doberman pizza. a baha'i (bahai, bahá'í) blog.

[Update, Fri. Jun. 30: In case of rain on Sunday, the BBQ will be relocated, but will still be happening. Stay tuned for more updates!]

[Update, Tues. Jun. 27: If you’re coming and you want to eat, please bring your own meat (or suitable veggie options, depending on your preference)! Otherwise, we may not have enough food for everybody.]

As mentioned on MartinsQuest.com, Doberman Pizza is sponsoring a Canada Day weekend BBQ at Lac Philippe on Sunday, July 2nd in Gatineau Park. It’ll be an informal, unassuming gathering of friends for swimming, sports and BBQ - a great chance to socialize, meet new people, and just hang around and have fun. Previous years’ picnics at Lac Philippe have yielded immense fun and good times, and we hope that this year will be no exception.

People are encouraged to bring food, picnic/BBQ supplies, swim trunks, beach towels, volleyballs, footballs, soccer balls, and whatever else. Anyone wanting to bring big-ticket items (such as their own barbecue/grill/hibachi) or offer rides to/from the site can e-mail me and can expect lots of brownie points!

We will be driving in early (9-10 AM) to claim a spot by the beach, and lunch should start up around 12 PM. Vegetarian options will be available (strict vegans may have to bring a picnic lunch).

For more info e-mail me. Also, bookmark this site and keep visiting during the week for more news and up-to-date information.

Pour tous ceux qui pensent descendre à Ottawa pour la Fête du Canada: vous êtes les invités pour une journée informelle de nage, sport, et de barbecue le dimanche, 2 juillet au Lac Philippe, dans le Parc de la Gatineau. Amenez de la bouffe, ainsi que vos équipements de pique-nique/barbecue, de nage, de sport, etc - tout ce que vous voudrez. Nos activités au Lac Philippe ont toujours été remplies de plaisir et de camaraderie, et nous espérons continuer cette tradition.

Pour en savoir plus, envoyez-moi un courriel. Aussi, sauvegardez ce site dans vos liens favoris et retournez plus tard dans la semaine pour des infos mises à jour.

Here’s a quote from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha that particularly struck me, blogged on the Baha’i Quotes Syndication Service:

The conception of annihilation is a factor in human degradation, a cause of human debasement and lowliness, a source of human fear and abjection. It has been conducive to the dispersion and weakening of human thought whereas the realization of existence and continuity has upraised man to sublimity of ideals, established the foundations of human progress and stimulated the development of heavenly virtues; therefore it behoves man to abandon thoughts of non-existence and death which are absolutely imaginary and see himself ever living, everlasting in the divine purpose of his creation. He must turn away from ideas which degrade the human soul, so that day by day and hour by hour he may advance upward and higher to spiritual perception of the continuity of the human reality. If he dwells upon the thought of non-existence he will become utterly incompetent; with weakened will-power his ambition for progress will be lessened and the acquisition of human virtues will cease.

‘Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i World Faith - ‘Abdu’l-Baha Section, p. 265

ahoy there mateys, I be captain redbeard bluebottom the yellow-belly, and I see poop to be scooped off the poopdeck. ahem. arrrrrr. it’s not even talk like a pirate day.

so there we go, it’s been a rough week. started out by messing up my foot in jiu-jitsu class. I rolled in a way I shouldn’t have and smacked my heel on the ground. I’ve been nursing a bruise since then.

On the plus side, I’ve managed to finish a few large projects at work. check out the Conference Board’s Ukraine SEPPAC project: I put together a bilingual english-ukrainian website for them. It’s pretty trippy making a web site in a language you can barely even read.

my good friend Dave F. got married this past Friday, to a lovely lady by the name of Karine. the ceremony and reception were at the Courtyard restaurant down in the Byward Market. it was a simple, intimate Baha’i ceremony; I was asked to sing a few prayers before and afterwards. This was the fourth wedding I attended in less than a year - I’m starting to get used to them. the first was aram + natalia’s wedding last october - a beautiful affair! I sang a prayer at their wedding, too. Want to hear a good example of me singing? Check out my newest creation on ytmnd: The Sad Clown Choir. Of course, I can’t sing multiple tracks together at your average wedding, but hey.

Anyway, I digress. Catherine, Andréanne and family were in attendance at Dave and Karine’s wedding - it was cool to have Baha’i friends from Sherbrooke over in Ottawa. Catherine, of course, apart from being my sister’s namesake, is one of the two youth who just returned from serving in Gabon (pictures are up on flickr). Catherine and Andréanne will be back in town for Canada Day weekend, so maybe some of you will get a chance to meet them.

in other news, keep your eyes open - the Baha’i youth BBQ season is on. breaking news at martinsquest.com.

For all the soccer/football^[1] fans out there - well, you’ve probably already seen these. but in case you want to see them again, here’s the brilliant and awesome “José+10” series of commercials produced by Adidas for the World Cup.

Equipo

Partido

Behind the Scenes

Bonus Track (weird)

Two other things: since I’m a fan of the Brazilian team, here’s a story about Brazil’s fanatical devotion to football^[1]. Also, if you’re a Buddhist monk in Cambodia, you might want to watch out if you watch the World Cup - you could get your monkhood revoked.

[1]: not american football - real football.

yeah, it was a cold day today, especially for June. Oddly enough, I prefer cold weather. I said that to the guy behind the counter at Bridgehead and he thought I was nuts. Apparently people came to him all day to complain about the weather (along with buying coffee).

So anyway, besides being cold, today was a pretty quiet day. I got up at about 8:00 (on Saturday?!? ya I know.) to go participate in the devotional program for People and the Planet, a biannual conference sponsored by the Sierra Club. One of my neighbours, Diana, is part of an organization called Faith and the Common Good - which gathers representatives from many religions and faith groups and gets them focused on environmental issues - and they were asked to prepare devotions for the conference, which is how I got involved. I guess someone heard I could chant prayers well. It was cool, although I didn’t stay there too long. I saw a few people I recognized - Tazz’s friend Rhetta was there, for instance.

I needed breakfast, so, after pausing briefly at a local natural food store for a few groceries, I went walking down Elgin and stopped at The Lieutenant’s Pump for Saturday brunch. It was pretty good (read my review on Yahoo) - I got to sit around eating my omelette and watching England and Paraguay beat up on each other at World Cup soccer (sorry… football).

Once I got back home, I started preparing materials for this week’s children’s class. That took me until about one o’clock, when I jumped on my bike and rode off to Julie and Fanfan’s place for the class. Oddly enough, there were no children. We waited until 2:00, still no children. Oops. We chalked it up to a logistical blip and kept the lesson plan ready for a future class. Fanfan came by at around 2:30, and we all watched some more World Cup soccer together as Argentina and Côte d’Ivoire battled it out. Fanfan roots for Argentina and (to be fair) I rooted for Côte d’Ivoire. It was a more interesting game than the England-Paraguay game.

Now? Well, now I’m blogging, hanging around with the cat, and getting ready for bed. I’ll probably take some time to make phone calls tomorrow, and get settled and ready for next week. This past week has been a bit of a trial, with lots of working late and pushing my limits. I think milk and cookies are definitely in order.

Baha’i Blog picked up a New York Times story about the Baha’is of Iran. Check out the blog post on bahaiblog.net, or read the original story (be prepared to log in to the NYT web site though).

Also to be perused: The Globe and Mail published a web-only comment about the situation of the Baha’is of Iran, Canada’s most well-known national newspaper, written by Maurice Copithorne, a former United Nations special representative on the human-rights situation in Iran. Here’s an excerpt:

The recent harassment of Baha’is also took the form of 30 mostly negative, and often defamatory, articles that appeared in one of the official Tehran dailies last fall. Asma Jahangir, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, published a statement in March reporting the existence of a confidential letter of Oct. 20, 2005, distributed within the government calling on officials - reportedly on the instructions of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - “to identify persons who adhere to the Baha’i faith and monitor their activities.”

More needs to be done. Iran failed in its efforts to be elected to the new UN Human Rights Council. The April resolution establishing the council instructed it to “undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfilment by each state of its human-rights obligations and commitments.” The order in which countries will be called before the council has yet to be determined. Given the growth in Iran of violations of international human-rights norms as set out in a variety of UN instruments, Iran should clearly be among the first group of respondents.

(Updated [11/06/2006]: Reuters AlertNet also has a story available on the arrests of Baha’is in Iran.)

so I travelled down to Sherbrooke this past weekend, to visit my friends - the Baha’i youth - and to welcome back Catherine and Geneviève, who’ve been serving in Gabon for the past eight months and a half. It was a treat and a pleasure to see every one of them - I truly enjoyed myself, and felt none of the anxiety I sometimes experience when I’m in social situations. I think I must truly love these youth. I’m certainly proud of their level of energy, their great love for each other, and their willingness to bend their efforts to fulfill the Plan of God for this Day. Remember the Canadian Baha’i National Convention, where Baha’i institutions announced their intention to establish 40-odd intensive programs of growth across Canada to help meet the goals of the current Five Year Plan given to us by the Universal House of Justice? Sherbrooke’s Baha’i community is among those targeted for growth. And to know the Baha’is who live there, you know they’re ready. The love and devotion expressed in that community is awesome. I just hope I can share a part of their path.

C’était avec une grande joie que j’ai pu me rendre à Sherbrooke cette fin de semaine pour célébrer le retour au Canada de Catherine et Geneviève, deux jeunes baha’ies de l’Estrie qui sont parties au Gabon pour presque neuf mois pour enseigner la Foi baha’ie et servir l’humanité. Il y avait plein de monde là pour fêter leur retour, y compris la famille, leurs amis du cégep et de l’université, et bien sûr une gang de jeunes baha’is. Et bien sûr il y avait plein de bouffe (du barbecue, sous une averse de pluie). On a beaucoup jasé, et puis bien sûr on a pris le temps de regarder tous leurs photos du Gabon en format diaporama, avec leurs commentaires. À la fin de la soirée, on est allé voir des films on s’est loué un X-box on a enlevé les tresses à Catherine et on s’est couché tard. Le lendemain, après un bon déjeûner, du bon jasage et un fracas au Pictionary, moi, David et Karine ont repris la route pour Ottawa.

C’est tout pour l’instant, mais gardez l’oeil ouvert pour des photos de la fin de semaine sur mon site flickr!

<dragfyre> bleargh
<Bucher> moof
* dragfyre dies over and over
<katster> DF
<katster> :)
<Salinnatwork> df: bad day?
<dragfyre> tires
<dragfyre> tired, even
* dragfyre just came back from children’s classes %)
<Salinnatwork> df - how old of a children are you, exactly?
<Zibblsnrt> df: As instructor or pupil?
<dragfyre> instructor :P
<Zibblsnrt> hehe
<dragfyre> grrrr
<dragfyre> 6 and 7 yr olds
<Salinnatwork> yay! I love them
<Salinnatwork> (sorry.)
* dragfyre loves them too :)
<dragfyre> but they do have a lot of energy
<dragfyre> which is good!
<dragfyre> but it is tiring to deal with many of them at a time
<dragfyre> on the other hand, it is an interesting challenge and teaches one many useful parenting skills
<dragfyre> I’m trying to be positive here instead of dying all over the place and/or sticking forks in my eyes

That indispensible resource for participants in the institute process, ruhiresources.org, just got a nice new look, and I must say, it’s the difference between night and day. In fact, I think I just got J. The new site offers vast improvements over the old, particularly in terms of the clear, simple organization of content, the improved user interface, and the addition of new categories like “Practice”, “Service Ideas” and “Tutor Tips”, each rich with content and growing. Colour-coding the tabs along the top of the page to match the colours of the Ruhi books is a nice touch. You’ll notice that there’s now a “Book 3A”: that would be Teaching Children’s Classes, Grade 2—what we used to know as Book 5. A new book 5 will be coming soon, of course, devoted to raising up junior youth animators. A few of us in Ottawa had the chance to study a draft version of this new book over the winter, and I think we can safely say that it’s well worth studying. Look out for it.

Anyway, enough said. Go to ruhiresources.org. Browse through it. Bookmark it. Keep coming back. Thank you!