Winky

Brian is here! Ok, so he arrived on....er...not sure when exactly, maybe Thursday. I think Thursday. He got in all by himself, we were so proud of him. That night I think we just met up and hung out at Roya's place. Friday, Amelia, Brian, Roya and I went to the beach. This was my first time to the beach, and Brian and Roya had fun jumping around in the water - the "too cool for school" gang (me and mel) hung out and increased the capacity of our minds (i.e. read) while trying to get not so white. Lucia had to work that day, and so wasn't able to join us. That night is when I had the wedding for enas and eli, and so in the afternoon I left them to go home to get ready. I'm not really sure what they did for the rest of the night - maybe had dinner, watched a movie, who knows - I was having tons of fun at the wedding and reception. Around 11ish I think Brian joined me up at the hotel in the mercaaz where the reception was being held. We hung out and talked with friends waiting for our ride to come back to take us home. It's really great having him here :).


The next day, which would be Saturday, Brian slept in till about noon. He just wouldn't wake up, but I guess he needed the sleep. I, of course, just paced around the house waiting for him to wake so we could talk, play a game, or make a video. When he finally did wake up, we realized that we needed both to do lots and lots of laundry. So then we went over to the ITC and spent much of the time, except for about 30 minutes when we visited Lucia, doing laundry. After taking our laundry home, it was almost time for the evening's event: a Black Men's Gathering devotional. There was so much singing, I loved it. It reminded me so much of home - and I'm pretty sure Brian enjoyed it to. After that, Brian, Khatereh, and myself went up to my favorite bench by my apartment that overlooks the north of the city. We passed the time talking until about 11ish when Khat started to get really tired and needed to go home. The next day, because we hadn't yet signed Brian up to volunteer in an office, he was going to spend the day wandering around the city and visiting the Monument Gardens. He slept in again, and then went up to the mercaaz about lunch time to grab a swarma. Now comes the funny part. Around 2ish, I get a call from Brian (who had Lucia's cell phone). He is a transcript of the conversation:

Geoffrey: Hey, what's up?
Brian: Not much.
Geoffrey: So what've you been doing?
Brian: Well, I was up in the mercaaz walking around and getting a swarma. Their malls are so tiny here! Then I was going to come down, so I got on to a bus.
Geoffrey: Well, where are you now?
Brian: Yeeeeeeah, I don't know. I'm next to a soccer stadium and some really weird building.
Geoffrey: [laughs] How did you end up there? What bus did you take?
Brian: Well, Amelia said to take the 22.
Geoffrey: Did you take the 22?
Brian: Um...I took the 022.
Geoffrey: Yeeeah, that's not the same thing. [laughs] Do you know where to go?
Brian: Roughly, yeah, I'll just keep walking.


So, Brian had ended fairly far south of the terraces, close to the edge of the city. He said later that when he realized that he was about to leave the city he got off. Also, he didn't know you had to push that little button that asks the bus to stop, so he just kept riding on. :D Silly Brian. Later, we all met Brian at the Pilgrim House. He was exhausted from having walked all day. We went to pray at the Shrine, and then we headed up to the mercaaz to a Thai restaurant to have a dinner with our friends Lauren, Nadim, Rafaan, and Sina. Lovely evening. We then walked down the terraces, grabbed our food which was in the fridge in the ITC then went home.


This brings us to today. Brian was supposed to join me today at around 9....and it is 9 now. :) I think he's sleeping in again. But he'll join me before lunch so that we can all go to eat in the cafeteria. Unfortunately I don't have ANY pictures of these past few days. They are all with Brian. And so I will, however, leave you with some other cool pictures which make me happy.


The cliffs of Ireland:

upcomings

in the interest of becoming more systematic in my blogging, i will now provide preliminary outlines of my upcoming entries:


1) brian is here! this kid is awesome, and just keeps getting awesomer by the hour. i think he is still sleeping right now though, so that hasn't changed, BUT he has in so many other ways - in the good sense of course. i'll let you all know what we've been up to.


2) Bahji night - i have some photos of the evening which i will post soon. it was so much fun and exactly what i needed to reconnect with the Holy Land after being away for a week. it was a beautiful night with beautiful company.


3) weddings. the most recent one of my friends enas and eli took place a couple of days ago. i'll post pictures and stories soon. but also another one is coming up in early september - little gigi and my flate mate mariposa. i'll explain in due course :) .


quote of the week:

...it should be noted that in most areas of human behaviour there are acts which are clearly contrary to the law of God and others which are clearly approved or permissible; between these there is often a grey area where it is not immediately apparent what should be done. It has been a human tendency to wish to eliminate these grey areas so that every aspect of life is clearly prescribed. A result of this tendency has been the tremendous accretion of interpretation and subsidiary legislation which has smothered the spirit of certain of the older religions. In the Baha'i Faith moderation, which is so strongly upheld by Baha'u'llah, is applied here also. Provision is made for supplementary legislation by the Universal House of Justice -- legislation which it can itself abrogate and amend as conditions change. There is also a clear pattern already established in the Sacred Scriptures, in the interpretations made by `Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, and in the decisions so far made by the Universal House of Justice, whereby an area of the application of the laws is intentionally left to the conscience of each individual believer. This is the age in which mankind must attain maturity, and one aspect of this is the assumption by individuals of the responsibility for deciding, with the assistance of consultation, their own course of action in areas which are left open by the law of God.

(From a letter dated 5 June 1988 on behalf of the Universal House of Justice)

they say a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind. well, i say, an empty desk means....an...empty mind?

I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long. This is only my second day back from the Czech republic; a reality that is very hard to realize considering what has happened since I’ve come back. It has been very eventful, all of which isgood (extremely excellent at some points), so don’t worry – I’ve been busy, but in the wonderful way.

On the 2^nd of August I left my flat in the early morning to catch a train with Amelia at around 3am. I got to the airport with some time to spare, for my flight was a little delayed - it was now set to leave around 8ish, as opposed to 7. My flight over was uneventful. I was crammed into a seat and promptly went to sleep…waking up several times to find trails of saliva sneaking down my chin. I was much too tired to care if others saw me, and so I wiped it off and carried on with my sleeping. I got in to Prague to find it as beautiful as ever. Blue skies and a cool temperature greeted me as I walked out of the airport to go catch the bus. I stepped up to the platform with the bus just pulling up. I stood there momentarily weighing the balance of the world in my mind. I was exhausted, had a heavy suitcase (made heavier by how tired I was), and just wanted to get to Townshend. I had first thought that I would take the bus, metro, train, then taxi to the school. Now, that all seemed completely unnecessary. So with the bus filling up with people, I promptly turned around and grabbed the first taxi I saw. It was a nice smooth ride, and I quickly went to sleep again.

The weekend was fantastic. Everything was green and Hluboka was as quaint as ever. It even rained one of the days I was there. I hadn’t seen rain in months. My talks went well, and I got to spend so much time with Elham and Professor, Brian too of course. It was a very nice break, though not completely restful. They kept me quite busy. I did get a bit of food poisoning one day, and consequently my talk was pushed back a day - but I think I needed the rest too. I hadn’t spent the day in bed in such a long time. It was nice to walk around the school and relive memories because it was a totally different experience being back there and not being a “student” – though, of course, I continually learn from Professor. They also had another guest speaker there who was simply brilliant. To try to talk about him would take much too long. I’ll devote a post soon to what I learned from him. But being back there, I had a feeling that it was a bit like closing that chapter of my life. Not that I’m not continually going to be involved in someway of the development of the Programme – but this trip served as a sealant in my mind that it had to change. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures. I’ll try to get some from Brian soon.

The plane ride back was extremely uncomfortable. I did my best again squashed between people, most of whom unfortunately did not emit the most pleasant of odors. I had fun looking at the Pablo Neruda look-a-like sitting in front of me. At times I drifted into reciting some of his poetry; "sucede que me canso de ser hombre" which was very appropriate given how uncomfortable I was. I did try to sleep, but a noisome environment is not the most conducive to such an activity. I arrived back in Haifa from the train and went home. I planned to make it in to work – I didn’t actually make it in until around 2. I had to wear my glasses all day, and I’m still wearing them. My eyes are so tired. Later that evening I was offered a ride in a car to Bahji. I hadn’t been in a couple of weeks, and felt I needed it. Gosh, I think I slept on that ride too. Bahji was beautiful as ever, and the night was so pleasant. Later we all went to this Arab restaurant, and we were stared at for about an hour…well, I was at least – the only “white” boy in the place. Then we went back to Haifa and I just sort of laid around with some friends just talking or in silence, enjoying each others company.

Yesterday was difficult to function though. I somehow made it through to meet up with Lucia and Amelia later on to attend a brilliant talk by Steven Phelps on “the new atheists”. Extremely engaging talk given by a truly humble and knowledgeable man. I’ll post my thoughts on it soon as well. And then I slept quite soundly that night.

So I’m back at work now, slowly chipping away at the pile of work that accumulated in my absence, but again, I’m happy to be busy. Today is a good day, and I think it’ll only get better. I love my family here (Brian will be here soon), I have wonderful friends, and I feel productive and useful. I just have to get over the smell of this place, and I’ll be perfect.

Quote of the week:

“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age in which ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”

Some cool pictures: