Today I’m all about Elections. Because this spring I’m casting TWO ballots! What did you say Emad? Two ballots? How’s that? Well, you see, I’m currently residing in two electoral districts: Halifax West, and Halifax Cluster. In the Halifax West riding I’m voting for my future municipal and federal government, and in the Halifax Bahá’í Cluster I’m voting for my future Local Spiritual Assembly. Interestingly enough, this is all happening during the Bahá’í festival of Riḍván, i.e., the Bahá’í elections are happening on the first day of Riḍván (tonight at sunset), and the Federal elections
are happening on the last day of Riḍván (May 2nd). Coincidence? Absolutely. Blog-worthy? Yeppers!
Menudo is a wonderfully aromatic soup made of tripe, hominy and chili, and is stewed for hours with garlic and other spices. the broth is rich, red, papery, and glistens with fat. It stimulates the senses, arms the insides, and clears the head.
Menudo is served in big open bowls brought to the table steaming and fiery. It is usually eaten in the wee hours after a night out on the town and widely proclaimed to be an antidote for hangovers.
Mexicans brag about menudo's goodness, about how the hot broth with its medicinal condiments, particularly the chili, replenishes vitamins A and C, soothes the stomach, and stimulates the gastric juices to overcome any loss of appetite.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "On Managing Depression: Spiritual Solutions": I am a Baha'i and I have experienced depression for most of my life. I am at a point in my life that I am really suffering. I try to fill my heart with God's love and fly above these feelings but sometimes I feel no connection. I love the Faith and I want to love myself as God's creation. I want to have that burning love but sometimes I don't feel like living anymore. What Baha'i literature can I read that touches on mental illness so that I can try to understand a way to be on my path and overcome this very difficult test? I need help. I need support. I live like this in a closet. I put on my happy face but I don't radiate like a spiritual being should. In such a loving community I feel so lonely. I pray that God will give me strength and answers. Does anyone have any advice?
True religion has never yet been fashionable. God grant that one day it may become so; but it is still true, as in the days of Christ, that “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” The gateway of spiritual birth, like the gateway of natural birth, admits men only one by one, and without encumbrances. If, in the future, more people succeed in entering that way than in the past, it will not be because of any widening of the gate, but because of a greater disposition on the part of men to make the “great surrender” which God demands; because long and bitter experience has at last brought them to see the folly of choosing their own way instead of God’s way.
From: Northwest BahaiLibrary
Omid Djallili, a British-Iranian movie and TV actor-comedian, speaks
about his Baha'i Faith.Audio Broadcast: BBC Radio 3 broadcast on 4-18-2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0107239/Belief_Omid_Djalili/Bio / films:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Djalili
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0229084/\
From: Northwest BahaiLibrary
This new website was just announced:http://www.nayriz.org/template.php
FYI: More writings online about Nettie
Chapter on Nettie J. Asberry, p. 178
Link: African American Women Confront the West, 1600-2000 Also this paper is available by a great-niece of Mrs. Asberry:
http://antoinettebroussard.com/pdfs/NettieJCraigAsberry.pdf Antoinette Broussard's short bio is here:
http://antoinettebroussard.com/bio.html
Martha Consoles Bonita
George, .....one of the benefits of taking on a project ( like photos that connect to a concept like an attribute of G_d, a Baha'i month ) is how it can re-arrange how you look at things ..... unintended consequences, my favorite kind ..... at any rate, what do I do ? ........ J+
Wonderful events in Pierce Peninsula/Gig Harbor.
+A new Assembly to be formed in Gig Harbor by Ridvan- no new believers, but a homefront pioneer, better boundary definitions and Chris G. and Chris N.accompanying the Friends of the GH Group.
+Home visits galore by Shadi, Robert, Shayla, Chris G., Tahirih, Helen and others.
+A two hour direct teach by Chris G. ... which ... led to an invitation for Cluster 19 involvement in the upcoming Play in Peace March with children on May 20th starting at the new play area of Wright Park (Helen, Gwen and Tahirih are accompanying). See http://www.playinpeace.com/
+Accompanyment of Albert/Negar, Rocky and early next week with Robert and Karri for expansion and outreach of four community monthly Devotionals
+Home visits in Lakebay by Gwen, Fred, Martha and Norm (who's laid up now with a broken arm-prayers, please).
+Direct Teaching plans for next week with Fred, Gwen and one or two Youth to start a new Jr. Youth Program in Fred's neighborhood.
+Pierce Peninsula development of nine individual Teaching Plans and division of the whole Pierce Peninsula community for Home Visits through next week.
+A terrific move forward : )
+Chris G
Hi
Great Week--we have been deepening the ties we have already made--
The Children's class tutors have been visiting parents
Gwen has been busy with the Jr Youth getting the new neighborhood homework room in my house painted and ready to become their hangout
We are holding our 3rd WOmen's Empowerment Devotional this Friday
We plan on continuing at least one home visit a day EVERYDAY
Loving It!L I S A
I am pretty x cited georgeShadi, Chris , and son linden are now with us in gig harbor community now, so happy we now have 16 members,the spirit of baha u llah is moving us! Had a meeting with Chris G thursday nite about our devotions, so could not make it to your home, been a busy week,Tuesday nite ruhi Class with the Javids,Wednesday nite at Robert and linda's, had to meet rick and joseph daughter and 1 seeker there, special meeting to do some teaching, Got to do some resting today, also shopping today to get my ingredients for my fridgerator soup for my devotion sunday at 1030, Man I am on a roll, just think the 3oth of this month I will have 2 years in the faith! Time goes by fast when u r having fun or shall I say When u R busy.Take care my friendallahu abharockymy besr to bonita
The Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity believes that the two-fold moral purpose of every human being is to develop their latent potentialities through efforts to contribute to the advancement of civilization. At this critical juncture in history, the advancement of civilization entails the construction of a global social order, based on a profound consciousness of the oneness of humanity, in which justice is the central organizing principle, and the well-being and prosperity of all peoples is pursued.
From: Northwest BahaiLibrary Today the Baha'is of Egypt offered an open letter to their fellow citizens.See: Bahá'í World News Service http://news.bahai.org/story/817 English edition of the letter is here with blog responses:http://www.bahai-egypt.org/2011/04/open-letter-to-people-of-egypt.html Robert
Odes to the House is Penner’s call to action. This isn’t about you. It’s about freedom and humankind. All of your fears and concerns need to be put aside. Prayer and unity will pull us through. Look, I’m not a religious man (and certainly know next to nothing about Bahá’í Faith) or political in nature, but the comfort I find in Penner’s songs – and sorry to paraphrase a great man like Gandhi here – makes me what to become the changes we all “like” when we read about them on facebook. Isn’t the desire to make things better what we are all fighting for? http://www.herohill.com/2011/04/reviews-alden-penner-odes-to-the-house.htm
another report from Canada, where we have wonderful Baha'i talent!
Alden Penner, former front man for Unicorns and Clues, doesn’t sing out of desperation. No, his heartfelt four-song EP Odes to the House, is meant to inspire and sympathize. On Penner’s four month trek from Bamako, Mali to Haifa, Israel what he saw gave birth to four acoustic numbers that he offers up to those burdened by political and civil disarray. It’s a spiritual journey, one without a final destination. The songs, constructed on nothing more than an acoustic, were written to be sung anywhere and by anyone. Huddled in the corners, holding hands with eyes closed, hoping not to be detected, but dying to be heard. These songs echo off walls, dance around corners and shake the floors and ceilings. They fill rooms and cause your heart to pound till you think it might explode.
Background of the National Race Amity ConferenceThe National Race Amity Conference is inspired by the United States’
first race amity conference held in Washington, D.C. in 1921. The
principal organizers of the original conference were Washington
socialite Agnes Parsons, whose great grandfather was Secretary of the
Navy under George Washington, and Louis Gregory, a Treasury Department
lawyer, whose father served in the first black Civil War regiment, the
South Carolina First Volunteer Colored Regiment. The two, though from
very different backgrounds, worked together as co-religionists of the
Baha’i Faith and were advised and supported by Nebraska Senator Moses
Clapp. They gathered others, mostly courageous women, to assist with
the conference preparations. On May 19, 1921, the National Race Amity
Convention assembled in Washington, D.C. at the First Congregational
Church, which was known for its opposition to racial prejudice. Over
1,500 diverse participants gathered for the opening day, a marked
contrast for the city in the wake of widespread racist rioting and
lynching in the Red Summer of 1919. The mission of the conference
adorned the front page of the event program:The great work we have to do and for which this conference is called
is the establishment of amity between the white and colored people of
our land. When we have put our own house in order, then we may be
trusted to carry the message of universal peace to all mankind.
National Race Amity Conference
Description: This national conference is organized around ten amity sectors, featuring key note speakers and breakout sessions.
Time: Opening Reception 7 PM, June 9 – Conference ends on June 12
Location: Wheelock College, Boston, MA6/12/2011
National Race Amity Day
This uplifting and unifying experience includes invited guests Vice President Joseph Biden*, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Paul Simon*, Imani Winds, Matt Damon, Tierney Sutton, and local talent.
Time: 1 PM
Location: Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA
The power of the Holy Spirit, enlightening man’s intelligence, has enabled him to discover means of bending many natural laws to his will. He flies through the air, floats on the sea, and even moves under the waters.
Eat ye, O people, of the good things which God hath allowed you, and deprive not yourselves from His wondrous bounties. Render thanks and praise unto Him, and be of them that are truly thankful. -- Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah
Another extraordinary contribution from Robert at NWBL. -gw
From: Northwest BahaiLibrary George,Here is a link to the audio recording of Martha
Root which was aired last week on a Radio Prague (English) broadcast.Title of radio program: "The women who stepped out of the shadow of Czechoslovakia’s first
president" - with a rare audio clip of Martha RootDescription of program:"At the beginning of this series we heard the voice of the first
Czechoslovak President, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The Masaryk family
included several remarkable women, who were also to play their part in
20th century Czech history. Tomáš’s wife Charlotte was American, born
in New York in 1850. When the couple married in Brooklyn in 1878, he
took on her surname Garrigue as part of his own name, as a gesture of
respect. Charlotte went on to devote her life to all things Czech, and
she was every bit as energetic in her defense of women’s rights,
winning her husband over to the cause. She died in 1923 just five
years after the republic was founded. In this archive recording from
November 1932 she is remembered by an American friend, the feminist
and peace advocate, Martha Root."I also attach Martha Root's noteworthy interview with President
Masaryk in the early 1930s which was published in the Baha'i World,
Vol. IV, 1930-1932. The PDF is text searchable. Robert
NWBL
