Before I report on our trip to Edmonton, may I recommend to anyone interested that my sister, Heather's, blog which I have just begun to read because the whole notion of a blog is so new to me, though she informed us of its start a long time ago, is thought-provoking. I have just finished reading her thoughts and the thoughts of someone she quoted on forgiveness, and it is all worth a considered read. Probably far more worth reading than anything I'm likely to share today.
Jovani and the girls and I made a trip to Edmonton so that I could see a doctor referred by my GP. While I'm not interested in reporting the nature of the problem that led to the referral on this medium, let me just report that I am fine, there IS no problem. I didn't think there would be, neither my GP nor I was worried, but we agreed better safe than sorry. I am safe, for the time being, and now I know that I am too.
The weekend was made into a family trip. My daughter, Aislinn's, best Baha'i buddy lives in St. Albert, so I made reservations for our second night, Sunday, at the Ramada Inn and Waterpark, and invited Taea's family to join us for a swim in the hotel's pool. They took us out for a lovely all-you-can-eat-buffet brunch at the Greenwood Inn. Fabulous food and fabulous new friends. Jovani and I delight in these new friends, whom we met at Baha'i summer school, in part because Jovani and Mladen share the same sense of humour in many things, many interests, and Mladen is Croatian. He's the only Croatian we know, and we LOVE diversity - if we wanted all our friends to be white Canadian women born in Quebec and raised in Belize, married to well-traveled brown Honduran men, with children born and raised in Belize and Canada, we'd be pretty limited, wouldn't we? The Croat in Mladen comes out in intriguing moments.
I'm a bit ahead of myself, however. The first night we stayed in Leduc, at the home of Karin and Ian Ferguson. Karin and I go back to when we met on Baha'i Women Converse when I was still in Belize, needing contact through the internet outside of Belize. Aislinn was a baby at the time. Then Karin and Ian pioneered to Belize, and we left while they were still there. We did a lot of commiserating over our experiences. Karin made a lovely dinner for us. We had stopped at an IGA on the way there and bought dessert and some non-alcoholic wine. The wine was interesting to me. I've never had the real stuff so didn't know what to compare it to, but, when I was in my early teens, a girlfriend of mine, who also did not drink, and I had enough curiosity to know what it all tasted like that we decided to smell every bottle in her dad's liquor cabinet. The taste of this non-alcoholic wine was so very similar to that smell, and the lingering smell of just about every bar I've ever walked into, that I kept checking the label to make sure I hadn't misread it. After I had finished off two glasses of my own and a couple of the girls', because it wasn't what they expected (they like the sparkling grape juices), I decided it couldn't be alcoholic because, with never having had any but an accidental mouthful in my life, three glasses would have made me decidedly tipsy had I misread the label. Not to mention that my husband, during his drinking days, got violently ill after one beer, so he would be unlikely to be able to keep it down if I had misread the label.
Karin and Ian are moving to another apartment, and Karin felt disinclined to pack a lot of stuff to take with them, I guess, and it isn't exactly garage sale season, so we left with the trunk of the car considerably fuller than when we arrived. Of particular note is the coffee maker they gave us - one that can be programmed and has a thermos rather than an element to keep the coffee warm. THAT I was most delighted to accept. Didn't even have to press a button when I got up this morning.
So, we arrived at the Greenwood Inn to meet Mladen and Lorine and family shortly before 11 a.m. The Ryhards were a little late, so Meadow, one HAPPY camper, had her fill of strawberries while Jovani and I had our coffee. We ate when the Ryhards arrived, a most excellent, multi-national buffet, too much to possibly even try one of everything, and then we motored down to the Ramada, where Jovani and the children swam and Lorine and Mladen and I chatted. I had a touch of a cold and little desire to swim feeling that way. Before the swimming, I made a quick phone call to our friends Nooshin and Darius Naqvi, to let them know where we were if they were able to join us.
This next part requires a bit of explanation. Remember we live in WHITESVILLE, Northern Alberta. Save for the recent influx of Filipinos, there are all of about ten non-white people in our area, including Jovani and our children, and our children only look non-white compared to all the blondes in the area. The visible minorities are very visible, and we only know them professionally. None are people who would be calling either of us on the phone.
Roughly over a month ago I was IM'd by a delightful East Indian friend I had met in Swift Current the first year we were in Canada. I had not heard from him in the three years since then, but we had several conversations over the internet more recently. He knew nothing (that I could remember having told him) about our bakery in Belize or what we made there. He also did not, to my knowledge, have our phone number here. That sort of thing is easy enough to look up on the internet, I suppose. In any case, a few days before we left for Edmonton, the phone rang. I answered, and it was a very deep, masculine East Indian voice saying, "Do you have any Nablo's Bakery whole wheat bread?"
Blink.
My first thought was, "This is Robin (my brother) playing a joke on me. Nah, he just called earlier today and he's in Honduras, so I don't think so." Robin is good at all accents, so it was a reasonable first thought. My second thought was that it was the above-mentioned friend, but I discarded that thought just as quickly - if he remembered we ran a bakery in Belize, he wouldn't know the name of it or what we sold. I also dismissed the possibility because he is WAY too busy to be playing jokes like that.
The voice was still talking and asking for bread, and FINALLY introduced itself. "This is Ram from Belize, remember me?"
As a matter of fact, I did, instantly. Ram and his wife had a restaurant in Belize, briefly, and I had one of the best meals I've ever had there. Entirely vegan too. Ram was standing in Nooshin's store, where they had been chatting when he mentioned Belize, she mentioned us, he asked for the phone number and .... So, after the swim, Jovani called Ram to let him know where we were if he wanted to come see us. He and his wife (whose name I forget, again) and their lovely daughter, Suni, came and sat in Smitty's with us, and Nooshin and Darius, for a little while after the Ryhards left (and Aislinn and Taea had a very reluctant good-bye). I had considered not calling Ram, despite his encouragement to do so, because our time in Edmonton was already so full, but I'm so glad we did. I think it was something both families needed, in some way or other.
That day was Jovani's birthday, and interestingly enough, the day before had been Nooshin's. Nooshin brought the remainder of her birthday ice cream cake for everyone. We all sang happy birthday to them. After all the lovely guests left, the Vasquez family dragged ourselves up to the hotel room, where my computer-whiz daughter, Aislinn, got me connected to the internet on my laptop so we could all check our mail, I ordered delivery Swiss Chalet for Jovani for his birthday dinner and pizza and chicken wings for the girls and I, and they watched movies and I read until it was time to sleep. I will share an amusing thing about this - my family was not familiar with either food delivery or wake-up calls. When I called the front desk to ask for a 6 a.m. wake-up call, Jovani looked at me wide-eyed and said, "You can do that?" It has been almost five years, and he still is learning both big and little differences between North America and Central America. Actually, any major hotel in Central America would provide a wake-up call, but he's not accustomed to staying in hotels. My family is still at the stage of enjoying a stay in a hotel room as a grand adventure. May they continue to be delighted by such simple things.
My doctor's appointment on Monday morning took a full three hours, but it was three hours well worth it. When we got in to the clinic in the morning, and I checked in, I told the receptionist, "My family is with me, can you tell me how long I can tell them they will have to wait?" She responded, "Two and a half hours."
I turned around to inform Jovani of this, suggesting that he take them somewhere else for that time. He refused - I had been directing him while he drove, and he didn't want to get lost. The girls all complained that they wanted to go somewhere else, and I said, (in front of a gentleman sitting in the waiting room), "Sorry, girls, Daddy isn't taking you anywhere else because Mommy's the navigator and Daddy doesn't want to get lost." The grin on the other gentleman's face grew so big I thought his face was going to split.
So, the girls sat down to play a quiet game, and invited Jovani to join, which he did, quite happily, while the already huge grin on the other gentleman's face got even bigger, if that's possible. It is a game requiring coordination and Jovani didn't have any! Apparently after I was called in and the receptionist had a free half hour, she joined them and taught them a game too. Jovani really appreciated her help.
After the appt, we drove over to the West Edmonton Mall so that Jessa could see the fire-breathing dragon in the cinema. Unfortunately, Jessa just wanted to go home by the time we left the dr, AND, it was the one day there was no fire-breathing dragon, due to maintenance. There was a dragon, but no fire, and Jessa didn't care by that time. We still managed to stop at two other little places in the mall to get a few Intercalary Day gifts, and actually, where we entered the mall was a Chinese store that had live seafood in tanks. I knew it would delight Jovani, and Aislinn, the other person familiar with the store from her grade six trip, helped me to make Jovani cover his eyes and then lead him to the seafood section. He's just so fun to share new experiences with, his childlike delight in everything is contagious.
The girls each touched a live crab, and we bought a few small exotic juices and things. Jovani laughed and ooh-ed and aah-ed at every new thing. The live seafood. The fountain with live carp. The large, long, scaly silver tail that led up to the dragon that didn't breathe fire that day. He wasn't too impressed, (and neither were the girls) to see the men kissing. This is not homophobia on his part - a beloved cousin of his was gay, and died of AIDS in Honduras. I didn't see the PDA in the mall, and didn't turn to see it when Jovani mentioned it. I don't particularly enjoy watching PDA's, either hetero or homo. However, then Jovani described it, a little stunned that it had happened (we really are country hicks) and it sounded cultural rather than sexual and I said so. He acknowledged it could have been so. It did bother Jessa and Aislinn though, and all I could say is that most people don't care what strangers think of them.
So, we left the mall, tired and mostly happy (Jessa was WAY past wanting to go home), and, because I had forgotten to get directions from the internet on how to get out of Edmonton from the West Ed on to the right highway, we wound up taking the scenic route through St. Albert and Morinville, and eventually getting on the highway that took us through Slave Lake rather than the other route through Whitecourt. It may have been a bit longer, but Jovani has long wanted to know where Morinville is and we had never been through St. Albert, so it was worth relying on my intuition and vague memories of which highway we were supposed to be on to see something new, tired and grumpy though we were.
We arrived home shortly after 10 p.m. on Monday night. Sushi just about went nuts when I walked in the door, not knowing whether she wanted to wag her tail or try to climb up my leg. I picked her up and she licked my face while her whole body went crazy in an ecstatic wag. We went to bed very quickly, and I let the girls sleep in before getting them up to go to school. Grandpa drove Aislinn into town a couple of hours late.
And now I have cupcakes to make for the annual Intercalary lunch that I make for Whitelaw school. Happy Ayyam-i-Ha, everyone.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Vitamin D-filled Day
Sushi and I went out for a good long walk in the sunshine today - what a gloriously bright, sunny day. We met up with a black dog who was interested in Sushi but Sushi soon discovered she was not willing to share me, and couldn't decide between growling at the interloper and whining at me to pick her up so she didn't have to. I picked her up and got her out of there quickly, growling at the other dog a few times myself to scare it away. I didn't like Sushi barking at it from right over my shoulder.
The snowflakes were sparkling everywhere - on the ground, in the trees, the ones that the slight breeze was blowing off the trees and causing to flitter down to the street. Made me wish for any skill at all with a camera. I had invited Meadow to come for a walk with me, she's the one who loves to get outside with me or her daddy, but she chose not to because of the cold. I wish she had come - it wasn't that cold, there was very little breeze, and she loves the sparkles and other subtle beauties of the out-of-doors.
I have an Aislinn story. Aunt Heather and Uncle Bernie were here for a quick visit on the weekend. We were sitting around the table, and Aunt Heather said a four-letter-word while telling a story. I reflexively turned to cover my 13-yr-old's ears (a mother's habit - I know she hears worse all the time). Aunt Heather said, "Oh, I'm sorry, Aislinn. But I bet you hear worse than that every day on the bus, don't you?" Aislinn nods her head, "Yeah." Aunt Heather says, "Well, I'm not perfect, and I do things I shouldn't sometimes. So I'll just ask your forgiveness now for any mistakes I make in your presence for the next ten years." Without blinking Aislinn lifts her hand in solute and says, "Same here."
We all burst out laughing, and I high-fived Aislinn. She's got a quick brain and maturity of understanding for a 13 year old.
I'd also like to share a bit of advancement of my seven-year-old. That's grade two. We started Alberta Family Day with family prayers this morning on Mommy and Daddy's bed, and Meadow chose to read one from the prayer book. Almost smoothly and only having Mommy correct her when she started reading the same line over again, she read this prayer by herself:
O my Lord! Make Thy beauty to be my food, and Thy presence my drink, and Thy pleasure my hope, and praise of Thee my action, and remembrance of Thee my companion, and the power of Thy sovereignty my succorer, and Thy habitation my home, and my dwelling-place the seat Thou hast sanctified from the limitations imposed upon them who are shut out as by a veil from Thee.
Thou art, verily, the Almighty, the All-Glorious, the Most Powerful.
—Bahá’u’lláh
She got the word "sovereignty" without a hitch. The only one she stumbled on a bit was "sanctified" - and she did get it without help from me.
I made the mistake the other day, however, of refusing to do the phonics homework that her teacher was sending home with her, because they were the same assignments for the grades one, two and three, and I knew Meadow's reading level was way higher than those assignments already, and I told her they were a "waste of time." I didn't know she was supposed to be collecting them all in a duo-tang to take them back to school (I knew about the duo-tang but not that the complete work would go back to school), so when it became apparent to Meadow that she was not going to have her completed project to hand in, she got very distressed and informed her teacher that "Mommy isn't doing them with me because it is a waste of time." Verbatim, of course.
Fortunately, Mrs. Turner is pretty laid back and I apologized to her in person and explained that I didn't know the whole thing had to be handed in. She also understands that Meadow's reading level IS way ahead of grade two, but she's got the challenge of two other grade two children whose reading level is a little below grade two. I can't imagine what it must be like to be planning classes for a three-level-split when there are differences in ability in one grade alone.
Next weekend we are taking a family trip to Edmonton. I have a dr's appointment on Monday morning, and don't drive in the city, especially a city I don't know (which is all of them, at the moment, though I'm getting accustomed to Grande Prairie enough that I could probably manage, and Peace River, which isn't technically a city), so Jovani is driving me, and we're going on Saturday with all the girls so that we can visit with friends and the girls can have a taste of city for a bit. We are staying in a hotel with a water park and water slides on Sunday night, where one of Aislinn's best buddies will join us, and I've promised Jessa that we will at least take her to the cinema at the West Edmonton Mall so she can see the fire-breathing dragon. Both Aislinn and Meadow have seen it. The children are counting down the days. I'm looking forward to it as well. I am a little worried about leaving Sushi behind - Mom says that on the day we went grocery shopping, Sushi whined for me almost the whole time. Three days without me? Oh well, she'll just have to get used to it.
And this is the extent of my inspiration for the day.
The snowflakes were sparkling everywhere - on the ground, in the trees, the ones that the slight breeze was blowing off the trees and causing to flitter down to the street. Made me wish for any skill at all with a camera. I had invited Meadow to come for a walk with me, she's the one who loves to get outside with me or her daddy, but she chose not to because of the cold. I wish she had come - it wasn't that cold, there was very little breeze, and she loves the sparkles and other subtle beauties of the out-of-doors.
I have an Aislinn story. Aunt Heather and Uncle Bernie were here for a quick visit on the weekend. We were sitting around the table, and Aunt Heather said a four-letter-word while telling a story. I reflexively turned to cover my 13-yr-old's ears (a mother's habit - I know she hears worse all the time). Aunt Heather said, "Oh, I'm sorry, Aislinn. But I bet you hear worse than that every day on the bus, don't you?" Aislinn nods her head, "Yeah." Aunt Heather says, "Well, I'm not perfect, and I do things I shouldn't sometimes. So I'll just ask your forgiveness now for any mistakes I make in your presence for the next ten years." Without blinking Aislinn lifts her hand in solute and says, "Same here."
We all burst out laughing, and I high-fived Aislinn. She's got a quick brain and maturity of understanding for a 13 year old.
I'd also like to share a bit of advancement of my seven-year-old. That's grade two. We started Alberta Family Day with family prayers this morning on Mommy and Daddy's bed, and Meadow chose to read one from the prayer book. Almost smoothly and only having Mommy correct her when she started reading the same line over again, she read this prayer by herself:
O my Lord! Make Thy beauty to be my food, and Thy presence my drink, and Thy pleasure my hope, and praise of Thee my action, and remembrance of Thee my companion, and the power of Thy sovereignty my succorer, and Thy habitation my home, and my dwelling-place the seat Thou hast sanctified from the limitations imposed upon them who are shut out as by a veil from Thee.
Thou art, verily, the Almighty, the All-Glorious, the Most Powerful.
—Bahá’u’lláh
She got the word "sovereignty" without a hitch. The only one she stumbled on a bit was "sanctified" - and she did get it without help from me.
I made the mistake the other day, however, of refusing to do the phonics homework that her teacher was sending home with her, because they were the same assignments for the grades one, two and three, and I knew Meadow's reading level was way higher than those assignments already, and I told her they were a "waste of time." I didn't know she was supposed to be collecting them all in a duo-tang to take them back to school (I knew about the duo-tang but not that the complete work would go back to school), so when it became apparent to Meadow that she was not going to have her completed project to hand in, she got very distressed and informed her teacher that "Mommy isn't doing them with me because it is a waste of time." Verbatim, of course.
Fortunately, Mrs. Turner is pretty laid back and I apologized to her in person and explained that I didn't know the whole thing had to be handed in. She also understands that Meadow's reading level IS way ahead of grade two, but she's got the challenge of two other grade two children whose reading level is a little below grade two. I can't imagine what it must be like to be planning classes for a three-level-split when there are differences in ability in one grade alone.
Next weekend we are taking a family trip to Edmonton. I have a dr's appointment on Monday morning, and don't drive in the city, especially a city I don't know (which is all of them, at the moment, though I'm getting accustomed to Grande Prairie enough that I could probably manage, and Peace River, which isn't technically a city), so Jovani is driving me, and we're going on Saturday with all the girls so that we can visit with friends and the girls can have a taste of city for a bit. We are staying in a hotel with a water park and water slides on Sunday night, where one of Aislinn's best buddies will join us, and I've promised Jessa that we will at least take her to the cinema at the West Edmonton Mall so she can see the fire-breathing dragon. Both Aislinn and Meadow have seen it. The children are counting down the days. I'm looking forward to it as well. I am a little worried about leaving Sushi behind - Mom says that on the day we went grocery shopping, Sushi whined for me almost the whole time. Three days without me? Oh well, she'll just have to get used to it.
And this is the extent of my inspiration for the day.
Friday, February 13, 2009
We woke to a day on which my daughter, Meadow, would say 'The fairies have come out to play." Hoar frost on all the trees, and misty grey everywhere. It was a lazy day for me. I read part of a romance novel, dozed off and then got up to take my dog, Sushi, for a good long walk. I had also trimmed Sushi's eyebrows and did a little operation on her ingrown toenail. I knew her paw was bothering her but didn't figure out that I could fix it without taking her to the vet until today. After the walk, I made a healthy supper, emphasis on the vegetables, with a little Honduran meat dish as a treat for my husband.
I'm Sylvia Nablo de Vasquez. I was born in Hull, Quebec, on March 2, 1970. I speak only very little French as we moved to Saskatchewan when I was four, and then down to Belize, Central America when I was eight. Over then next 28 years I've traveled back and forth between Canada and Belize, staying mostly in Belize. Now I'm back in Canada, living in a tiny hamlet in Northern Alberta. I am married to Jovani Vasquez of Honduras, and we have three delightful daughters, Aislinn, Jessamine and Meadow, ages 13, 10 and 7 respectively. My parents, Ron and Edna Nablo, also live with us. After we moved down to Belize they remained there for all but three years, until recently.
We are all members of the Baha'i Faith. My dear friend, David Moody, who suggested I start this blog, suggested that I offer this letter to anyone who wonders why I am a Baha'i:
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:15-17
Funny how one can be so familiar with a passage, that it becomes something we take for granted, along with the understanding that usually goes with it. I honestly didn't think I would have an answer to your question any time soon. After all, it was fairly specific - what about my faith could I not live without. And remembering this is a heart question, not a head question. And wanting to be totally honest about it, not frame an answer intended to convince you, since it is a question about me, and knowing that there are many things about my faith that I love, but that being a specific one - what could I not live without. There are lots of things that excite me, motivate me, help me, things for which I am grateful, but what could I not live without? Throughout the day my mind wandered back to it periodically. The answer came to me rather suddenly, and it was a little more literal than I expected - "The Promise of World Peace". It can be found here: http://info.bahai.org/article-1-7-2-1.html. It is a statement put out by the Universal House of Justice in 1985, addressed to the Peoples of the World. Without the understanding and vision that this statement offers me, combined with many of Shoghi Effendi's writings explaining what world peace will look like and how we will achieve it, I expect, given my tendencies to depression, my compassion toward all the peoples of the world and our suffering, I would likely, quite literally, be suicidal. If my own salvation and inner peace was all I had to live for, I'd probably decide to take a short cut out of this world and let God help me through the sin of having taken my own life. There's some brutal honesty for you.
It goes a bit further than that, though. I had never thought about it quite in this context before, but that passage from John is very limited if we understand it to mean that Jesus gave His life only for personal salvation. He didn't, He gave it to "save the world through him". Finding everlasting spiritual life is an individual thing. The world is a collective, and His sacrifice would be wasted if the world is not saved through the creation of His Kingdom on earth. Why? Because the two thousand years and ever-increasing personal suffering in the world is pointless if Christ didn't come to eventually end that suffering. I have to believe there is a better future than the agony and personal hell through which the world is going through right now would suggest. Being satisfied that I and a few other Christians are saved spiritually is small recompense for enduring the widespread suffering of innocents in the world, regardless of Faith. Yes, the purpose of the suffering is to bring the world closer to God. But so that we all come to believe in Jesus? No. So that His promised Kingdom can find reality in the world, literally and spiritually.
When 9/11 happened, I stood watching the second airplane fly into the second tower and knew that, if my children had not already been born, I would not choose to have children. I had my children already though, so I have had to find something that gave me purpose and hope for their future, and my grandchildren's future, and the future of all the children of the world. A hope that they remain faithful to Christ so that they might find eternal life, while ardent, would not have been enough for me to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Baha'u'llah, may my entire life be a sacrifice to Him, has given me the understanding of why we must endure hell on earth, for now. There is a purpose to it. Baha'u'llah explains it. Shoghi Effendi explains it. The Universal House of Justice, in letters to the Baha'is of the world every year, explains it. The Promise of World Peace explains it. We are undergoing the growth pains of a world on the threshold of maturity. It will get worse before it gets better. But it WILL get better. And if I didn't have that understanding and hope to cling to, with a clear idea of why it has to happen before it does get better, and something concrete that I can do to help the process along, well, I don't think I could live.
I was not going to take David's suggestion and share this letter with anyone else. It was from me to him, a very dear, close friend, but if I'm going to be blogging my life out to the universe, I might as well be honest about who I am and the purpose of my life. The rest can come later.
I'm Sylvia Nablo de Vasquez. I was born in Hull, Quebec, on March 2, 1970. I speak only very little French as we moved to Saskatchewan when I was four, and then down to Belize, Central America when I was eight. Over then next 28 years I've traveled back and forth between Canada and Belize, staying mostly in Belize. Now I'm back in Canada, living in a tiny hamlet in Northern Alberta. I am married to Jovani Vasquez of Honduras, and we have three delightful daughters, Aislinn, Jessamine and Meadow, ages 13, 10 and 7 respectively. My parents, Ron and Edna Nablo, also live with us. After we moved down to Belize they remained there for all but three years, until recently.
We are all members of the Baha'i Faith. My dear friend, David Moody, who suggested I start this blog, suggested that I offer this letter to anyone who wonders why I am a Baha'i:
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:15-17
Funny how one can be so familiar with a passage, that it becomes something we take for granted, along with the understanding that usually goes with it. I honestly didn't think I would have an answer to your question any time soon. After all, it was fairly specific - what about my faith could I not live without. And remembering this is a heart question, not a head question. And wanting to be totally honest about it, not frame an answer intended to convince you, since it is a question about me, and knowing that there are many things about my faith that I love, but that being a specific one - what could I not live without. There are lots of things that excite me, motivate me, help me, things for which I am grateful, but what could I not live without? Throughout the day my mind wandered back to it periodically. The answer came to me rather suddenly, and it was a little more literal than I expected - "The Promise of World Peace". It can be found here: http://info.bahai.org/article-1-7-2-1.html. It is a statement put out by the Universal House of Justice in 1985, addressed to the Peoples of the World. Without the understanding and vision that this statement offers me, combined with many of Shoghi Effendi's writings explaining what world peace will look like and how we will achieve it, I expect, given my tendencies to depression, my compassion toward all the peoples of the world and our suffering, I would likely, quite literally, be suicidal. If my own salvation and inner peace was all I had to live for, I'd probably decide to take a short cut out of this world and let God help me through the sin of having taken my own life. There's some brutal honesty for you.
It goes a bit further than that, though. I had never thought about it quite in this context before, but that passage from John is very limited if we understand it to mean that Jesus gave His life only for personal salvation. He didn't, He gave it to "save the world through him". Finding everlasting spiritual life is an individual thing. The world is a collective, and His sacrifice would be wasted if the world is not saved through the creation of His Kingdom on earth. Why? Because the two thousand years and ever-increasing personal suffering in the world is pointless if Christ didn't come to eventually end that suffering. I have to believe there is a better future than the agony and personal hell through which the world is going through right now would suggest. Being satisfied that I and a few other Christians are saved spiritually is small recompense for enduring the widespread suffering of innocents in the world, regardless of Faith. Yes, the purpose of the suffering is to bring the world closer to God. But so that we all come to believe in Jesus? No. So that His promised Kingdom can find reality in the world, literally and spiritually.
When 9/11 happened, I stood watching the second airplane fly into the second tower and knew that, if my children had not already been born, I would not choose to have children. I had my children already though, so I have had to find something that gave me purpose and hope for their future, and my grandchildren's future, and the future of all the children of the world. A hope that they remain faithful to Christ so that they might find eternal life, while ardent, would not have been enough for me to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Baha'u'llah, may my entire life be a sacrifice to Him, has given me the understanding of why we must endure hell on earth, for now. There is a purpose to it. Baha'u'llah explains it. Shoghi Effendi explains it. The Universal House of Justice, in letters to the Baha'is of the world every year, explains it. The Promise of World Peace explains it. We are undergoing the growth pains of a world on the threshold of maturity. It will get worse before it gets better. But it WILL get better. And if I didn't have that understanding and hope to cling to, with a clear idea of why it has to happen before it does get better, and something concrete that I can do to help the process along, well, I don't think I could live.
I was not going to take David's suggestion and share this letter with anyone else. It was from me to him, a very dear, close friend, but if I'm going to be blogging my life out to the universe, I might as well be honest about who I am and the purpose of my life. The rest can come later.
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