Another Word for Perfect

I have chosen to make the most of my days and I feel as if I have succeded in the past few days. After devotions on Friday the youth went to a movie, National Treasure. It was a nice formula like start to the weekend which would catapult into a spiritual weekend of goodness!! Saturday was spent in intense study of Ruhi Book 4.

In the last half hour of this time four faces peered into the room in which we were studying. Two were Baha'is from Fiji, the other two were Baptists from Independence. Genevieve and I gave them a tour of the Baha'i Center and it made us both reflect on our community and the great opportunities open to us. Email addresses were given and recieved and bonds started.

Feast that evening was one of the most youth filled, eleven youth. We sang our hearts out as my brother played the guitar. After that uplifting evening our night began.

Richard, Genevieve, Caitlin, Andrew and I went to the plaza and walked around. It was a cold night but well worth it on account of the company.

But it is what we did right before that that you really want to know about. We took Richard to the crazyhouse. Pictures were taken and so now you can have a piece of the ectasy felt when visiting this house.

The Kansas City Country Club Plaza downtown. We walked around, enjoying the lights and sights and sounds and....um...smells? 

Here's (from left) Genevieve (aka Star), Richard, Caitie and Andrew standing in front of the house. As you can see, we're feeling a little blue. HA! 

This is actually the garage, fully converted into a Santa's Workshop...that MOVES! Although the camera didn't capture it, try to imagine each and every little elf in this picture moving and swaying and working.  

Richard really digs the nativity scene...that MOVES! 

This is a gingerbread family...that MOVES! 

Winter Delight

You drive past the shopping area for thirty blocks. You enter a neighborhood from the 40's. You turn on a street with a bad name. All of a sudden you have entered another time, another place. You have entered into what I call, very lovingly, crazy house land. It is inhabited by a house with a roof covered with a 60's christmas scene. A house whose garage is now Santa's workshop with no glass in the windows so that donations can be made to the electric bill. The window pops open every five seconds and santa waves his hand with rudolph by his side. Where the living room window should be is a display of gingerbread men and candies, a trio of carolers line the hallway. In the mailbox are letters written to santa, wishing for different gifts with illustrations for clarification. The lawn is worn down to mud, and one has to wonder, how many feet have passed on this soil. How many people have looked up at this glowing house and smiled and laughed? A weathered face peers through the front door at the visitors on his property. He does not smile, does not wave or tell us to go away. He simply looks and nods and goes to sit in his house of lights, this child like dream that appears in real life once a year.

Contemplation Circles

I wasn’t sure what to write after this past week and the only thing that brought me back to the keyboard was pressure from Gen. And having free time.

I keep wondering how people can live without faith. For me it would be near impossible to survive or at least, that is how it seems to me. Someone questioned my faith the other day. They asked me if I had any to get me through the hard spots in life. I told them that without faith I couldn’t get through them. They seemed to doubt me, or at least wanted to plant doubt inside me. “Are you sure?” the question kept coming. I’m sure.

One of the most beautiful things is seeing faith blossom in someone. To see the understanding of faith growing in their mind is amazing.

At the last feast we sang Hooray for the World. There is a line in that song, in case you are unfamiliar with it, that says, “Everywhere we go we have new friends to meet!” It is one of the last lines and after the song was done, or maybe while we were still on the last note, my little buddy Caiden cried out, “We do have new friends to meet everywhere!”

It’s moments like those that I realize I have faith. Or when I find myself praying in the middle of class or on my way to work.

"Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God." –Blaise Pascal


I wonder if people cannot understand faith if they do not first have it…

Jolt of Joe

As soon as I start thinking about my job, and the bad joe I have to serve, and how my life has turned boring, and how I am boring...I get a jolt. Of course that's the perfect time to get a reality check. How self centered am I? how awful? I feel the heart in me ripping apart. Multiply that by a thousand and maybe you will have the sound, the sensation about what pain is. But even a thousand seems to small, too insufficient.

I want to save you from these currents but I can't. I can't swim them well enough myself.

"Pain is only valuable once you know that you've learned from it."

The Way it Was

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; others transform a yellow spot into the sun –Picasso


I once had a friend tell me that a painting was not art. A painting is just a reflection of what one see's around them, he said. Then what is a picture? I asked. Ahh, a picture, and he smiled and told me that that is the artist's eye.