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A Bright Spot

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

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

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

Then and Now

THEN AND NOW

Sol LeWitt Auction

Succulents

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

Rose's Theme

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)

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.

The Clamor Continues Without my Participation

They Seek the Shadows

“When the sun sets it is the time for bats to fly. They come forth because they are creatures of the night. When the lights of religion become darkened the materialists appear. They are the bats of night. The decline of religion is their time of activity; they seek the shadows when the world is darkened and clouds have spread over it.” --‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Random Photos of the Yard

When motivated--and there's the catch-- yardwork is not really work at all.  And in the end, a pleasant view makes it all worthwhile.

Lucy in the backyard 19 years ago.

If I was a kid  I would have enjoyed the yard just the way it was.  Working the ground, I've found evidence over the years that kids have done just that.

Here's more or less the same view a few weeks ago.

The driveway this morning in the warming sun.  

As a first-time homeowner, the driveway looked good to me even 19 years ago. 

Now that's a Scratching Post!

Пума Месси

Tug

BMW R18

BMW is drawing on it's heritage with the new R18.

I've read that the enormous heads limit foot placement, more so for tall riders.  The 1800cc engine seems unnecessarily large to me.

Exposed shaft drive.

Machine art.

Bridge at Büyükçekmece

Bridge at Büyükçekmece, Turkey

When Religion is Shorn of Superstitions

"When religion, shorn of its superstitions, traditions, and unintelligent dogmas, shows its conformity with science, then will there be a great unifying, cleansing force in the world which will sweep before it all wars, disagreements, discords and struggles -- and then will mankind be united in the power of the Love of God."

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks

Forest Edge

Watercolor, Artist unknown

Молчи, скрывайся и таи --Ф.И. Тютчев

                                        Молчи, скрывайся и таи --Ф.И. Тютчев

                                        Молчи, скрывайся и таи

                                        И чувства и мечты свои –

                                        Пускай в душевной глубине

                                        Встают и заходят оне

                                        Безмолвно, как звезды в ночи, –

                                        Любуйся ими – и молчи.

                                        Как сердцу высказать себя?

                                        Другому как понять тебя?

                                        Поймет ли он, чем ты живешь?

                                        Мысль изреченная есть ложь.

                                         Взрывая, возмутишь ключи, –

                                        Питайся ими – и молчи.

                                        Лишь жить в себе самом умей –

                                        Есть целый мир в душе твоей

                                        Таинственно-волшебных дум;

                                        Их оглушит наружный шум,

                                        Дневные разгонят лучи, –

                                        Внимай их пенью – и молчи!..

                                        Silentium!  Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

                                        Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
                                        the way you dream, the things you feel.
                                        Deep in your spirit let them rise
                                        akin to stars in crystal skies
                                        that set before the night is blurred:
                                        delight in them and speak no word.

                                         How can a heart expression find?
                                         How should another know your mind?
                                         Will he discern what quickens you?
                                         A thought once uttered is untrue.
                                          Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
                                         drink at the source and speak no word.

                                          Live in your inner self alone
                                          within your soul a world has grown,
                                          the magic of veiled thoughts that might
                                          be blinded by the outer light,
                                          drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
                                          take in their song and speak no word.

Note: 

Silentium! is an archetypal poem by Tyutchev. Written in 1830, it is remarkable for its rhythm crafted so as to make reading in silence easier than aloud toward others. wiki

Ascending

Pilgrims at the House of 'Abbud

Akka, Israel  1990

Holy places are undoubtedly centres of the outpouring of Divine grace, because on entering the illumined sites associated with martyrs and holy souls, and by observing reverence, both physical and spiritual, one’s heart is moved with great tenderness.

From a Tablet by ‘Abdu’l-Baha

Carmel Dunes

CHRISTIAN A. JORGENSEN (1860-1935)

1921, OIL ON CANVAS, 21 X 27 INCHES.

Monterey Museum of Art

Remembering Dave

Dave was my best friend and proof that the good die young.  I met him in high school, and a year or so after graduation he dropped by my apartment to tell me that he had joined the Navy "for security".

The Navy trained him as a corpsman,  and he served a year in Okinawa before being reassigned to the Marines. After training at Camp Pendleton, he was sent to Vietnam.  How the men of his platoon must have wept when the mortar fragments ripped through his body, killing him so soon after he had rendered them aid while being wounded himself and for which he was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star for valor. 

I've been to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., and found his name among the 56,000 etched into that solemn black granite wall. 

Yet it only represents a portion of the tears shed in that needless war.  If that five hundred foot long wall was extended to include all Vietnamese combat fatalities, it would be over a mile in length.  And for what?  Here are a few photos that make the sacrifices of so many seem that much more tragic:

"Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come."   --Bahá’u’lláh 

Work by Francis McComas

Francis McComas (1875-1938)

From the Monterey Museum of Art