way an attempt to deflect the much deserved gratitude towards those heroes, however, the tragedy that occurred on this day and the way it derailed the lives of so many here in North-America is but a small insight into the fear and confusion and uncertainty that so much of the world lives in on a daily basis.

Did you know that the coffee that we drink today comes, originally, from Ethiopia. Did you know that according to equatorcoffee.ca more than half of Canada's citizens consume one to four coffee beverages a day. In 1994, in the United States, there were approximately $7.5 billion dollars in coffee sales. Did you know that according to the UN Human Development Index of 2006 Ethiopia ranked 170 out 177 poorest countries in the world. The average Ethiopian lives on less than one dollar a day.

Did you know that despite the fact that according to UNICEF 26% of children in Niger will die before they turn five years old, it is considered a 'safe' african country because of its 'fledgling democracy' and relative political stability.

Did you know that Venezuela has more murders per year than any other country in the world. According to dailymail.co.uk there were 130 murders for every 100,000 residents. South Africa is next on the list with 62 murders for the same number of residents. That is less than half as many.

I am reading a great book right now called 'The Chinese Religion and the Baha'i Faith' and in it there is a quote by Baha'u'llah which says, 'Be ye the fingers of one hand, the members of one body.' The author of this book elaborates saying,

'It is obvious that there is a great diversity of form and function in a body as reflected in its various parts- hands, legs, ears, the backbone, and so on. Although one treasures one's sensory organs such as eyes and ears much more than one's legs and hands, yet all receive the full support of the body. If one of our toes is bruised accidentally while walking, the whole body feels the pain and may be immobilized for a while because all the organs and sensory perceptions rush to the aid of the toe. Similarly, if one applied this attitude to the people in the world, we would no longer live in a world where people ignore the sufferings of others but rather rush to one another's aid whenever one part of humankind was ailing.'

I guess that all I am hoping is that while we are thankful for those who gave their lives to save lives and we remember those who lost their lives in New York on September 11, 2001, we also begin to notice some of the pain that the rest of humanity lives with on a daily basis. Whether it is just by becoming more aware yourself, saying a prayer, taking a moment to meditate, or become involved with a charity... begin to notice the rest of our human family.

freecell frivolity and my father

Man it feels good to get an early start every day and be awake for a few hours before I have to be at work. It feels like I have so much time to get everything done and be really productive. It is fantastic! I could do all my 'to-dos' before 11:00am, I could learn a new language, I could go to the Farmers Market, I could run- or maybe walk fast- up Turtle Mountain, I could pray and meditate, I could write in my blog everyday!

Instead, I drink coffee and play hours of Freecell. It is a sad reason to get up at 8:00 in the morning. I do, on the up side, have a very impressive win percentage these days.

So today, the first official day of summer, the longest day of the year, and father's day, will also be recorded as stop-playing-freecell-and-actually-do-things-that-matter-in-life day.

I was going to write a few things about my dad since it is father's day today. I admire so many qualities in my dad and he has been a role model to me in so many virtues: acceptance, patience, excellence, creativity, humility, wisdom, and tact, and many more. I could ramble on with stories from my childhood and try to give you an idea of who I see my dad to be, but as Howard Colby Ives has said, "Memory has pictures which words may never paint."

So I will leave it at that and if I will forever remember one thing that my father has taught me thru out my life it is that where ever you go there you are.

The virtue of this week is Faith.

sunshine smiles

The internet isn't working right now. I am not upset since it really isn't my internet; I have just been picking up wireless from my neighbours since we moved into this apartment. It reminds me of living on the boat when I would write my ridiculously long emails in Microsoft Word and then when they were all ready I would hook up to the cellphone that we had as a modem and spend less than five minutes actually online sending emails and downloading new ones to read onto my desktop.

As relaxing as life at sea can be, I learned how to complete many every day tasks in unfathomably short periods of time. For example, showering became an art form which I was able to master; I could wash my hair, face, body, condition my hair, and shave in four minutes. The need for speed here was that on the boat we had limited water, and when we were at a marina the showers generally cost two dollars for two minutes. So two twoonies later I would be squeaky clean and ready for another week at sea. I also became adept at washing dishes and preparing meals at an amazingly efficient rate. Like I mentioned before we had limited fresh water on board so the quick dishwashing was to remedy the water situation, and the quick cooking was because the stove and oven only worked when the large generator- not something that happened frequently or lasted for any substantial duration. Oh the woes of a cook at sea.

It was almost a year ago exactly that I was working on the boat and my memories, as they always seem to be, are quite joyful ones. Joyfulness can be easy to find in memories, and I also find it easy to become joyful when thinking of things to come in the future. Something for me to practice then is to be joyful in the present.

I am planning my move to China right now and I am having a hard time narrowing down where I should move. China is a relatively large country and I really am armed with no specific needs to send me to any one city. I know I am going to be quite lonely there at times, and as always being so far away from home and anything familiar I have no doubts that there will be times when I get homesick. Abdu'l-Baha has a quote that I came across this week that says joy gives us wings; and that in times of joy we are actually stronger than when we are sad. So, I like the sound of having wings, and I don't particularly like redbull, so I figured I could begin to narrow down my chinese hometown by making a list of things that bring me joy, which can then be transferred into what a certain chinese place has to offer.

So far my joy list is:

sunshine
fruit

ocean
young children
old people
smiles
coffee

What I have come to conclude as of recently is that I will most likely be living in the Guangdong Province, perhaps Fujian Province. And hopefully in a coastal city. I think my list needs to become more specific now tho.

I got to spend some time with a two year old earlier this week, and she really knew how to be joyful. The simplest things, like handing out cards, re-collecting the cards and then handing them out again made her gurgle with joy, or an elastic being spun between an older girls fingers that had her in fits of giggles. I have learned from the elderly and the toddler. Us neither elderly nor toddlers are useless except to learn I guess.

The virtue for this week now is courtesy.

PS I am now at my parents house where I have a valid internet connection and I wanted to add a joyful moment that I just had this evening. My mom and I had a few friends over and watched part one of a talk on the Baha'i Covenant by Dr. Ali Nakhjavani. We had some beautifully uplifting prayers and wonderfully spiritually conversation. All three parts of the talk can be found here.

http://video. google.com/ videosearch? q=nakhjavani&emb=0&aq=f#

integrity illumination

I had a hard time this week trying to put integrity into practice in my life. I did some thinking, and I figured out that the majority of my difficulties stemmed from the fact that integrity is a noun. There is no use of the word integrity as a verb, and so it is therefore, difficult to put into action. It is in fact, quite difficult to use in a sentence because there are no other forms of the word...integritable, integritally... they just don't work. 

As a side note: I became aware of how hard it is to put something into action when you are unable to really internalize, understand, or even have a replete vocabulary for it. This is something that a series of courses by a Baha'i foundation is hoping to combat as young people in our world are growing up not having a vocabulary for positive qualities, and therefore being unable to manifest them. I understood how it could be a problem before, but now I can relate to it.

So I tried to put integrity into broader context to gain a better idea. Most of the quotes in the book Sacred Moments, pertaining to this virtue, had to do with the idea of a strong foundation. There was a quote from Matthew 7 which talked about building your house on rock instead of sand. Those who build their homes on rock will withstand the rain and wind and storms. 

I know the rock that I want to build my life on is Baha'u'llah's teachings, and so when I came across an address that Abdu'l-Baha gave to some american believers in December of 1912 I thought it was worth sharing. His words are powerful and straightforward, and He is calling all people to a higher level of integrity. It reminds me of the poem Desiderata, good words to live by.

"You must manifest complete love and affection towards all mankind. Do not exalt yourselves above others but consider all as your equals, recognizing them as the servants of one God. Know that God is compassionate towards all, therefore love all from the depths of your hearts, prefer all religionists to yourselves, be filled with love for every race and be kind towards the people of all nationalities. Never speak disparagingly of others but praise without distinction. Pollute not your tongues by speaking evil of another. Recognize your enemies as your friends and consider those who wish you evil as the wishers of good. You must not see evil as evil and then compromise with your opinion, for to treat in a smooth, kindly way one whom you consider evil or an enemy is hypocrisy and this is not worthy nor allowable. No! You must consider your enemies as your friends, look upon your evil-wishers as your well-wishers and treat them accordingly. Act in such a way that your heart may be free from hatred. Let not your heart be offended with any one. If some one commits an error and wrong towards you, you must instantly forgive him. Do not complain of others. Refrain from reprimanding them and if you wish to give admonition or advice let it be offered in such a way that it will not burden the heart of the hearer. Turn all your thoughts towards bringing joy to hearts. 

Beware! Beware! Lest ye offend any heart. Assist the world of humanity as much as possible. Be the source of consolation to every sad one, assist every weak one, be helpful to every indigent one, be the cause of glorification to every lowly one and shelter those who are overshadowed with fear.

In brief, let each of you be as a lamp shining forth with the virtues of the world of humanity. Be trustworthy, sincere, affectionate, and replete with chastity. Be illumined, be spiritual, be divine, be glorious, be quickened of God. Be a Baha'i."

muddiness and the Master

Over the past couple of weeks I have been falling and now find my face planted firmly in the wet mud of May. It doesn't feel like the worst place to be, although breathing can sometimes be difficult, but I think it is about time to get back up again and go have a shower- or perhaps a pressure wash would be more appropriate.

I am now refraining from a theatrical and over extended metaphor on the mud of life.

An early believer in the Faith of Baha'u'llah once went to Abdu'l-Baha distraught about how he as such a weak and selfish human could ever hope to attain to the standard of being which Baha'u'llah called all humanity. Abdu'l-Baha assured him that it can only be accomplished little by little; little by little. The believer was encouraged and thought to himself, 'I have all eternity for this journey from self to God. The thing to do is to get started.'

So here I am, little by little, trying to figure things out. 

The virtue of this week is integrity.

The Truth of Twelve and Thirteen

When I was eleven years old I was on my way home from Japan with nineteen other preteens and four chaperones. We were on the Armstrong-Hokkaido Salmonoid Exchange that my town offered to twenty students every other year. We had just spent nine days in Hokkaido learning about salmon and watching the same fish that had swam up our rivers in the spring make their journey to the opposite end of the world; we had a layover in the Tokyo-Narita airport before catching our plane back to Vancouver. We ate lunch as a group and then, after doing our number countoff to make sure no one had gone M.I.A., we were allowed to go with our buddies to do some last minute souvenier shopping- but told explicitly which floors to stay on and where and when to meet back as a group before catching our plane. My buddy and I ended up in the bowels of the airport exploring some fascinating Japanese shops full of Hello Kitty. By the time we realized that we had wandered far and had no idea where we were or where we were supposed to be, we had no time left to find our group. We spent some time trying to sort it out, but my buddy-no where near as cool headed in a panic as myself- was starting to freak out that we were going to be stranded in Japan. I was starting to get a bit worried myself as I pictured the countoff beginning and then coming to a halt at eleven... as twelve and thirteen were running frantically around the airport. Would they just eventually carry on without us, keeping a small silence until fourteen chimed up and the count continued seamlessly. Would twelve and thirteen grow old in the airport? Unless the plane wouldn't leave without us. Would they really wait? Could they stall a whole entire airplane just for us? Not likely. The problem was that no one spoke english. And we were eleven. Finally we honed in on the one white-guy, who was apparently from Winnepeg which made us feel good, and he looked at our bits of ticket and papers that we had. He found us a Japanese-man-in-a-suit to take us where we needed to go. As we headed back with our Japanese-man-in-a-suit to meet up with the group I realized we were no longer in danger of becoming airport orphans and we were probably going to get into a lot of trouble. As I looked down at my tourquoise-and-purple-velcro-band-digital Timex secured to my wrist, I came up with an idea. We could actually be on time, if we set our watches back about fifteen minutes. The only thing is that we both had to do it, and then just stroll up to everyone else as if it's no big deal. I mean if both of our watches said the same thing how could they blame us? So I conveyed my plan to my buddy and we frantically, yet subtly, set our watches back a matching quarter of an hour. 

We all know how the story ends. The chaperones were worried and we wouldn't have really gotten in much trouble because they were just concerned. However, we proceeded to lie blatantly to them and that got us in the bad books. The lies that seem so well thought out as a child, but to adults are more obvious than Freddy Mercury's love for men. 

I meant to recount this story briefly to begin to make my points about the merit of living a truthful life, however I have a hard time telling brief stories. 

Truthfulness is a beauty. I consider myself a very truthful person these days. As the story was meant to illustrate, I have not always valued truthfulness as strongly as I do now. Since the age of eleven it has been a slow but fruitful journey towards living a more and more truthful life. I can remember the two times that I have consciously lied (I say consciously because sometimes when I get carried away talking faster than I think I will lie unconsciously, but I will always immediately go back and nullify the false statement) in the past couple of years. Both times it was to make it look like I had not made a mistake, and both times I felt physically sick afterwards and had to go and fess up within twenty-four hours. 

Getting caught for lying is always worse than dealing with the truth, and if you are not caught in this world I am sure that God in all His justice will deal with you in the spiritual worlds to come.  

I had a lot of other things that I wanted to say about a more deep and philosophical truthfulness but my story was so long that I am going to pass on any more ramblings right now. In conclusion focusing on being truthful to others was not a difficulty for myself this week because that is something that I have focused on so much in the past that it is now in my nature. However, something that I did find some need to work on was being truthful with myself at all times. I don't think that that is an issue in my life at all, but not something that comes to me as naturally as being truthful with others does. In the Sacred Moments book there is a great Shakespeare quote, "This above all- to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Abd'u'l-Baha has also spoken strongly about truthfulness. He says, "Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues. Without thruthfulness progress and success, in all the worlds of God, are impossible for any soul. When this holy attribute is established in man, all the divine qualities will also be acquired."

This weeks virtue is generosity. It is a good time to focuse on that in my life.

Raw Soul, Dirty Soles

Eight days- forty-three hours of work, six hours at the gym, four movies, eight showers, two hours of meetings, and countless cups of coffee- later, I haven't found many moments of 'reverence'. Reverence is something hard to find, especially when you are looking for it. 

I focused on the time that I always seem to have uninterruptedly to myself and made sure that I said my daily prayers every single night before I went to bed regardless of how late/early the

 time was or how exhausted I was. This isn't completely new for me, because since I turned fifteen (the age of spiritual maturity in the Baha'i Faith) I have been trying to say my obligatory prayers everyday; however there was something in making such a conscious effort this week, and not letting myself just slide into bed when it has become too late and I figure I'll just say it the next day anyways. This has become a dangerously easy habit to get into when I am coming home from work after one in the morning a few nights a week. So this week was really good, my daily obligatory prayer has become like... brushing my teeth. I can get into bed without doing it, but I will definitely get up five minutes later because I know I won't sleep anyways, or wake up feeling like I have little furries on my teeth- or perhaps my soul.

That was a great success. Reverence tho? I don't know. In the 'Sacred Moments' book, with the daily virtues in it, many of the quotes Linda Kavelin Popov has chosen had to do with connection to the earth when finding reverence. 

I connected to the earth very tangibly on April 16th. Toms Shoes hosted a Day Without Shoes. It is an incredible company with an admirable vision that I mentioned in my last post. I decided to participate in the barefoot day even tho noone else in this area was. I didn't really make a big deal of it, I just didn't wear shoes. Thank goodness the weather was warm and sunny! I really only got into one conversation about why I didn't have shoes on. Everyone else just 'wooted' about summer and gave me thumbs up. The ladies that I did talk to were at an autobody shop here in town. While I was waiting for an estimate on a friend's car we started chatting in the office when one of them asked about why I wasn't wearing shoes. 

I told them about kids in Ethiopia and other parts of the world that don't have shoes and get foot parasites and other 100% preventable debilitating diseases from the ground they walk on, and many of them aren't allowed to go to school barefoot. From there we talked about different places of the world and my travels and eventually the Baha'i Faith. One of the ladies of really interested and wrote down the spelling of the Faith and had a lot of questions. I love moments of spiritual connectedness with complete strangers!

It was fun to wear barefeet in a lot of ways, but at the end of the day my soles were beaten up from the cement and stones and fresh black pavement I had to navigate across outside another autobody shop. I can't imagine doing that day after day, regardless of the weather. Ouch. Buy Toms friends!

leaving the house with barefeeties

but with my Toms in my bag just in case

walking into town

driving 

checking out the damage after running errands

putting on my Toms for work

relaxing after a long barefoot day