The Day of Perfection

9 Asma 163 B.E. – August 28, 2006 A.D.

Today is Kamal, the day of Perfection. Now that is a rather intriguing title especially if it is the title of a poem. However, I am not discussing poems, but days of the week. In this case the second day of the week, so rather than thinking of today as Monday, think of it as Perfection.

Perfection is an attribute of God, one that humans can reflect to a certain degree. Another interesting thought, degrees of perfection, we perfect skills by practicing them, but how does a human ascend the degrees of perfection. A person does by practicing spiritual attributes, by praying, meditating, and passing tests. Tests and difficulties are those situations in life that come between a person and God or a goal.

Most people do not think of God as a goal, but knowledge of God is the goal of the human soul. The purpose of the individual is to know and worship God, the purpose of humanity is to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization. Achieving both of these purposes or of goals is possible through reflecting and practicing the attributes of God. This we do by degrees.

The Day of Beauty

8 Asma 163 B.E. – August 27, 2006 A.D.

Today is Jamal, the day of Beauty. It last from sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday. Beauty, the first day of the week, is an attribute of God. Today the sun is shining, a breeze is blowing and there are no clouds in the sky.

The nice weather doesn’t necessarily make the day beautiful. It would be a beautiful day no mater what the weather. Beauty is in the mind of the beholder, we see a rose or a cloud and think it is beautiful. The definition for the beauty of anything is in a person’s mind and soul. We perceive with our eyes, but we truly see with our minds and souls.

There is beauty in every human being, sometimes that beauty hid from the human mind, but the beauty is there. It is a matter of training oneself to see the inner beauty of another person, rather than the outer physical appearance. Once we start seeing the beauty in other people than we will see beauty in ourselves.

Every created thing in the universe can reflect one of the attributes of God. Human beings can reflect all the attributes of God, it takes practice to both reflect those attributes and see them mirrored in other people. We must look for the beauty in the world to see it and we must look for the attributes of God to see them in ourselves and other people.

A New Theme for Next Week

7 Asma 163 B.E. - August 26, 2006 A.D.


Today I said a prayer of assistance (page 19) before beginning this entry.
Tomorrow Sunday, August 27, 2006, begins a new week and a new theme the entries in this blog. The theme for the coming week will be the name of the week day. In the Baha'i calendar each of the week days is named after an attribute of God. So for each day I will writing something on the divine attribute for that day.

Not only will Sunday begin a new blog theme for the week, but it is also the beginning of a new class for me. The class is EDU620: Principles of Instructional Design. So the next five weeks will be busy. My first two assignments are due on Saturday 2 September. In addition I am taking a Ruhi course called the Twin Manifestations about the lives of the Bab and Baha'u'llah. I'm finishing a rewrite and finishing a novella.

I like having a lot to do, if I have a lot going then I don't have time to do anything but focus on what needs to get done. I know that sounds strange, but it is how I feel. If I have a lot to do then I don't have time to worry or anything. All I have time for is work and pray and work and review and work and read the scriptures.

Up Coming Course

6 Asma 163 B.E. - August 25, 2006 A.D.


Today I said the Tablet of Ahmad before making this entry.

It is interesting that I worry about things and what I worry about never occurs. What does this have to do with an up coming class, I'll tell you. In the last class I worried about making an A, if was afraid I wouldn't and then there would be a problem with this class. However, I did make the A. In this up coming course, which begins Sunday I need to make at least a B.

I think what I need to do is set a schedule, follow it and place all my fears in God's hands. In fact, 'Abdu'l-Baha wrote a prayer specifically for placing one's problems in God's hand; Baha'u'llah also wrote prayers for the same thing, but the prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha I've memorized and can say it without going to the prayer book. This helps when one is setting in front of a computer and doing home work. I can stop what I'm doing, say the prayer and then continue working on my class work.

Thankful Thursday

5 Asma 163 B.E. - August 24, 2006 A.D.


I belong to an online journal group one of the prompts on Thursday is to write ten things you are thankful. I've been thinking about ten things that I'm thankful for and how one shows thanks. One of the ways to show thanks is to say a prayer of thanks every day, but often times we don't stop and list the things we are thankful for. So today I'm going to list ten prayers revealed by Baha'u'llah that I am thankful for. Before I get to that the prayer I said before starting this entry was the Table of Ahmad (page 307 in the Baha'i prayer book).

Ten Prayer's I'm Thankful For

1. The Long Healing Prayer,
2. The Fire Table,
3. The Obligatory Prayer,
4. The Dawn Prayer,
5. Blessed is the Spot,
6. Intone, O My Servant,
7. Thy name is my Healing
8. Create in me a pure heart,
9. Magnified be Thy name,
10. The Evening prayer.

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Prayer is the Theme of the Week

4 Asma 163 B.E. - August 23, 2006 A.D.


The basic theme of my blog entries so far this week has been prayer. On Monday, I said "Blessed is the Spot" before writing the blog entry and wrote about Earth being blessed because of God sending his Prophets or Manifestations. On Tuesday, I said "Intone My Servant" and wrote my thoughts on prayer. Today I said the short Obligatory Prayer (Baha'i Prayer Book, page 4) before starting this entry. Each of these prayer were revealed by Baha'u'llah.

Prayer is an important part of the life of a believer in God. It really doesn't matter which religion you follow because prayer is a part of all religions. Prayer is an important part of a person's relationship with God. The reason for this is one soul needs to communicate with the Divine Essence and the way to do this is through prayer. The soul is the lover and the Divine Essence is the Beloved. A prayer can be one revealed by one of God's Prophets or it can be the person talking directly to God or to the Prophet.

The first two prayers I memorized as a child was "Now I lay me down to sleep," and the Lord's Prayer. The next scripture verse I learn was the Lord is My Shepherd. I still remember them, but since becoming a Baha'i I have added to the prayers I know by heart. As one gets older it seems to be a little more difficult to memorize prayers, however, it is not impossible. Now when I want to memorize a prayer, I read it aloud in the "privacy of my chamber" everyday; eventually I find that I have learned the prayer by heart. I have found that the longer the prayer, the more difficult it is to memorize; still it isn't impossible it just takes persistence.

Thoughts on Prayer

3 Asma 163 B.E. - August 22, 2006 A.D.


This is day two of reading a prayer by Baha'u'llah before writing this blog entry. Today the prayer I read was "Intone, O My servant," it is found on page iii, of the Baha'i Prayer book.
Prayer is very powerful. Prayer can change the individual reciting it and it can attract the hearts and souls of other people. Yet how many of us are aware of the power of prayer in our own lives. We pray for a specific items and if that precise item doesn't come, we think the prayer isn't answered. However, the prayer is answered, we need to look beyond what we pray for, look around and see what blessing God did bestow. Even if we don't get the item we prayed for our prayers are answered, we simply have to look around and see what God did give us in response to the prayer.

Then again sometimes we just need to keep praying, we need to be president in our prayers and keep asking. Or perhaps we need to start thanking God for what the blessing we have received, rather than just asking all the time. Thank God and share what we have. Then there is the possibility that we already have the ability to get what we're asking for ourselves rather than God simply giving it to us.

Earth is Blessed

2 Asma 163 B.E. - August 21, 2006 A.D.


The Earth is Blessed, it may not seem so when you look at all that is going on and going wrong in the world today. However, the planet is blessed, blessed because the is not a single place on earth where one of God's names is not mentioned and known. Not a single nation or land where the words of one of God's Prophets has not been spoken. Not place where prayers are not intoned, whispered or thought.

Often times we look at the negative and think that is how life is, but life is not completely negative. Eventually these wars will cease and humanity will realize that it is one race with many colors. We look at the differences and fail to see the similarities between humans, nations, or religions. Focusing on the differences cause them to overshadow the similarities that exist. If the similarities are not obvious one must look for them and pray to see them.

The Earth is Blessed, not just one country or region, but the whole planet. Everything on earth has a reason for being here, a reason to exist. If we don't see the reason we must look for it. Since the Earth it Blessed, humanity is blessed, but to see the blessing we must look for it, expect the blessing to appear.

NOTE: Today I said "Blessed is the Spot," page i, in the Baha'i Prayer Book. This prayer was revealed by Baha'u'llah.

A New Approach to Blog Entries

1 Asma 163 B.E. - August 20, 2006 A.D.

I have decided to take a new approach to my blog entries. There are times when I cannot think of what to write, not because my life is not exciting. No matter how mundane my daily activities are, there is one thing, or perhaps I should say one person, in my life that makes it exciting. The person in my life that makes my life exciting is Baha'u'llah. So from now on before I start making a blog entry, I am going to say one of the prayers revealed by Baha'u'llah. Now come the decision, which prayer am I going to say.

Baha'u'llah has revealed a multitude of prayers on various subject. There is nothing that happens in my life or that can happen that there is not a prayer covering that subject. There are prayers for protection, prayers for aid and assistance, prayer for tests and difficulties, and many others. I think what I will do is start at the beginning of my prayer book and say a different prayer for each blog entry I make. The prayer book also contains prayers by the Bab and 'Abdu'l-Baha. However, for the next nineteen days I think I will say Baha'u'llah's prayers and after that consider choosing prayers from the others.

When I make the blog entry I will put the page number of the prayer I use. I will not choose a theme or subject for the blog until after I have said the prayer. This is going to be fun, I am looking forward to see what subjects I write about. I love the prayers of Baha'u'llah, I cannot get enough of them. They are beautiful, inspiring, and spiritual.

Outside My Front Door

19 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 19, 2006 A.D.

I saw a Praying Mantis on the side of my house, just outside my front door. This isn't the first time I seen a Mantis there, in fact this is probably the same one I saw there Wednesday. The Mantis was a pale green, almost pastel and it sit on the wall just outside the door. This is the first time I've seen a Praying Mantis in Las Vegas and I've been her over thirty years.

Another unusual sight lately is a humming bird. So far, I've seen the bird twice, both times it was flying in front of the picture window in my living room. I don't know if it saw its reflection in the window or what. Each time a cat got into the window it flew off. My mother said she saw it in the backyard, so the little lady must have a nest around here someplace. I've never seen a humming bird around my house before. I couple of summers ago I saw a humming bird moth. The last time I saw a Humming Bird was at the Community College Campus in North Las Vegas about five or six years ago.

I will admit it was a pleasant experience to see both a Humming Bird and a Praying Mantis in the same week. There are lots of birds here, we have sparrows, mourning doves, and someone in the neighborhood has pigeons, because I noticed them eating the olives off the ground under my olive tree. There are cats in the neighborhood too, but no stray cats. The cats that roam around here are well fed and don't chase the birds.

Power Breakfast

18 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 18, 2006 A.D.

Everybody has a different definition of a power breakfast. For some it is an early morning business meal, while others consider it bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, and coffee. For me a power breakfast is dawn prayers. It is sitting on the patio as the sun rises over Frenchman's Mountain or Sunrise Mountain, with a prayer book reading the verses revealed by Baha'u'llah.

In the neighborhood I live in most backyards are enclosed, either by stone walls, wooden fences, or a combination of the two. Everyone has either a covered enclosed patio, a covered back porch and a pool, or a combination. I have a covered enclosed patio myself, so when I sit there it is private. The only things you can hear that early in the morning is a neighbor's dog barking, the roar fighter or a commercial jet, Metro's helicopter, or sirens echoing. When I sit on the patio of a morning, I am alone with my prayer book, my journal, and a bottle of water.

This morning when I sit out there it was chilly boarding on cold. Which is unusual for this time of year. Normally it's pleasant or warm bordering on hot. This morning I sit on the patio and read the Tablet of Ahmad, yesterday I read the dawn prayer as the sun rose above the eastern range of the Rocky Mountains. It is nice to sit on the patio reading prayers and then writing in my journal. I didn't write in my journal this morning because it was so chilly. In the morning I think I'll take a sweater out there with me, then I'll have something to cover my arms, so I can sit say prayers and write in my journal.

The days doesn't go well if I miss my power breakfast, without time for prayer of a morning the rest of the day is a complete loss. I get more done when I spend a little time with Baha'u'llah of a morning. I still have difficulties whether I say prayers or not, but if I don't pray of a morning then I take everything harder than when I say prayers.

Urgency To Act

17 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 17, 2006 A.D.


I feel an urgency to act, to accomplish something today. I feel like I am riding a lightning bolt ready to strike the ground. I feel the approach of something wonderful, but I'm not sure what. I feel like I could achieve anything I set out to do today.

I did something different with my prayers this morning. I said the dawn prayer revealed by Baha'u'llah, while I sit on the patio. The air was cool and fresh, it felt marvelous, tranquil, and peaceful sitting in the early morning as the sun ascended over the eastern mountains. I have had a since of joy all morning. Baha'u'llah prayers always make me happy, whenever I say them. However, the feeling I get this morning is different from usual.

This is not the first time I had the feeling of "riding on a lightning bolt", I always get this feeling when I need to take action or something marvelous is about to happen. I can never tell which, but I know to expect a great surprise when I take action. Now all I have to do is to figure out what action to take. I am not sure if what I am writing makes any sense or not, but that is how I feel this morning.

Not to change the subject, but I had an interesting dream last night. I dreamed that I was moving from one task to another in swift succession. I do not remember precisely what the tasks were, but whatever they were I was getting a lot accomplished, finishing a lot of projects. Whatever the projects were they were important and I was starting and finishing them in record time.

Maybe the dream has something to do with the way I feel this morning. I know that the more I accomplish this morning the more I want to accomplish. I do not seem to be able to type fast enough, the faster I type the faster I want to type. I have a lot of energy this morning. In fact I am multitasking, of course with a telephone internet connection, this is not difficult; especially if I am doing a survey or downloading something. A telephone connection is sometimes a "bit slow", OK, maybe a lot slow. So I can wait for something to download and compose blog entries or play a game of free cell solitary while I am waiting.

Today I am not playing free cell, not that I have not played it this morning, I did that earlier while I was waiting for SpyBot to run. I run one of my antispy ware programs every morning before getting started on the days project, while I am running those programs I play free cell solitary. After the antispy ware has did its job, then I go online, lately I have considered changing the time I run one of the antispy ware programs to before I shut the computer down at night. Well I think this is all today, I have other things to do before I go to the post office and the recycling company.

The reason I Carry My Pen and Paper Journal Everywhere

15 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 15, 2006 A.D.


What am I going to make this entry about today? I'm composing this post in longhand writing in my pen and paper journal because I don't have access to my computer today. My computer is at home and I'm elsewhere, so I'm unable to type it up on the computer. I won't have access to my computer until after 7:00 p.m. tonight.

This entry isn't the first thing I've written today. Everything is written in longhand because I'm unable to access a computer where I'm at and I need to write. (I think I'm repeating myself.) I have my pen and paper journal with me, so I can write in it, retype everything later, and then post the stuff.

Anyway, here I am eating a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich, sipping a soda and writing a blog entry. Today is 15 Kamal 163 B.E. (August 15). This entry will not be posted until later this evening or early tomorrow, it depends on how late I get and and how tired I am when I do get home.

I started this out not know what to write about. Well I found a subject to write about: the reason I carry my pen and paper journal with me everywhere. True it's not very exciting, but this is how things are today. I think my blog entries are becoming a bit stale, unexciting or mundane. I guess I should spice them up a bit, maybe add some pictures. Perhaps even change the picture I've posted on this blog. I've found some more family pictures, so I think I'll post other pictures of myself at various ages. I don't have a recent picture of myself, at least not one that isn't over two or three years old. Probably about time I took a new picture of myself.
This is not going to get posted until August 16, but I'm not going to change the dates since I composed it today (August 15).

I Saw a Humming bird today

14 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 14, 2006


I saw a humming bird today. I looked out my living room window and there it was flying back and forth in on the other side of the glass. This is the second time in two weeks that I've seen a humming bird, fluttering outside that window. The last time I saw the bird, my cat didn't see it, but this time Lion saw the bird. He sit on the table, this is in front of the window, and watched the bird. He couldn't take his eyes off the little creature. The humming bird isn't the only unusual bird I've seen in the front yard lately.

Normally the only birds around here are mourning doves and sparrows, but lately there have been lots of different kinds of birds in the yard. There is a couple of pigeons flying in from somewhere to eat the olives, these two birds don't nest around here, but the come to eat the olives that fall off the tree. Besides the humming bird and pigeons, there is another larger bird that flies around here, I'm not sure what it is because I've never seen it before and I'm not a person who make a hobby of bird watching. However, the bird is larger than a sparrow and not as "fat" as a pigeon. It has nice tail feathers, it could be a nightingale, but I've never seen a nightingale so I don't know.

I saw a humming bird today,
its wings fluttering between the visible and invisible,
it flew outside my window.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

12 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 12, 2006 A.D.


I started to make an entry for the past two days, but never got any farther than the date. I was completing an assignment and that took all my attention. The assignment is complete and posted so now I can focus on something else. I will not have classes between Sunday, August 13 and Saturday, August 26, but I have lost of writing and stuff planned. I've started something new, a journal in which I write what I accomplished during the day. This shows me I've at least achieve something. In fact that journal holds two list. The first list is the things I've achieved during the day and the other is things I need to schedule.

Yesterday, August 11, was my Grandparent's wedding anniversary. Grandma and Grandpa Newland were married in 1918. I remember them celebrating their 50th anniversary. The had some friends over to the house, a cake, and ... that's about what I remember of it, except that Grandma and Grandpa smiled a lot during the entire celebration.

How Many Months to Go?

7 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 7, 2006

At one of my e-mail address I receive a self-improvement newsletter, this particular newsletter gives journal exercises in each issue. I think that's why I requested the newsletter in the beginning. Sometimes I have problems coming up with themes or subject for my blogs (yes I said blogs, but that's another entry). Anyway, the newsletter that arrive today had an exercise concerning what I wanted to achieve between now and the end of the year. There are five months left until December 31, 2006. However, I don't celebrate January 1, 2007 as the new year, the new year I celebrate i Naw-Ruz, which falls on March 21, 2007 and on that date I will celebrate the year 164 B.E.

The exercise in the newsletter was a three part exercise consisting of stating what I wanted to accomplish between now and the end of the year. The first part of the exercise ask for a list of things to accomplish between now and December 31, 2006. I'm changing that to what do you want to accomplish between now and Naw-Ruz? Next it ask for what difficulties you need to overcome to accomplish these goal. The third part ask for what actions are you going to take to overcome the difficulties. So here goes my three lists. (There's nothing like posting your goal and difficulties on a blog where more then a million total strangers can see and comment on them.)

What do I want to accomplish between now and Naw-Ruz, March 21, 2007?

1. Complete my Masters Degree in Educational Technology.
2. Become a published author.
3. Complete the Ruhi Institute series of courses
4. Pay off my bills.

What difficulties do I need to overcome to accomplish these goals?

1. I am a procrastinator, so I must over come the tendency to put things off.
2. I am a worrier, I worry if i don't have anything to worry about and worry causes me to find obstacles where there are none.
3. I see the obstacles in the way of accomplishment rather than look for the path over, under, through, or around it.
4. I am inclined to focus on one thing until it is complete, this works well if one has only a single thing to accomplish, but it doesn't work very well with multiple deadlines or goals.

What actions am I going to take to overcome the difficulties?

1. Say the Tablet of Ahmad everyday, when I say this prayer I can handle difficulties much better and don't focus on the difficulties.
2. Write an action plan with the steps necessary to accomplish each goal.
3. Work on each item a little bit each day or each week rather than focusing exclusively on one goal for weeks or months at a time.
4. Step back from the obstacle and see if I can find another approach.

Verses Running Through My Mind

6 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 6, 2006


The verses, "turn my darkness into light" and "change my sorrow into blissful joy", have been running through my mind all day. Thinking about them, I realize that this is what reading the writing of the Bab, Baha'u'llah, and 'Abdu'l-Baha do. I can be completely disheartened before reading or reciting a prayer and my whole attitude changes. If I'm on the verge of tears and read a prayer or chant the Most Great Name, my attitude changes to one of joy and confidence. It always amazes me the effect that the Sacred writing have on my emotion and thought pattern. If I am in a negative mood say a prayer or reading a verse of one of the tables make my thought more positive.

O Pen of Glory!
Your verses bring me joy
they transform my darkness into light.

Ruhi Study Circle on Book 4

5 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 5, 2006 A.D.


Today I attended the first session of the Ruhi Study Circle on Book 4: The Twin Manifestations. This book is divided into four section: "To the Collaborators", "The Greatness of this Day", "The Life of the Bab", and "The Life of Baha'u'llah". My mother and I will be attending this course every other week for the next few months. I've completed three books of the Ruhi Institute series and taken part of one book (I'll be completing this book soon). The books I've completed are Reflections of the Life of the Spirit, Arising to Serve, and Walking Together in the Path of Service. The books I need to complete is Teaching Children's Classes, Grade 1 and The Twin Manifestations, once those are finished, then I will worry about taking the others in the series.

The collaborators in a Ruhi course are both the students, taking the course, and the tutor, facilitating the course. The tutors in a Ruhi course or study circle are not called teachers, but rather tutors or facilitators. That's because all the participants, and not just the students, are equals and input equally in the course. I think collaborators is a good designation for the students and the tutor facilitating this class, because the Ruhi Study Circles are collaborative learning at its best.

The Study Circles combine study of the Baha'i writings with art projects, service projects, and learning verses from the sacred scriptures. The specific of Book 4 is learning to talk about the Bab and Baha'u'llah, to tell others about them, and to answer any question someone may have. The practice for Book 4 consist of being able to tell stories to other about the lives of the Bab and Baha'u'llah. I'm looking forewords to doing this.

I have not trouble writing a fiction story, but when it comes to telling stories verbally about history, I'm not that experienced. My problem usually comes down to making the story sound interesting, to putting excitement into it and people asking to here more. I expect to learn a great deal from this course and after the practice I will be about to tell a verbal story as well as a written story. We haven't did any art projects in the class so far, but I am going to write at least two poems with the lives the Bab and Baha'u'llah as their themes. I find the events surround these two Manifestations interesting and intriguing. From the first time I heard about them their lives interested me.

There are two Power Point presentations that go along with this book. The first presentation is called The Bab: The Herald of a New Day and the second is called Baha'u'llah: The Glory of God. The pictures in these presentation would make a good accompaniment to telling about their lives. The Bab was born on October 20, 1819 and Baha'u'llah on November 12, 1817. The Bab declared his mission in 1844 and Baha'u'llah in 1863. We live in a glorious age because it is blessed by the appearance of two Manifestations of God. A Manifestation of God reflects the attributes of God to humanity. The only way for humanity to know God is through the these divine revealers.

Rogue Storms

4 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 4, 2006


According to the local weather person, a rogue storm is one that isn't predicted. We had one of those yesterday, all of a sudden it begin to rain. The wind was blowing so the rain didn't fall straight down but rather at an angle. The wind was blowing from the west toward the east, so that's how the rain fell. The cats were on the back patio at the time, the patio is screen in but the rain can blow in through the screens. Naturally they got wet, or to be more precise damp, but it doesn't matter how little water touched them, only one of them wasn't bothered.

Lion wasn't upset. In fact he didn't even come in, he just set under the table and waited for the rain to stop. It didn't rain very long. The rain did make the air smell nice. This is monsoon season in Las Vegas, so I suppose a few rogue showers can be expected this time of year. We haven't had any real storms in a while, by real storms I mean the kind that floods the streets and it rains for two or three days non-stop. Not that flooded streets and non-stop rain makes any difference here, people still get out and drive, sometimes through water they shouldn't drive through.

Rogue storm sounds like a good name for a story. Maybe a science fiction story or I could use the name in a science fiction novel I'm writing. It would make a good name for one of the chapters that has an unusual storm in it, at least the storm is unusual for the planet the novel takes place on. I'll have to consider that, Rogue Storm would make a good name for that chapter and the name I've given the chapter I'm not happy with; the present name of that particular chapter just doesn't do anything for the story.

My Favorite Prayers

3 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 3, 2006


Last night before I went to sleep, I said the Long Healing Prayer by Baha'u'llah, my favorite healing prayers. I have several favorite prayers, some of the prayers were revealed by Baha'u'llah or the Bab and some were written by 'Abdu'l-Baha. Some of the other prayers included in my list of favorites are The Remover of Difficulties and a prayer of protection both revealed by the Bab. The prayer of protection begins with "In the Name of God," and ends by asking God to protect us from everything we're exposed to all around us. Other favorite prayers by Baha'u'llah are the Tablet of Ahmad, the Tablet of Fire, the Short Obligatory prayer, the Long Obligatory Prayer, and Blessed is the Spot. My favorite prayers by 'Abdu'l-Bah are the Midnight prayer, the Prayer for America, and the Prayer for the Nineteen day Feast.

Each of the prayers is a favorite because of a different reason. The Long Healing Prayer is my favorite because it changes my negative thoughts into positive thoughts. When I'm down and I read it, my out look becomes more positive and I'm a happier person. It doesn't seem to matter when I say the prayer, because whenever I say it, I'm more relaxed and tranquil. If I say the prayer at night, before I go to bed, I sleep better. If I say it during the day, then my day goes better and I can handle stress easier. I stop looking on the negative and take the little road blocks that intervene between myself and my goals less personally. I enjoy going out on the patio and reading this prayer, actually I think I like reading it on the patio better than I do any place else. I don't have a specific place to pray and meditate, normally I pray in my room, but I also read prayers in the car before leaving the garage. In fact before backing the car out I usually say a prayer of protection. The prayer of protection I say before leaving the house is one of two revealed by Baha'u'llah, that request protection while away from home and to come back home safely.

A Busy Day and Memories

2 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 2, 2006

It's been a busy day. I have the introduction completed to the Discussion Board Assignment and a draft of my part of the Group project. I posted the draft to the small groups discussion board. It took me a while to do both of those, now I have to finish the DB Assignment. Tomorrow evening I have a poetry reading to go to at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. My mother and I are both going to be participating in the reading.

This was not what I had planned to write. I have a lot of prompts and I intended to write about in this blog. I was going to write on a prompt from one of my journal writing groups. The prompt that I planned to post was The Final Goodbye: Final goodbye's can be the hardest of all. Write about a final goodbye you've had in your life. 7/29/06 Prompt. I just couldn't decide on which final goodbye to write about. I've had a lot of final goodbye's in my life. I remember my Grandpa Newland laying in a hospital bed unconscious. He was dying of cancer or at least that's what the doctor said. Grandpa had lung cancer and he had smoked all his life. I remember him rolling his own cigarettes. He would buy tobacco in a small can, a pack of cigarette papers and he would roll his own and smoke them.

There are other things I remember about him as well. I remember he drink coffee all day long. He would make a pot of coffee in the morning and the pot would remain plugged in all day long. All day the coffee pot would set there with the basket of grounds still in it and the coffee getting stronger and stronger. Grandpa would drink the last cup of coffee before he went to bed at night. I learned to drink coffee from my Grandfather, maybe that's why I like my coffee so strong today. An other thing I remember about Grandpa, was his bald head. As far as I know my Grandfather was bald all his life. My mother says, that as a little girl she would set on his lap and rub his bald head.

Driving to the Feast of Perfection

1 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 1, 2006 A.D.

Last night, I went to the Feast of Perfection at the Baha'i Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Center is located on the west side of town and I live on the east. The drive to the center usually takes between fifteen to twenty minutes, if I avoid specific streets going to the center. There are three routes I can use, I can drive up Oakey to to the west side. Oakey doesn't go all the way through to the west side. It's one of those streets that dead-ends and then starts up again a mile or two later. When I take Oakey I go up to main street and then over to Western. The interesting fact about Western is that it becomes it becomes Oakey after a few blocks. Western also has a railroad crossing, if you're going west and get stuck on the east side of the rail road crossing when a train passes, its a long wait. I didn't encounter a train at the crossing last night so it took about fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the Center last night.

Another route I can take is Charleston, if I take Charleston then it goes all the way to Rainbow and beyond. When I take Charleston I usually turn on Rainbow and then go up to Oakey, the Center is located on west Oakey. I can also take Bonneville to Alta. Bonneville becomes Alta after Rancho. If I take Bonneville, then I turn on Valley View and go to either Charleston or Oakey before turning west again. I very seldom take Charleston when I'm going to the west side of Las Vegas because Charleston is getting too congested and it takes longer to get any place using it of an evening.

So last night, I took Oakey to Western and then up Oakey again to the Center. It's a nice drive, not too much traffic and there are a mix of business, houses and apartment buildings along the way. Traffic wasn't too bad last night, although there were some driver wanting to go over the speed limit. The speed limit varies between twenty five miles an hour in residential neighborhoods and thirty in business localities. You really have to watch the speed limit signs along Oakey. There is also a mix of traffic signals and four way stop signs. Also, after dark parts of the street isn't that well lit, so driving back east on Oakey can be interesting after dark. Normally I take Charleston coming back home after dark, but I didn't last night. I used the Oakey-Western route for both directions.

Vibration of the Human Soul

19 Kalimat 163 B.E. - July 31, 2006

I had an interesting thought today. It resulted from a prompt sent by a journal group I subscribe to. The prompt concerned the way I defined myself. Anyway my answer had to do with the frequency at which my soul vibrates. I've never really thought of the soul in quite that way before. I've written two or maybe three poems about light and poets writing in shades of light. One of them was about a Baha'i poet who passed into the next world. Another had to do with a poets in general and what would happen if instead of ordinary in they used the light spectrum as their ink.

As it turns out, apparently I define myself by light, but the way my soul reflects the attributes of God. I don't remember a specific verse that talks about the frequency of light and the human soul. I can remember verses from the writing of Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha about reflecting the attributes of God. I'll have to do a search of Ocean to see if I can find the verse I'm thinking about. I remember a verse, but I can't remember the precise location. I think I'm going to have to start writing the references down so that I can find them when I want them.

This is my take on the subject of the soul and light, of the vibration of the human spirit and the way it reflects the attributes of God. Just as we see visible light though the color spectrum, we see spiritual light through the spiritual spectrum. The spiritual spectrum are divine attributes, which every human being can potentially reflect. In order to reflect those spiritual attributes, we have to polish our souls. We shine the spiritual mirror through prayer, meditation, reading the sacred writing, trusting in God, and confronting tests and difficulties. As we shine the mirror it reflects the divine attributes more fully. Polishing the mirror of the soul is a life times project. We never stop polishing in the material world. When we pass into the next world, at death, we take with us the divine attributes we've developed on Earth through the work of polishing our souls.

An Accident Waiting to Happen!

18 Kalimat 163 B.E. – July 30, 2006 A.D.

“An accident waiting to happen,” this was on of my Grandma Newland’s favorite sayings. She usually used it when one of us left the scissors lying on the divan or something similar. I’ve had three encounters, that I can remember, with accidents waiting to happen. The first happened when I was around the age of four or five. The second occurred when I was, in grade school I don’t remember how old I was at the time and the third when I was in my twenties.

The first incident occurred at my cousins’ house. The family went to visit them on their farm outside of Blackwell. My cousins’ father had gotten and new refrigerator that day and the old one was setting on the back porch. While the adults were in the house playing cards, we kids were in the backyard playing games. One of the games we played was hide-and-seek. I decided that a good place to hide was in the old refrigerator. Therefore, I got in and let the door close behind me. The next thing I remember was seeing my grandfather reaching into the refrigerator and taking me out. Needless to say, the next time we visited them the refrigerator had no door.

Anyway, my grandfather had put a swing up next to the garage for us to use. One day someone (I don’t remember who or even why) suspended a wire with a sharp end from the cloths line behind the swing. The wire was hanging so that if you reach for it from the swing, you could grab hold of it with your hands. One day I decided to play “Jane” (Tarzan’s girl friend), so I grabbed the wire with both hand and tried to use it as a jungle vine. I fell off, onto the ground, with the ring finger on my right hand bleeding. Thinking about it today, I’m probably luck the swing didn’t hit me in the head. My grandfather took me to the emergency room, where the doctor sutured my finger. I still have a scare on that finder today.

The third occurred when I became an adult. I was living with my grandparents, in Blackwell, Oklahoma, at the time. It started to rain so I decided to get the chickens into their “chicken house”. I went into the pen and begin to chase on of the hens around the compound. There were boards with nails in them laying in one part of the enclosure. As I chased the hen that way, I stepped on one of the boards and a nail went right though my shoe. I drove myself to the emergency room, where a doctor bandaged my foot and gave me tetanus shot. Now all of those incidents were avoidable, if someone, either myself or another person, had just considered the possible consequence. Of course, I wouldn’t have learned anything if they had not happened and I wouldn’t be writing about this in my blog about today.

Growth: Today’s Power Word

15 Kalimat 163 B.E. – July 27, 2006 A.D.

I’m subscribed to a yahoo prompt group called Daily Power Words (click on the title of this entry and it will take you to the website http://www.dailypowerwords.com). Every day Christine, the monitor of the group and the owner of the mentioned site, sends a word with two or three paragraphs of her thought about the word and a journal exercise. In addition, she sometime includes a saying by a famous person on the subject.

Today’s power word is growth. This subject struck a chord with me. Lately I’ve been excessively focused on the difficulties hindering me from achieving my goals, rather than on achieving the goals. I look at the goal, I look at the barriers between myself and the final outcome, I look at what I’ve achieved toward the goal, but I don’t think I’m focusing on the steps of achievement. Because of not focusing on the necessary steps, I haven’t accomplished much toward the final outcome. According to Christine it’s the achievement steps taken every day that allows us to grow and this is true.

I find the things that hold me down are focusing on the difficulties, on the perceived barriers coming between the goal and myself. If I focus on the walls preventing me from accomplishment, then I don’t make any progress, I don’t grow spiritually. Therefore, I need to change my focus. Rather than looking at the barriers before I get to them, I need to focus on the steps themselves. By paying attention to the steps, I don’t make the difficulties, the limitation, the barriers any more concrete or larger than reality. Often when I do get to the barrier I find it’s a speed bump rather than a wall or a rose bush instead of a towering hedge of thorns.

Now the question arises: How do I change my focus? My answer is prayer and meditation. First, let me say, I have no rituals when it comes to prayer and meditation. My prayers consist of those revealed by Baha’u’llah and the Bab, or written by ‘Abdu’l-Baha. My meditation is chanting the Most Great Name. Normally I don’t have a specific time of day to chant, however, I’m going to change that, I’m going to set a specific time of a morning to chant. Setting a specific time has nothing to do with rituals; it has to do with discipline. In order to grow spiritually a person needs discipline. That’s my first step in changing my focus. I know that others will follow, but one doesn’t reach the destination in one giant step. One reaches the destination after a journey of many steps.

Reading Somebody Else’s Journal

13 Kalimat 163 B.E. – July 25, 2006 A.D.

There is a Follow the Leader Journaling contest on writing.com. I was in the first one, but haven’t enter it since. A new session of the contest started on Monday, July 24, and it will end on Sunday, August 13. The idea of the contest is simple, one person makes a leading journal entry then everyone else in the contest responds to the entry. I looked into the contest today.

The title of the first leading entry oddly enough, as I was reading the entry I realized that while I don’t know what the person looks like, I do know the person. Some many times we base likes and dislikes of their people on what we see. We choose to like or dislike a person because of a judgment we make by sight, by visual clues. In this case, I can’t because I’ve never met writer of oddly enough in person and I’ve never seen a picture. The only contact I have with the author of this specific leading entry is through what the person writes. I like this person because I’ve read journal or rather blog entries and I find the person’s thoughts intriguing.

The internet has changed so much about the way we interact socially. We meet someone on a website and get to know them through what is written in a blog. We base our likes and dislikes not on visual clues, but on the written word. We learn thing about people we have never met, people we may never meet in person, in the real world, without ever seeing them. True there are photos on blogs, but those photo are often a person’s best and usually posed. I like learning about others by reading their writings, by reading their blogs. I can read their thoughts, I can read their opinions, I can learn about them without the distraction of physical appearance. When you read someone else’s blog you get a look into that person’s soul oddly enough.

Random Ramblings

12 Kalimat 163 B.E. – July 24, 2006 A.D.

I don’t know what’s going on with me lately. I haven’t made a blog entry in a while, my reason is I’ve focused on writing a paper for my class. Actually, I don’t know what’s going on with me right now. I’m sitting staring at the screen considering what to write and nothing comes to mind. OK, so I’ve gotten that out of my system, now maybe I can write.

Went to bed early last night and lay looking out the window at Metro’s Copter fly over. Don’t know what was going on in this neighborhood, but they were looking for something. Anyway, as I said, I went to be early, which means I got up early this morning. Got up and worked on the paper that’s due Sunday, but I want to post by Wednesday. It’s the discussion board and it is an annotated bibliography of educational websites. It’s just four websites, but they have to be something I can use. I’ve found three websites that qualify, but haven’t found a fourth yet.

I’ve got two papers due on Saturday. The other has to do with educational standards. I have to form an opinion on them and then find sources that both refute and agree with my opinion. That’s fun, I’ve already found a few documents on the subject. I’m going to read them before writing down what my opinion is, I mean there’s no use in forming an opinion before one has a few fact anyway. I’ve got enough articles downloaded to make an informed opinion, actually probably more than enough. I always think I need more articles in research than I use.

I’ve got other writing to do, but thought I’d better make a blog entry first. Writing, prayer, and reading the Baha’i scriptures (not necessarily in that order) always change my attitude. I can be in a bad or lousy mood and read the writings of the Bab, Baha’u’llah, or ‘Abdu’l-Baha and my mood with change. I can be on the verge of tears, say a prayer and I no longer want to cry. Writing works too, but not as quickly and reading the sacred scripture. When I write I have to write for over five minutes before my mood changes. I guess that’s all I have to write in this blog today, if it isn’t I’ll make another entry later on.

Summer Storm

6 Kalimat 163 B.E. – July 18, 2006 A.D.

The monsoon season has finally started. The lightning storm last night was beautiful. The streaks of light were clear and bright. The thunder was so loud that it shook my bed and rattled the windows. It was the first storm of the season. It rained, the lightning struck a tree somewhere in town and knocked it down. An empty mobile home was set fire by the lightning. We usually don’t get this type of storm this early in the season, normally August is when the real lightning storms start and we haven’t had a storm like this in Las Vegas in several years.

Yesterday, during the day, there was an excessive heat warning, the temperatures to somewhere between 113 to 115 degrees. Then after dark, it rained with thunder and lightning. Today it’s been cloudy all day, but no rain. Just as well because the parking lot of one of the casinos flooded last night and fire department search and rescue had to retrieve a man from his car. Electricity went out in some parts of town. Quite a storm for the first one of the monsoon season, which means it should be an interesting season.

Family Memories

1 Kalimat 163 B.E. - July 17, 2006

It’s interesting what people remember from their childhood and youth. I remember my Grandma Darbe, I don’t remember my Grandpa Darbe, I think he died before I was born. I remember several different visits to my Grandma Darbe’s house in Burbank, Oklahoma. I remember she had an old cast iron stove in her kitchen. She would put pieces of wood in and use the stove to bake bread. I couldn’t have been very old when this event happened, but the memory is still with me today. Every time I smell wood smoke, every time I smell bread baking, I can see my Grandma Darbe’s face and she is always smiling.

What brought on this bit of nostalgia was a picture. A picture taken around Christmas; we went to Burbank to see her. This was the last time I saw Grandma Darbe, we never went back to see her after that. I’m not sure why, but I am glad I got to see her around my birthday. My mother found the picture a few days ago, it’s not in an album, but it soon will be. In the meantime, I scanned it and I am going to e-mail a copy to my brothers and to my nephews.

I’m going to use this in a chapbook called Family Memories. I’ve written several poems about family and where I grew up. I’ll have to do two or three about visiting Grandma Darbe. My memories about visit to see her are like vacation snap shots scattered through a photo album. I encounter them at the most unexpected time. There is the memory of bread baking in a cast-iron stove, of attending a small one-room school on another visit, of going to a revival meeting or the church she attended, anyway the preacher frightened me and my father had to carry me out of the church until I stopped crying. All those will go into a poem or poems about visits to Grandma’s House.

Feast of Words

1 Kalimat 163 B.E. – July 13, 2006 A.D.

On the evening of Wednesday, July 12, at 7:30 p.m., I attended the Feast of Kalimat, the Feast of Words, at the Baha’i Center in Las Vegas. I started out early, because I had to stop for gas and normally, when I have to stop for gas before Feast there are lines at the gas station and I have to wait. There were not lines this time, so I was in and out in record time. I arrived at the center a little early, but that’s OK because I like to sit and meditate before the Feast begins.

The decorations in the main meeting room of the Center were beautifully. There were three vases of flowers. The vase I particularly noticed set on top of the piano. It contained a bouquet of yellow roses. The other two vases contain white and red flowers, not roses, but some other types of flowers. I couldn’t tell you what type of flowers they were because I don’t know the names of them. I can only identify a few flowers by sight. I can identify roses and lilies, but I can’t identify the different varieties.

The readings at the feast were a smorgasbord of sacred writing by Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha, plus prayers in three languages. At the social portion there scrumptious dishes such as watermelon, carrot cake, chocolate cake, a deli wrap, nuts, juice, coffee, and tea. We laughed and talked, everyone had a great time.

I got an idea for a poem; the title of the poem is the Feast of Words. The way I’m going to approach it is to describe attending the Nineteen Day Feast from the point of view of eating a delicious meal. I suspect this may be a long poem, because I’m considering dividing it into more than one section, similar to a multi-course meal. I think I’ll divide the poem into three section. Describe the Feast as a three-course meal, because there are three parts to a Feast. The three parts or courses of the Feast are the spiritual, business, and social portions.

OK, what do I have so far? I have smorgasbord, buffet, salad bar, or desert table for the sections of the poem. Other words I can use, in the lines of the poem, are delicious, tasty, appetizing, yummy, luscious, delectable, mouth-watering, delightful, lovely, wonderful, pleasant, enjoyable, appealing, enchanting, and charming. How about, a smorgasbord of delight met my eyes. That sounds nice, I’ll see what I come up with and add it to the rest of my poems about the Feast. I’m working on my faith book, which has a separate section for each of the Feasts. Each section of the book opens with a poem about a particular feast.

Getting My Thoughts Organized

Day Month 163 B.E. – Month Day – Day, 2006 A.D.

Writing help me get my thoughts straight. I know that sometimes when I’m writing this blog my subject and my thought wonder across the landscape. That isn’t going to stop, in fact it may get even worse in the coming five weeks. That because I started a new class today and I need to get my thoughts for the assignments organized. So rather than attempting to write about the assignment and keep my blogs (yes, I wrote blogs) updated, I’m going to use the blog posts to organize my thoughts. This way I can concentrate on the class and keep my blogs up-to-date at the same time. It’s called multitasking, I think my grandmother had another term for doing more than one thing at a time, but right now I can’t remember what.

Anyway, as I was saying I started a new class today. It is EDU660 Curriculum Design and Evaluation. I have two assignments due each week, one of the assignments is a discussion board project (maybe I should say paper, project makes it sound tremendous) and the other is an individual paper. The discussion board project is a maximum of seven paragraphs and the individual paper covers several pages. The format is APA, which, judging from earlier classes I seem to have a problem achieving. Oh well, it is a learning experience and I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’m going to learn a lot more as well.

I haven’t been writing a lot about the classes before, but I have a goal of getting an A in this class, which means I have to do something different than I did in the earlier classes. The grade’s in those classes were Bs and a C, so to get an A in this one I have to do something different. I had to ask myself, (to quote Dr. Phil) “How’s that working for you?” The way I was doing it wasn’t working for me, so I’m changing the way I approach the work and how I do it. If these works better than it has so far, my readers are in for a lot of interesting topics and intriguing approaches to those topics. That’s all for now, if you are interested in what’s coming up come back and see how my mind works.

My Harley Cap

15 Rahmat 163 B.E. – June 8, 2006 A.D.

It’s been windy lately. As I’m typing this the limbs of the stone pine tree in my front yard are swaying. The birds don’t seem to mind the wind, it not blowing hard enough to bother them, but it blowing hard enough to blow my hair into my eyes and make it generally difficult to keep my hair looking good. That’s why I carry a hair brush in my purse, so that when I get anywhere I’ve got something to make my hair lay down, at least until I get out in the wind again.

Of course, it really doesn’t matter if the wind blows or not because when I drive I drive with the windows down. You see I have four forty five air conditioning in my care. I roll down all four windows and drive forty-five miles an hour. Not only can that mess up my hair, but my hair gets in my face when I’m driving and I have to push it out of my eyes. That gets a bit irritating sometimes. So I need to do something to keep my hair out of my eyes when I’m driving. Now the obvious solution would be to either get my haircut or get hair spray.

I’ve never been know to go for the obvious solution. I usually find the least obvious or the off-the-wall solution. Anyway, that brings me back to the wind and my leather Harley-Davidson cap, at least I think it’s leather, it looks like leather and it has the Harley-Davidson logo on the front.. Yesterday or the day before, I went out to put the car back into the garage and, for some reason, put on the cap. As a result, the cap held my hair in place in the wind. So from now on, when I’m driving I’m going to wear the cap. It’ll keep my hair from getting into my eyes, I’m what use is having the cap if it’s not being used.

Someone give me the cap a couple of years ago and it’s been hanging in my room ever since. Just hanging there on the bookcase doing nothing, but no longer because it’s going to be worn, by me. And since I keep a hair brush in my purse, I can always take the cap off and brush my hair when I’m wearing a dress. I can always put the cap in my purse if I don’t want to leave it in the car.

Cover to My Faithbook

12 Rahmat 163 B.E. - July 5, 2006

Here is the cover to my faithbook. I am going to divide the book into 19, 20, or 21 sections. Each section will contain poems, about the Baha'i months, holy days, and days of celebration. There will be an introduction which will contain a poem about the year. I'll post what the section dividers look like later. I just decided on the cover today.

What Freedom Means to Me

11 Rahmat 163 B.E. – July 4, 2006 A.D.

This is what freedom means to me at this point in my life.

For me freedom is taking personal responsibility for my own spiritually, individual choices, personal opinions, emotions, and happiness. I am the only person I can control; I am not in control of anything except my own emotional reaction and my own thoughts and opinions. In order for me to be at peace with myself and there for happy, I must define these concepts for myself in a context that allows me to live in relative contentment with the rest of humanity.

According to the Declaration of Independence “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This is the theory on which the founding fathers constructed the United States. True the country has not always lived up to this, but it is something the country must continually work on this ideal. This ideal must be lived at the grass root level, before it is reflection on a state or even national level.

As an American citizen, I am responsible for defining this ideal in my own life and then reflecting it to the world around me. What does this ideal mean to me? First, I define “all men” as humanity, which includes male and female, every complexion of skin tone and political opinion and every religion. Next is my definition of “Creator”, for me the Creator is an unknowable essence, without descent or assent, and reflected to humanity through certain individuals that appear at critical points in human history to reveal to humanity the spiritual concepts necessary to carry the human race into the next stage of its collective evolution.

How do I define “unalienable Rights”? Dictionary.com defined unalienable this way: “Not to be separated, given away, or taken away…” Unalienable rights are those privileges innate to humanity, which does not mean that we receive them without work. Nor does it mean the individual can do whatever he or she wants without considering the rest of the human race. This is because humans were created to live as part of a human unit and as independent from the rest of humanity. The basic unit of humanity is the family; from the beginning of our existence as a species or a race (which ever you want to refer to humanity), the individual human is a component of a family unit. The family unit is a member of a tribe, a city, a nation and a planet.

Since I am a member of the human race and a citizen of both America and the planet, I am responsible for living my life in such a way that brings no intentional harm to the rest of the human race. Being a human being means I have both a body and a soul, I am a dual natured creature and I am responsible for learning what that means and how to live with other dual natured creatures.

Summer Memories

9 Rahmat 163 B.E. – July 2, 2006 A.D.

Summer is here! When summer comes, my mind wonders back to Oklahoma and my Grandparents mobile home on Lake Blackwell. Every year beginning with the Fourth of July weekend, my grandparents would take us to their mobile home every weekend. We would spend the weekends on Lake Blackwell boating and water skiing. My grandparents would plant a garden with potatoes, corn, squish and other good things on their leased lot at the Lake.

We always referred to Lake Blackwell as the Lake. We always called the mobile home a trailer house and Independence Day the Fourth of July. When we went to the trailer house on the Lake, we would go on Friday evening and stay until Sunday afternoon. That was the only time we didn’t go to church on Sunday. Instead of going to church or rather the First Southern Baptist Mission in the Heights’, we spent Sunday morning on the Lake and Sunday evening going back to Blackwell. I always enjoyed those weekends at the Lake, we fished, we water skied, we swam around my grandparents boat dock. My grandfather never left the motor boat at the Lake; instead, he would put the boat on the boat trailer and pull the boat back and forth every weekend.

In Blackwell, my grandparents lived in the Smelter Heights’, on the other side of the tracks, in the section of town located near the Zinc Smelter that provided jobs from before World War II. I haven’t been back to Blackwell so I don’t know if the Smelter Heights’ are still there or if the Zinc Smelter is still there. I think I’d like to go back sometime, but I’m not even sure about that. There are many other places in the world I’d like to go before I go back to Blackwell.

Maybe I’ll look up Blackwell, Oklahoma and see if they have a website. It would be interesting to see how the town has changed since I was last there. They say you can’t go home again, and I think that is true. In my case I can’t go home again because I can’t go someplace I’m already at. Now home is Las Vegas, Blackwell is where I was born and raise, at least until I started to high school, in high school we moved from Blackwell to Shawnee, Oklahoma. I did go back to Blackwell after I graduated from high school, but it wasn’t the same as when I’d been a child.

Asking Questions

8 Rahmat 163 B.E. – July 1, 2006 A.D.

In order to find truth a person must ask questions. Not only must we ask the comfortable questions, but we must ask the uncomfortable questions as well. We must question our doubts, our comfortable ideas and our preconceived notions. If we do not learn to ask questions, we will never find truth for ourselves and if we do not find truth for ourselves, we will remain bound in our superstitions.

Why are questions so important? The obvious answer is that questions eventually lead us to truth, but that is not the complete answer. Questions is one of the attributes of God, are innate to the human soul. From the time, we are old enough to know the difference between the outside world and ourselves form queries.

We ask, “Who am I?”
We ask, “What is my purpose in life?”
We ask, “When will there be peace on Earth?”
We ask, “Where am I going?”
We ask, “Why is the sky blue?”
We ask, “How did I get here?”

Speaking of asking questions, I found an intriguing website that does just that and not only does it ask question, it ask the important questions. In fact, this website would like your questions. It is called dropping knowledge, it is a worldwide initiative whose goal is to transform apathy to action. The creators of this website want you to ask yourself a question about the issues confronting humanity today. After you have asked your question, they request that you submit that question, that you donate that question to them so that they can post it on the website.

If you are curious about dropping knowledge simply, click on the title to this entry to access the website. Donate a question, it does not have to be a world-shaking question, it can be whatever you want to ask. The categories’ of questions range from Animal Rights to Science and Technology. Look at the categories, ask your question, submit it and donate your question to the website. If you are not sure which of the twenty-five categories your question belongs to, use the “Other” category.

Meditation Methods

6 Rahmat 163 B.E. – June 29, 2006 A.D.

I’m subscribed to a health newsletter, it covers various subject related to personal health. Today’s newsletter contained a short article on meditation. The gist of the message was simple; one doesn’t need a lot of props to meditate. Candles, incense, cymbals or crystals aren’t necessary, all a person needs to do is set quietly and clear their mind. Just set for a few clear you mind and focus on your breathing, that’s all that’s necessary to meditate.

If a person wants to learn to meditate, you don’t have to go to a bookstore or a library to find the books. Do a Google search on meditation methods and look for something that suites you. Meditation is as old as humanity itself, so there are many methods to choose from and so all you have to do is find one that fits into your life. If you want to take a class then take a class there are some inexpensive courses on meditation. Whether or not you take a class or follow a specific model is up to you the individual.

I meditate by chanting the Greatest Name, but the method any one uses to meditate is a personal choice. I don’t think the method is as important as the practice of daily meditation. Set aside some time each day morning, noon or at night. Find a quite place, find a method you are comfortable with and just do it. Do it every day and see what meditation does for you. Keep a journal about the experience. If you’re not sure which method is right for you, then experiment with different methods, doing a method each week until you find the one that you’re comfortable using.

Every Breath

3 Rahmat 163 B.E. – June 25, 2006 A.D.

I read The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah and with every breath I take, I inhale eternity and interconnectedness. The essence of divine unity flows through these pearls of sacred wisdom. These are the poignant echoes of love reverberating across my soul. This is the inner essence of all the holy books. I read The Hidden Words and with every breath I take, I inhale the perfume of reality.

In 1858, Baha’u’llah revealed The Hidden Words, while he walked on the banks of the Tigris River; while wrapped in meditation. Divided into two section, part one “From the Arabic” and part two “From the Persian”, the book contains nuggets of splendor.

The Last day of Light

19 Nur 163 B.E. – June 23, 2006 A.D.

The last day of light, now that sounds like it should be the name of a science fiction or fantasy short story or poem instead of a blog entry. However, today is the nineteenth day of Nur, whose English translation is Light and, since there are only nineteen day in the month of Nur or any other Baha’i month for that matter, technically the title is correct.

OK, I’m in a good mood this morning. I’m feeling optimistic and when I’m feeling optimistic my sense of humor becomes interesting, which also explain the title of today’s blog entry. Anyway, I just came back into the house from backing my car out of the garage. From where I’m sitting I can look into my garage and see all the stuff in there. Yes, I left the garage door open. I left it open because my mother wants to get stuff out today. So from where I’m sitting I can see what’s going on and if she needs help in moving anything out, but my mind and my words wander off the subject.

The month of Nur ends at sunset this evening and the month of Rahmat (Mercy) begins. Tonight after sunset or tomorrow morning or afternoon the Feast of Mercy will take place. When and where the Feast takes place depends on the local community. I’m looking forward, as usual, to attending Feast. This Feast I’m picking out the scripture readings and another person is planning the refreshments. That is one of the beautiful things about Feast; two different families can share in hosting. There are three parts to Feast (1) the spiritual portions, (2) the business portion and (3) the social portion.

Whenever I attend Feast, no matter what feast it is or where, there is always a spiritual feeling to the entire feast. The sacredness of the occasion isn’t confided to just one portion, but is carried over to each one. The atmosphere is set up in the spiritual part of the event through music, reading the writings of Baha’u’llah, the Bab and ‘Abdu’l-Baha, and prayer. I think the thing I like best about attending the Feast is that everyone is always glade to see you, it doesn’t matter if you attend every month, just a few times a year or if you’re a visitor from another part of the country or the world. Everyone at feast is always glad to see you.

Morning Thoughts

18 Nur 163 B.E. – June 22, 2006 A.D.

I don’t want to write anything this morning. I want to play games instead, but that isn’t going to get any of my projects complete. So far this morning I’ve posted three short items to the group project that is due next week in my AIU course and I’ve posted a few paragraphs to my writing.com blog. That’s it! My heart just isn’t into writing today.

In fact, the only thing I really want to do this morning is play games either open cell or bookworm. I don’t want to do anything else, but playing games isn’t going to get any thing completed. Playing games only puts off the inevitable. I suppose I could give in and play a game or two, but if I play bookworm it won’t be a short game. As for open cell, when I play that’s slow as well because I attempt to see what the results of each possible choice will be. I simply don’t have time to give into temptation today.

I’ve go another paper due in EDU622 on Saturday. I have to work on it a little bit each day or spend all evening Friday and all morning Saturday working on it. I don’t do my best work that way. I have to get most of the paper complete before then, so that the only thing I have left is to put the paper together. Then there is the group project that’s due next week. I have to do a little bit of research on my part of the paper, in addition, I need to go back online at AIU and post to the class discussion board. I posted my completed discussion board project yesterday, but I have to respond to the posting of one or two other students today.

In addition, I’ve got a rewrite to work on and a novel chapter to complete. I don’t have time to play games. I get too involved with the games to let myself play them today. Writing this has help a little bit. I’m a little more willing now to write than I was before. So I think I’ll post this, then go and finish my morning prayers, before getting to work on anything else.

The First Day of Summer

17 Nur 163 B.E. – June 20 – 21, 2006 A.D.

It’s the first day of summer, Summer Solstice, Midsummer, the longest day of the year and the shortest night in the Northern hemisphere. Summer Solstice, Winter Solstice, Vernal Equinox, and Autumnal Equinox mark the Earth’s season and all relate, in some way, to a religious celebration somewhere on the planet. Even those of us who don’t celebrate a religious holiday today, use the Summer Solstice to mark a transition between seasons.

Since the Winter Solstice, in the northern hemisphere, the days have gotten longer and longer, while the nights became shorter and shorter. This situation now reverses itself and the hours of darkness will slowly expand over the next few months until the seasons come full circle and the process begins again. While in the southern hemisphere the process is precisely opposite, of what it is in the north.

The Earth orbits the sun, the season’s change, while humanity makes love and fights wars. A never-ending circle it seems, but eventually peace will come to the planet. World peace, like the change of seasons is inevitable. Peace on Earth is not a pipe dream, but the culmination of a long and natural process. Humanity itself is being transformed; it’s becoming a citizen of its own planet.

Father’s Day

14 Nur 163 B.E. – June 17 – 18, 2006 A.D.

It’s Sunday! It’s Father’s Day! There are several articles in the RJ on this theme, Dear Abby’s annual Father’s Day column, Steven Kalas’ Human Matters column, the comics, so on and so forth. All the articles are interesting and thought provoking, all well written and all bring me face-to-face with issues concerning my own father.

First, a little background, my parents were divorced when I was young. I have memories of my father before the divorce. I remember sitting on his lap while he read me the Sunday Morning comics. I remember sitting on the front porch of our house in Blackwell, Oklahoma and talking to my father in the evening. I remember going to the Kay County Fair with my father. I remember the family going to Burbank to visit my Grandmother and while we were there, I went to a little one-room schoolhouse. I do not remember every seeing my father again after the divorce.

I always wanted to see my father again one more time, but it’s too late now. He has passed into the next world. How do I know he’s dead? I read his obituary in a copy of a newspaper I retrieved from an archive, while looking for his name on the internet. I always wanted to see my father again, I always wanted to hear his voice one more time, I always …. I never got the chance. I will never be able to do that in this world, maybe in the next.

I have memories of my father, memories like old photos play across my mind. Memories are all I have of my father now, still snapshots of happy times spent with my father in them. There are lots of things I don’t know about my father, there are lots of questions I never got to ask my father, I never got to hug him one more time before he died. I miss my father I miss the closure of not seeing him one last time.

I have no doubt that I will see him again when I cross the bridge into the next world. His soul survived the death of his physical body; my soul will survive death of my physical body. I will see him again in the next world, I will hug him again, I will tell him I love him again. The one thing that I’m not sure I’ll ask him is why? Why I never saw him again after the divorce? I probably won’t ask the question because that may not be an issue then.

The only thing I can do now is say a prayer for the departed. I can pray for my father’s soul as it ascends through the worlds of God. Those are my thoughts on Father’s Day, June 18, 2006.

Interesting Dreams

12 Nur 163 B.E. – June 15 – 16, 2006 A.D.

I has several interesting dreams last night. I didn’t get to bed until about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. on the 15th. When I did get to bed I didn’t sleep straight through the night. Dreams kept waking me up. These were complicated or long dreams, all of them were short quick dreams. I don’t remember all but I do remember three or four of them.

The first dream that wake me up was the sound of glass breaking. It sounded like a window being broke rather than a glass falling off a table. After the dream woke me up, I realized I hadn’t taken the telephone into the bedroom with me, so I got up. I walked through the house looked at all the windows, none of them were broken and then I checked to garage door to make sure it was closed. I got the telephone off its charging cradle and took the phone into the bedroom.

In the second dream, I knew that I was asleep but I was chanting the Tablet of Ahmad. This is the first dream I’ve had in which I chanted the Tablet of Ahmad. Usually if a say a prayer in my dreams it’s the Remover of Difficulties. I woke up and then went back to sleep, again I found myself saying a prayer in my dream. The next prayer I was saying was the evening prayer I recite before I go to bed at night.

In the last dream, I was setting at the computer typing. My mother said it was too dark around the computer, so she brought two lights for me to use. She said the lights on the stand I keep next to the computer desk for coffee and water. One of the lights was small, with a white and pink lacy shade. The other was a large desk lamp, the type that has an adjustable section for the bulb so that you can aim the light any place you want. She set lights on the stand, I plugged them in and then my mother turned one on while I turned on the other.

Anyway, those were the dreams I remember. None of the dreams was bad dreams they were just intriguing. When I remember a dream after I wake up, it means the dream was significant in some way. I suspect, because of the prayers and the light, that these dreams are of spiritual significance.

A fascinating side note here, when I was sitting on the divan attempting to listen to the morning news, I dozed. While I dozed, I had a dream. In this dream, my mother brought a dish of salad into the living room for me to eat. The salad was heaped on a small plate, maybe the saucer to a coffee cup, when she handed to salad to me none of it fell off the plate onto to floor. The salad contained various green veggies and croutons, but didn’t have any type of dressing. What I found out of the ordinary about this dream was the fact that none of the salad fell off the plate. If I put a salad that big on a saucer in my waking life, the salad would be all over the floor.

Virtue Cards

8 Nur 163 B.E. – June 11 – 12, 2006 A.D.

A couple of years a go I got a deck of virtue cards. Each card has a virtue on it such as moderation or reliability. In addition to the virtue, the explanation or definition of the virtue, it has a picture of an animal, which represents the virtue, and a scripture verse. On the back of the card is a list of activities a person can do the practice that virtue and a sentence or two a person can say to help practice the virtue.

I thought I’d lost those cards, but recently I found them again. Not sure, how I intended to use them when I originally bought them, but now I’m going to use them as prompts for blog entries and poems. The Virtue Project, Inc. (http://www.virtuesproject.com/
) put out the cards. The set of cards I own have a 1997 copy write date. I think there is a book that goes along with the cards, but I bought only the cards.

This is how I choose a virtue card to use as a prompt.

1. shuffle the deck of cards
2. cut the cards
3. spread the cards on a table
4. close your eyes
5. pick a card
6. read the information on the card
7. begin a free write on the virtue, this can be a 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes free write.

Solitary Reflection

4 Nur 163 B.E. – June 7– 8, 2006 A.D.

Every one needs some time for solitary reflection, a place to go off by oneself pray, meditate and read the sacred writings. The spirit needs refreshed everyday, the soul needs fed everyday, and this is what one can accomplish through solitary reflections. Every individual is different when it comes to finding a time, place and a way to meditate. Some do it of a morning and others of an evening. Some write their thoughts in a pen and paper journal, while others type their thoughts into a word processor.

There are certain aspects of solitary reflections time that are common to everyone who practices this form of meditation. There is stillness, tranquility and being alone with one’s thoughts. I suspect part of the problem in the world today is lack of solitary reflection time. It is something one must choose and then find a way to achieve. It is something that needs planning and in many cases a lock on the bedroom door.

A good time for solitary reflection is midnight. Midnight is a time when the household is usually asleep or resting. Midnight is a good time to be alone with oneself and with God. True not everyone can do Midnight Meditations, but the time one chooses is not as important as the action of solitary reflection itself.

I like midnight myself. I like to take my prayer book, my journal and a book of scripture onto the patio. Once on the patio, I say some prayers, usually starting with a prayer of protection. After I say a few prayers, either I set meditating or I begin reading some passages from the sacred book. After I read from the sacred book, I’ve chosen then I write something in my journal. Sometimes I review the day’s activities and sometimes I just set there looking out across the backyard. When I’m finished I say another prayer and then I go to bed.

Solitary reflection shouldn’t take very long. I usually give myself about an hour, but sometimes the session is shorter and sometimes longer. The length of time depends on a number of things. It isn’t how long one takes for solitary reflection that is important, but the act itself. This act connects a person with their soul or spirit and with God. If a person keeps a journal then one can record the affect of the experience and any thing else that occurs during that time alone.

Tuesday’s Child

2 Nur 163 B.E. – June 5 – 6, 2006 A.D.

I’m a Tuesday’s child, what that means is that I was born on a Tuesday and according to the old nursery rhyme I’m “… full of grace.” I just reread the Mother Goose rhyme Monday’s Child. It’s an interesting verse, its rhythm is smooth and its rhyme doesn’t sound forced when read out loud. I have fond memories of this particular nursery rhyme for a couple of reasons. First, I remember both my Mother and Grandmother reading it to me. Second, it was the first poem I memorized.

Monday’s Child

Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go.

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child born on the Sabbath Day,

Is fair and wise and good and gay.

As I reread the poem, I counted the syllables in each line; the syllable count is 7 – 7 – 7 – 7 – 9 – 9 – 9 – 8. I looked at the rhyme scheme; the rhyme scheme is a – a – b – b – c – c – d – d – e – e. This is an easy rhyme to learn and it’s fun to read. This isn’t the first time I’ve reread this rhyme, I reread it at least once or twice a year whenever I get to feeling nostalgic. This is my favorite Nursery rhyme.

Each time I reread this poem, I notice something different about it, today I noticed the several spiritual attributes mentioned in the version of the poem I remember. Grace is the only spiritual attribute I’m interested in right now, but what does it mean when someone is full of grace. I don’t remember either my Mother or my Grandmother telling me the meaning of grace. Of course, I didn’t ask what it meant so I guess they didn’t think I wanted to know. I wonder how many children hear this poem and wonder what grace means. I wonder what answer a parent gives when a child asks the question, “What does grace mean?”

When I go to a thesaurus to find other word’s for grace I’m given the following list: elegance, refinement, loveliness, polish, beauty, style, poise, charm, kindness, kindliness, decency, favor, mercy, mercifulness, charity, benevolence, clemency, leniency, blessing, prayer, thanks, thanksgiving, adorn, embellish, enhance, beautify, decorate, ornament, dignify, honor, favor, and distinguish. These words don’t actually tell me what grace means, but they do give me something to work from when writing a poem about grace. To find what the word means, I have to go directly to a dictionary.

When I go to http://dictionary.reference.com/ I’m given several meaning for grace, all of which refer in some way to beauty, elegant movement or have spiritual significance. To find what day you were born on go to http://www.bethanyroberts.com/MondaysChildIsFairofFace.htm or http://www.hugkiss.com/birthday/monchild.html.

Saturday Cleaning

18 Azamat 163 B.E. – June 2 – 3, 2006 A.D.

I cleaned out my e-mail bulk folder today. This is the first I’ve gotten to the bulk mail folder in a week. Usually I do this folder once a day, but its been an interesting week. I’m not sure that interesting is the right word here. I don’t know what’s been wrong this past week, I just haven’t wanted to do anything, but play games. Consequently, I have to go through lots of e-mail and, at the very least, clean out the bulk mail folder. I suppose I could do a mass delete, but that would mean I wouldn’t catch anything that’s not supposed to be in the bulk folder.

I can’t say I haven’t did any writing this whole week. I’ve managed to post to my writing.com blog approximate once a day, but I’m in a blog contest and I am required to respond to a leading entry each day. I don’t want to put off responding daily because contest is only about three week long. Besides I’m attempting to stop procrastinating and this is a good chance to practice immediate action.

Anyway, back to the yahoo bulk mail folder. Some mortgage company sends mail dated Mon January 18, 2038; this ensures that their e-junk is always on top of the queue. Maybe I should send them a thank you note, these I can delete without even opening them and that saves a little time. I’m not going to respond to their offer, so there is no use reading them. Unfortunately, the rest of the e-junk isn’t that easy, becomes sometimes there offers I accept.

Other offers I don’t open are those that don’t have a senders address or a subject line. In addition, there are specific subject lines that I won’t even look at. All these aside, the rest of the e-junk is, at the very lest, interesting. By interesting, I mean that it does one of two things. It makes me either laugh or it arouses my curiosity. The one’s that make me laugh or arouse my curiosity I will look at even if I don’t accept the offer. If someone is creative enough to come up with a funny or interesting subject line, they deserve rewarding by me reading their e-mails.

It’s a good thing I did go through the bulk mail folder, because I found several e-mails that weren’t junk. This happens sometimes, I’m not sure why, but it always pays to go through the e-junk to see what’s in that folder. When I find a e-mail that doesn’t belong in the folder I move it to the inbox for reading.

However, going through the bulk folder is boring, extremely boring even when I find e-mails that don’t belong there. Usually before I get to the end, I want to do a mass delete. I’m to that point now, but I’m not going to do a mass delete. I’m going to go ahead and check everything in the bulk mail folder. It’s a good exercise in discipline, if nothing else.

Need an Idea

15 Azamat 163 B.E. – May 30 – 31, 2006 A.D.

In a few days, I’m going to have to come up with a subject that other people in a blog contest can respond to. The background is this, at writing.com I am in a Follow the Leader Blog contest. There are about twenty participants in the contest, which began Monday, May 29, and each participant submits a leading entry once during the contest and everyone else responds to the entry. When the participants respond to the leading entry, they use the title of the leading entry as the title to their response entry. Anyway, I’m going to need to come up with an interesting title and then write the entry to go along with the title.

The reason I entered the contest was to spice up my blog entries and break through a wall of writers’ block. I’ve spiced up my blog entry, at least the Snowflake Chronicles which is my writing.com blog. In fact, I’ve changed the rating on that blog from ASR to 18+. Now I have to come up with an intriguing title, this seem to be the problem at the moment. My muse doesn’t want to light on anything. She (my muse) keeps fluttering from flower to flower, but doesn’t want to settle on anything specific.

Here are the ideas I’ve come up with so far:
1. A rant about gas price, but without an interesting title; actually I don’t have a title for this at all.
2. A description of my muse and how my muse is a skin changer (I wrote a short essay on this for another writing.com contest last year); the title to this is “My Muse is a Skin Changer”.
3. Why I date my blogs the way I do; I don’t have a hook for this.
4. A rant about SPAM; I don’t have either a title or a hook for this.
5. A rant about my telephone hookup and how it kicks me off; I need a title for this. (Besides I really don’t want to do a rant).
6. Why laundry needs doing everyday and what happens when one doesn’t do it everyday (properly written this could be very funny).
7. Write a survey of some type (Written properly this could be funny); I still need an interesting title.
8. Write a short story.
9. Write a poem.
10. Write an essay on the similarities between playing FreeCell Solitary and rewriting poetry. I do have an article about this, but it needs rewritten and I wanted to write something new for my leading entry.
11. Do an entry about Las Vegas colorful characters, one of which is the Mayor.
12. Do an entry about my cats, I haven’t written a lot about my cats in any of my blogs.
13. Write about living in Las Vegas and not gambling.
14. Write about some of the dreams I remember. I responded to today’s (May 31) leading entry by writing about the dream I had last night.
15. Write about the Master’s Class I’m taking.
16. Write about the Ruhi class I’m taking.
17. Describe my inner critic; this doesn’t appeal to me at the moment. Although, properly written it could be enlightening.
18. Write the rules to a poetry game; this has the potential of being very funny.
19. Describe an open mike poetry reading. This has potential.

I’ve got a start, the problem is that none of the ideas listed appeals to me at this time. Maybe if I attempt to come up with some interesting, unusual or weird titles lightning will strike. It could also be that I just worry way too much about this and need to stop obsessing about the subject. Maybe what I need to do is just start writing, I don’t have to make the leading entry until next Monday or something like that. I’m sure that I will find an idea between now and then.

Writers’ Block

13 Azamat 163 B.E. – May 28 – 29, 2006 A.D.

I’ve had one bad case of writers’ block lately. OK, I know a poet who had writers’ block for two or three years, so my case isn’t too bad, but for me it was depressing. I did find out one thing about writers’ block today. If I let my muse ramble, I don’t have a problem. Maybe I need to change my routine. Get out of my routine and do things in a different order. Routine isn’t conducive to new ideas, although it’s conducive to rewriting or is it? Having a writing routine is good, but getting in a rut isn’t. There is a thin line between routine and rut. If you stay in a rut the rut gets deeper and deeper until you need a ladder to get you out.

Anyway, I realized today, when I was making the entry for my Writing.com blog that I need to let my muse roam and ramble. If I let her (Yes, I refer to my muse as female) ramble then she will walk around the wall that’s causing the writers’ block. My writers’ block is never just a square or a block. My writers’ block is usually a wall, a huge long wall with no doors or windows or drawbridges. In fact, my writers’ block usually resembles the Great Wall of China, so if I let my muse roam she usually either rides or walks around the wall.

What else was I planning on saying? That’s one of the problems, if I don’t let my muse roam I can’t think of anything to say. If I ramble across the page moving from one subject to the other, then I come up with all sorts of ideas to write about. Therefore, I suppose my entries will be rambling for a while moving from subject to subject. I guess I could decide on the main subject or the title and then start writing. That should be interesting and enlightening. If I do that there’s no telling what I’ll come up with, but the rewriting will be fun. Focusing the piece down to one subject and separating the subject into different articles.

I enjoy blogging, but I don’t write directly into my blog any more. I write the piece in MSWord and then copy and past it into the blog. I’ve got telephone hookup to my internet provider and the connection’s been really freaky lately. I can be on line for an hour or two hours without a problem (on rare occasions), but usually I get knocked off every thirty or forty minutes. I don’t know why, it could be the phone line or it could be the weather. It could be anything; it’s not so aggravating that I’m planning on getting anything more expensive (at least not yet). Beside there are other advantages to having telephone internet hookup.

Happy Mothers' Day

17 Jamal 163 B.E. – May 13 – 14, 2006 A.D.

Happy Mothers’ Day

Here is a Mothers’ Day wish for all!
A hope that today will bring.
Plenty of flowers to symbolize love,
Plenty of chocolates from children who remember
Your sacrifices for their welfare.

May today bring you all that you wish for
Opals of love from your sons;
Thank You, Mama, from your daughters;
Happiness wrap in hand made gifts from your grandchildren.
Everything else you want today:
Respect and a restaurant meal
Sonnets and odes written by great grandchildren.

Dear Mother, Grandmother, Great Grandmother:
Another year has passed, we want to thank you for
Your sacrifices. We love you.