Thursday, July 30, 2020

A Bright Spot




This bright spot is brought to you by Covid-19 and the protocol that requires clients to wait outside.









Monday, July 27, 2020

Endless Love





'Endless Love'  Okke Weerstand
Bas-relief (16 x 22 x 1.2 cm) finished in bronze


"It often isn't difficult to be dedicated, and to love each other when we're young and healthy, but are we still able to do so, when troubles cross our marriage or when we grow old?" -Okke




Tuesday, July 21, 2020

A Glimpse of the Golden Age to Come







"The enormous energy dissipated and wasted on war, whether economic or political, will be consecrated to such ends as will extend the range of human inventions and technical development, to the increase of the productivity of mankind, to the extermination of disease, to the extension of scientific research, to the raising of the standard of physical health, to the sharpening and refinement of the human brain, to the exploitation of the unused and unsuspected resources of the planet, to the prolongation of human life, and to the furtherance of any other agency that can stimulate the intellectual, the moral, and spiritual life of the entire human race."

Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah








Monday, July 13, 2020

Then and Now




THEN AND NOW








































Sunday, July 12, 2020

Saturday, July 11, 2020

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Abdu'l-Baha at the Museum of Natural History







On July 9, 1912, Abdu’l-Baha asked Juliet Thompson to take him to the Museum of Natural History (in Washington D.C.), where He seemed more interested in talking outside to an elderly museum guard than in seeing the museum’s artifacts. When the man asked if He wanted to see more of the museum, Abdu’l-Baha said He was tired of this world and more interested in things of the spiritual world. The old man responded with a preference for the material world, as it is something known. "But you do not lose it when you have attained the spiritual world,” said Abdu’l-Baha. “When you go upstairs in a house, you don't leave the house. The lower floor is under you.""Oh I see!" cried the guard, his whole face lighting up. 


Juliet asks: "Why had the Master visited a Museum of Natural History in the hottest hour of a blistering July day? Had He instead visited a soul whose need was crying out to Him, to open an old man's eyes so that he might see to climb the stairs, to take away the dread of death?"I find this story quite interesting. Apparently Juliet went back to the museum the next week, and the man no longer worked there. Her thought was that he had passed on. 

From: 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Journey in America: Celebrating the 2012 Centenary




Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Monday, July 6, 2020

The Path to the Golden Age



The path to mankind's Golden Age leads to Mount Carmel.




The Seat of the Universal House of Justice


"To enter into the quixotic tournament of demolishing one by one the evils in the world is, to a Bahá'í, a vain waste of time and effort. His whole life is directed towards proclaiming the Message of Bahá'u'lláh, reviving the spiritual life of his fellow-men, uniting them in a divinely-created World Order." 


The Universal House of Justice

(Political Non-Involvement and Obedience to Government:
Compilation by Peter Khan with Cover Letter from Secretariat, p. 6)


"… Both within and without the Cause of God, powerful forces are operating to bring to a climax the twin tendencies of this portentous century. Among the many evidences which reveal this process may be cited, on the one hand, the continual increase of lawlessness, terrorism, economic confusion, immorality and the growing danger from the proliferation of weapons of destruction, and on the other, the world-wide, divinely propelled expansion, consolidation and rapid emergence into the limelight of world affairs of the Cause itself, a process crowned by the wonderful efflorescence of Mount Carmel, the mountain of God, whose Divine springtime is now so magnificently burgeoning."


(From a message of the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís of the world, Ridván 1983)









Friday, July 3, 2020

Вика у меня во дворе.



Vika came for a visit.  She helped me water and fill the birdbaths.


Waiting for дедушка to finish scrubbing.




Молодец!






She also got some work done inside.