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

today’s a fine sunny day and I’m inside :O oh well, it’s for a good cause anyway—looking after the Baha’i Centre while a children’s class is at the playground down the street, in case parents come early looking for their kids. spring has come to Ottawa like a mad berserker, pumping the temperature up to 25 C with clear, bright blue skies and nary a cloud. the funny thing? piles of snow still persist after this winter’s heavy snowfall, so every hundred metres or so you’ll see a (dirty) pile of it—they’re shrinking though. I took my bike out and started riding it into work—such a treat! I’ve been waiting the whole winter to ride my bike again; it’s my favourite form of exercise. I’ll certainly need it after visiting a sugar bush last weekend… :P

For those of you who read childrensclasses.org, I’ve kept up with the regular children’s class at the Baha’i Centre with very few interruptions. It’s been a little difficult this past season—the winter brought me down a lot, mood-wise; I still haven’t managed to work in some good, regular winter activities to keep my spirits up when it’s cold and dark. Winter’s becoming less and less my favourite season because of it (although I still enjoy the month of December). Anyway, I digress. The class has been smaller this season, and a lot of the cooler activities and initiatives we’ve talked about haven’t really happened; I blame my own lethargy :P Still, the important thing is that we haven’t let up on it—we’ll be going on our fifth year of classes soon. Not bad huh?

A little personal note: I’ve started watching a lot of anime. I went through the entire Rozen Maiden series, and I’m currently watching Azumanga Daioh as well. I’ve gotten lots of recommendations from friends so far, so there’s no shortage of anime left to watch… maybe this is a sign that I’ll get over my dislike of watching TV and movies soon? One can only hope.

Tonight at the Ottawa Baha’i Centre, there’s a community potluck organized by the east-end Baha’is (from “Sector 1″ as it’s habitually called). The sun isn’t down yet and already the tantalizing smell of food wafts through the air—oven-baked pasta, casseroles, persian rice, curries and meat. Fasting heightens the senses, especially when it relates to eating—the smell and taste of food seem amplified, and so much fuller. People have been slowly trickling in with bowls and platters large and small. Now, a program is starting in the main hall as I sit and type these words in the bookstore; one of the youth is delivering a presentation about his first time fasting. “Today is the fourteenth day of fasting, and I’m still going strong,” he says. “Fasting is of two kinds, material and spiritual,” he says, quoting from the writings of the Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi. “The material fasting is abstaining from food or drink, that is, from the appetites of the body. But spiritual, ideal fasting is this, that man abstain from selfish passions, from negligence and from satanic animal traits. Therefore, material fasting is a token of the spiritual fasting.” Prayers and devotions follow, as the Baha’is observe this “ideal fasting” in their hearts and spirits, sharing time as a community in worship of their loving Creator. One of the Persian friends, with a strong, solid, and melodious voice which reverberates in the reverent silence, chants a prayer in his native tongue, calling on God to accept our fast. Whether or not they understand the words, the friends—from every race and nationality understand the spirit of this call. He explains to me the gist of the chant once the program ends: “A lover suffers a great deal before he reaches his beloved, but in the process he teaches everyone patience.”

The time is 7:08 PM; the time of “sunset” has officially come, and my mother brings me a glass of water. Another day of fasting is done.

hey - still fasting. extremely busy at work right now, and pretty fatigued; as such I haven’t had much energy to put into creative endeavours (videos, etc) like I usually do. been reading Baha’i Views a lot, and ooh’ing and ahh’ing at all the marvelous content popping up on it. also discovered a wonderful blog called nineteen days, written by two Baha’i bloggers across the world from each other blogging their experience of the Fast.
going to Catherine’s place tonight to break the Fast around 7ish. I wonder if she’ll have more satanseitan pie ;) finding the Fast hard this year, due to the fatigue and health problems that have started accumulating (had a short kidney stone attack last week, and began the Fast with the remnants of a nasty cold/flu/whatever). more later…

well it’s certainly been a while since the last update, hasn’t it? I blame the season. I love winter, but for some reason, every time it comes around, I just slow down like nobody’s business. sad. I guess it’s more of the winter blahs (I keep blogging about them every year… I sense a pattern developing). On a positive note, I got a chance to get out and visit ottawa’s winterlude festival—no skating that day, but got to admire the ice sculptures and have a taste of some maple taffy on snow:

this winter, I definitely want to go out and visit a sugar bush somewhere out in the country. I haven’t even taken a vacation this winter for crying out loud! last year at around this time, I had just come back from a week’s worth of travelling across Canada—visiting friends in Vancouver, Edmonton and Winnipeg. …Actually, that’s not quite true. At this time last year, I was recovering from a sudden attack of kidney stones… well, more like a massacre, actually, but it did teach me some things.

the Gregorian calendar year came and went without much of a fuss this year—much like last year, when I was holed up in Winnipeg watching movies, I spent the fateful moment with friends (Tassnim, Basim and Rhetta) watching DVDs and eating pie and ice cream.

After a short visit with brother Gabriel and his family to bring them soup and good cheer, my parents dropped me off at Catherine’s place to feed her cat while she’s away in Vancouver. No sooner had I broken out the kibble than the windows began to rattle, resounding with the clatter of an early-evening fireworks show. I dashed downstairs, across a church courtyard and into the streets of downtown, following the noise and the lights into the back lot of the Supreme Court building, which offers a most beautiful view of the Ottawa River and was the perfect place to see the entire display of fire and light. It was a very impressive display, put together to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Ottawa’s designation as the capital city of Canada back in 1857. Several people remarked—to my agreement—that the fireworks display was more impressive than most Canada Day fireworks, what with the entire span of the Alexandra Bridge outfitted with fireworks shooting left, right and centre, reminiscent of the millennial fireworks in Sydney, Australia I remember seeing on television back on New Year’s Eve 1999.

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merry christmas to those of you who celebrate it! to all the muslims in reading range, happy Eid! oh, and happy Hanukkah too, but that’s a little late. and happy kwanzaa too I guess. and shab yalda to all the persians. and happy solstice/midwinter/etc to… well, to whoever celebrates it.

i’ve been hanging around at home, resting, cleaning house, visiting family, etc. today (well, yesterday by now) I shuffled down the block to best buy and got myself a new monitor to replace my trusty rusty old apple studio display that has served me so well for eight years. oh, and a new canon powershot A570 IS.

more soon - I’ve been remiss in my blogging lately and hope to catch up at least a little before the end of the holidays.

huge snowstorm swept through the Ottawa area today, coating the landscape with white fluffy snow. the roads got pretty fouled up, so most people (myself included) stayed inside to do laundry, play with the cat, read, and blog. it was fun. it brought back memories of the snowstorm a few years back in Drummondville—you know, the one that preceded my accident. instead of spinning out on a major highway and landing sideways in a snowbank, though, I have a lithotripsy session to look forward to tomorrow (Monday) in order to break up the kidney stone that’s still hanging around inside me after causing problems in mid-November. that’s a whole other story which I’ll share with you later on; for now, prayers would be much appreciated so that everything goes well.

thank goodness the holiday season is coming soon; hopefully I should have some time to rest and recover from the treatment—no big trips scheduled for now, unless they’re short ones. I keep thinking I’d like to pop by Montreal for a little bit to visit friends but I suppose I’d have to hook something up first. argh planning! we’ll see. things are wonderfully busy here in Ottawa; I spent part of yesterday (Saturday) with another Baha’i friend, following up with some people we met during the Varqa Teaching Project in November. it was a really moving experience—we were visiting a neighbour of mine who seemed to be very receptive to the Message of Bahá’u'lláh and very open to learning more about it through further home visits and Ruhi Book 1. I felt blown away and humbled by the experience. Again, I’ll write more about that later on as things continue to progress; needless to say, it’s the first time I’ve felt so confirmed while teaching the Faith.

I want to give big shout-outs and much love to everyone from Malaysia who reads this blog. You know who you are. I was chatting with a friend over IM and she told me she had met someone from Malaysia who recognized her via my blog. Apparently, all of Malaysia reads my blog on a regular basis, so if you’re one of those 27.5 million people, whether you’re from PJ or KL, from Sabah or Sarawak, from Penang or Malacca, a most hearty welcome :D

On a side note, I also hope the floods abate soon :S

after a morning devotional and brunch in Blackburn with some of our newfound friends (newfound after this summer’s outreach projects, that is), I called up my Dad to get a ride home to Cumberland village this afternoon, where Mom’s been cooking jars of preserves, pies and even a turkey! it’s nice to go home. I haven’t been in a while because it’s not so convenient to get all the way out to the country all the time, but today just happened to work out quite well. things are quiet here; the air is a little colder—we thought we saw a few snowflakes falling—and it seems a little cleaner. the leaves are covering the lawn right now in a thick, bright carpet of many colours. I spent part of the afternoon cutting up pumpkins for freezing, eventually to go into pies later on in the winter.

I’ve noticed that my life has been lacking artistry lately—beauty surrounds me on all sides and I feel like the natural impulse is to sing in praise of God’s creation, but my voice has been weak—my pen longs to write, but the inkwell seems to have gone dry. I’ve been pushing my own limits in many ways of late, and that uses up a lot of free energy. I guess I’ve been feeling stressed out. Man needs to praise God, not only for his own sanity, but for the simple fact that God must be praised—part of our eternal covenant with God is that we, His creation, must strive to know Him and worship Him; and what higher form of worship is the expression of His name, the Creator? I want to sing, to paint, to write, to draw, to create. create art, create relationships, create beauty in this all-too-ugly world. read this and comment back with your feelings.

There’s nothing like catching a cold to make you think about moderation. I was feeling great up til about Friday, when I started feeling a little more tired and strung out than usual. Saturday was a long and exhausting day, and Sunday I woke up with this awful taste in my mouth, a scratchy throat and a runny nose. Oh well. I never used to get colds, but now that I’m out of my invincible phase (which lasts from about 18 to 25; at least, that’s what my insurance company told me) I seem to catch a lot more random bugs and malaises. This little (?) body seems a lot more vulnerable than it used to. Anyway, for the time being, I’m hanging around at home eating soup and drinking grapefruit juice instead of milk and cookies.

Anyway, my sick mind managed to draw a parallel between being sick and all this talk about climate change that’s been happening, especially with the IEF conference over the weekend. Bear with me here. I’ve been catching up with the (facinating) video presentations, hearing all sorts of evidence of the effects of human activity upon the world we live in. Briefly, ever since the industrial revolution, Western society has been embracing unbridled and unqualified technological advancement and progress. The more singlemindedly we pursued an ideal of ultimate comfort and ease for ourselves, the quicker these effects accumulated. It’s only in the past few decades that we’ve begun to notice that the choices we’ve made have had, and are having, palpable consequences. Just like it takes a few days to catch a cold before you notice the symptoms, we sailed along merrily pumping more and more greenhouse gases into our Earth’s atmosphere, polluting its rivers and oceans, venting exhaust into its previously clean air. Now comes the big sneeze—or perhaps we could call it the Big Sweat.

If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation.

Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 342

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yay! Google Maps (and Google Earth) finally added high-res satellite photos of my favourite place in the world: Victoriaville. now you can see the house where I lived, the Victoriaville Loblaws store where I worked, the SADC Arthabaska-Érable (where I also worked), the Tim Horton’s where I stopped after getting lost on my first day in Victoriaville, Mont Arthabaska and other fascinating places. If you add MetalToad’s Flickr KML feed, you can even view some of my flickr photos of Victoriaville in Google Earth.

random update time. I peaced out for the Thanksgiving weekend (yup, Canadian Thanksgiving) and went to Victoriaville to visit Craig and Geneviève, two terribly good friends of mine from back when I went on a year of service there in 2002. it was great to get back together with them. we hung around, took care of their kids, and had some of our good old prayer sessions like back in the day. theirs is a musical family, so there was sweet harmony and soft chanting melody. I spent some of my time on the train ride to Drummondville studying parts of the long obligatory prayer—in an effort to finally memorize the whole thing—and said prayers on the bus from Drummondville to Victoriaville. It was sweet to have all that time to pray. it really took me far outside of the harried and somewhat obsessive-compulsive mental state I’d been cultivating for the past little while back in Ottawa. just quiet and honest reflection. on the train ride back from Drummondville, I got through two more chapters of The Covenant of Bahá’u'lláh by Adib Taherzadeh. Deeply touching and at times heart-rending book to read—reading about the all crushing sorrows inflicted upon Bahá’u'lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by the early Covenant-breakers is almost too much to take in one sitting. And I haven’t even gotten to the part about Shoghi Effendi yet. Anyway, I digress.

the weekend was an oddly productive one. I paid visits to and/or called up several other Baha’is in Victoriaville, and even stopped in to the Marché public to buy two bags of fresh local cranberries—which, in addition to the 2 kg bag of cranberries I ordered at work, should make some fine cranberry jam. I’ll blog the resulting jam session once it happens, with some recipes. hmm, I’m having cranberry flashbacks here.