Yeah...and so, anyway...

The place:United States Air Force base, which was named Itazuke Air Base back in 1959. The date was probably sometime in July of that year; I can't be totally certain because I'm getting the second hand version of the courtesy of years of re-telling through both of my parents. But I was a fifteen month old inquisitive toddler, according to Mom, and my sister Tam was four months old. As the story goes, a colonel and his wife took care of Tam as my exhausted mother slept on the very long flight from Travis Air Force to Itazuke, where we were to join my father and live on the base. Apparently, the colonel's wife still held Tam in her arms as we exited the plane. My father approached the couple and this was the dialog that he says took place: Dad: Give me my baby! Colonel's wife: How do you know she's your baby? Dad: Because I would know my stuff anywhere! Dad, in his millionth re-telling of this story, says everyone cracked up laughing. I don't think I did. A...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy I found this little item on Rachel Maddow's website via Twitter...you know, doing the social media scoping and snooping (hereby known as SMS&S, only on this blog) and I promptly forgot about the story I was originally looking for. This was far more diabolical, provocative, so...Star War-ish, that I had to check it out. Yes, I wrote "Star War-ish", with a nod to comedian Jaime Foxx's stand up routine. Come on now, if you watched the video you have to admit, there are similarities--think of a miniaturized, non-lethal Death Star, or those energy bolts streaming from Emperor Palpatine's hands that tortured poor Luke Skywalker. The difference is that the rays are invisible (Isn't it a shame that CG effects don't work in real life?), and as far as I know, they do not kill. At least for now they don't, although I suspect that someone is working feverishly to produce a terminatin...

Apparently, there are more than five people reading this blog, which is something I didn't know before. Quite frankly, I've been neglecting this piece of the blogosphere for other writing ventures, such as the Sacramento Baha'i Examiner , Angela's eHow page and BerthaButtNoMore , not to mention one story for Associated Content and another for Bukisa.com. Then there's the social media thing, you know, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg...good grief, there are so many ways to get lost (or addicted) on the Internet! I've been feeling a lot of guilt about my attention deficit for this site, especially since it was my initial foray into the world of blogging on the Internet. But quite a few of you haven't forgotten about it, and for that reason, this four year old mashup of my foibles, reflections and always evolving perspective of the Baha'i Faith was voted as one of the top 100 Baha'i blogs by Online University . When I was notified of the award, I ...

'Abdu'l-Bahá on Suffering and Tests "Does the soul progress more through sorrow or through the joy in this world?" `Abdu'l-Bahá. -- "The mind and spirit of man advance when he is tried by suffering. The more the ground is ploughed the better the seed will grow, the better the harvest will be. Just as the plough furrows the earth deeply, purifying it of weeds and thistles, so suffering and tribulation free man from the petty affairs of this worldly life until he arrives at a state of complete detachment. His attitude in this world will be that of divine happiness. Man is, so to speak, unripe: the heat of the fire of suffering will mature him. Look back to the times past and you will find that the greatest men have suffered most." Paris Talks: Addresses given by `Abdu'l-Bahá in Paris in 1911-1912, 11th ed. (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1979), pp. 178-79. I never think about personal suffering, in fact, I have trouble accepting the concept of su...

I don't know how to completely express what I'm feeling right now, but it's been steadily increasing every day. This...whatever it is...began with that night I happened to be on Twitter, and the protests over the Iran elections broke out. I found myself up until 2 am, reading tweets and passing them on. That's when I first noticed the fire in my solar plexus. The image of myself that I received is of one of those old fashioned train engines that had been left broken down and rusting in a rail yard, forgotten and considered useless. Then a group of history buffs and train enthusiasts decide that the old girl still has a lot more use left in her, so they repair and clean her up, load up the water and coal and start her up. She's slow moving at first; it's been a long time since she's moved even an inch. Her entire body feels stiff and cranky. But she chugs along, enjoying the ride and seeing how much the landscape around her has changed since she was out of...

The Sacramento Baha'i Examiner (that's me, by the way) received the following comments as feedback to a recent post about the persecution of Baha'is in Iran: "The Bahai are a cult, like the branch dravidians or scientologist. The only discrimination they suffer is the scorn of the masses. During the revolution more than 30000 people died, and a few hundred were Bahais, it's not a beyond reasonable percentage given the turmoil of the day. As far as university discrimination and illegality of Bahai land ownership, this is complete disinformation. The only land Bahai's can not buy is land for cult practices and indoctrination of youth. Honestly, it is in the best interests of society that the government should eradicate this harmful cult, god willing, when the corrupt mullahs are removed a new secular government can also take more forceful corrective actions against this blight of a cult." I've heard the "scorn of the masses" type comment...

I had a dream last week about Iran and the United States, and it scared me out of a deep sleep. I purposely wiped my mind clean of the dream's details. I am powerless over the events in this country and in Iran; I can only do what I can to make myself be in the service of God and humanity a little bit more each day. For now, that involves working my recovery program so I'm not zoned out on food, making as much of my daily life as possible be acts of prayer, and to make sure that people are aware of the situations that befall us on this Earth because we are not looking for spiritual solutions to our problems. That's all I can do. I'm just, as a friend has said so often, "another bozo on the bus." But God obviously wants me to participate in this business of being a world citizen. While I was working on this post, I've been checking my Twitter stream. After clicking on a link to a story, I read this blog post from The Daily Dish : "My next door neighb...