Photograph of a headstone in Los Gatos Memorial Park by Lizzie Fox.
"Whatever their value at earlier stages in the evolution of consciousness, conceptions of physical resurrection, a paradise of carnal delights, reincarnation, pantheistic prodigies, and the like, today raise walls of separation and conflict in an age when the earth has literally become one homeland and human beings must learn to see themselves as its citizens.
In this context one can appreciate the reasons for the vehemence of Bahá'u'lláh's warnings about the barriers that dogmatic theology creates in the path of those seeking to understand the will of God:
'O leaders of religion! Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring Balance established amongst men.'" *
*Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, paragraph 99.
Bahai World Centre, One Common Faith (Haifa: Bahai World Centre, 2005 edition)
SOUTH OF MARKET 1978-1986
Janet Delaney
"These photographs...were my way of giving voice" to those who would soon be displaced as the neighborhood became "the epicenter of the 21st century technology revolution". LINK
“One day as the Blessed Beauty was Walking, a certain government officer approached Him and reported that one of His (Baha'u'llah's) followers had been killed and his body thrown on the river bank. The Tongue of Power and Might replied, 'No one has killed him. Through seventy thousand Veils of light We showed him the glory of God to an extent smaller than a needle’s eye; therefore, he could not more bear the burden of his life and has offered himself as a sacrifice.'"
--From 'A Flame of Fire' by A. Faizi
'The Manger' by Mike Moyers
"We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him, the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified.
Leprosy may be interpreted as any veil that interveneth between man and the recognition of the Lord, his God. Whoso alloweth himself to be shut out from Him is indeed a leper, who shall not be remembered in the Kingdom of God, the Mighty, the All-Praised. We bear witness that through the power of the Word of God every leper was cleansed, every sickness was healed, every human infirmity was banished. He it is Who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him.
Baha'u'llah (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah)
The sweetest post card sits right in the middle of everything on a tray that belonged to my grandfather.
The world is on fire. We do what we can regardless of how it looks.
"...Thus do the forces of disintegration regroup and gain ground. So be it. The unification of humanity is unstoppable by any human force; the promises made by the prophets of old and by the Author of the Cause of God Himself testify to this truth. Yet the course humanity takes to achieve its destiny may very well be tortuous. The tumult raised by the contending peoples of the earth threatens to drown out the voices of those noble-minded souls in every society who call for an end to conflict and struggle. As long as that call goes unheeded, there is no reason to doubt that the world’s current state of disorder and confusion will worsen—possibly with catastrophic consequences—until a chastened humanity sees fit to take another significant step, perhaps this time decisive, towards enduring peace...”
- The Universal House of Justice (Excerpt from Letter of January 18th, 2019)
"Peasant burning Weeds can be dated from one of Vincent’s letters, which included a small sketch of the picture. On 22 October 1883 he wrote to his brother Theo: 'I’m still working on that weed burner, whom I’ve caught better than before in a painted study as far as the tone is concerned, so that it conveys more of the vastness of the plain and the gathering dusk, and the small fire with the wisp of smoke is the only point of light.' At this stage he had only been painting in oils for just under two years." LINK
post 10 has the time of his life serving his community by unclogging drains along its streets and highways.
If you don't watch the entire video, at least skip to @16:16 and watch the end.