The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I can tell this was one of my dad’s favorite books because he took a fragment from it and used in the words he expressed to my mom during their wedding. Homework for me is to contact my mom and find out what those words were. :)

As for me, well I like this:

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

“And what of Marriage, master?”

You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore.
…
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
…
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
…
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Related to work:

Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with your distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy…

As my “hermanote” George would say, “What a genius.” :)

To be continued… (when I finish reading)

Back in December, my two sisters and my brother invited a family friend, my sister’s boyfriend and my other sister’s recently-arrived-from-Spain husband to take Ruhi Book 1, Reflections of the Life of the Spirit, with us.

We get together 2 or 3 Sundays a month and go through a series of quotes from the Baha’i Writings that pertain to topics such as virtues, unity and backbiting, as well as prayer and life and death. Each of the quotes has a series of questions to answer as a group and these usually lead to discussion. These discussions can become very intruiging and are always very friendly. I had never really spent an extended amount of time talking to my siblings about these issues and it has been a really wonderful experience to do so now.

About a week and a half ago we started the Study Circle with a potluck (cabuda) Salvadorean-style brunch. It was sooooo good. I felt right at home (meaning El Salvador, not my other homes Pasadena or Burlingame). Click on the Flickr photo to the right to see all the different foods we had labeled with notes. We had beans, fried plantains, sour cream, fresh cheese, bread, avocado, but I did forget the hot chocolate at home. :(

I’ll keep this photoset updated with future photos from our study circle.

Meet my mom. Her name is Gloria. She is home-front pioneering in a small town called San Juan Tepezontes in El Salvador. This is her with some of the kids from her children’s class and a goat:

Photo by Karen Rosel.

Home-front pioneering might not mean much to you so let me explain. First, pioneering was best explained by my dad in one of his autobiographical episodic accounts:

It is similar to what some other organizations do in that its followers are encouraged, but not required, to travel to other lands to spread the Word. Unlike many who do this from other faiths, a Bahá’í is not a missionary who is sponsored or supported financially by a home base. This means a Bahá’í “pioneer” must find a job in his or her new home, become an integral part of his or her new culture, hopefully speaking the language, etc.

Now, home-front means that she traveled to a different land within her same home country. Even though she was born and raised in a very small town called Dulce Nombre de Maria (Sweet Name of Mary), my family lived in the capital city, San Salvador since I was born in ‘83. Thus, she essentially pioneered from the capital to a very rural town about one and a half hours away. She lives there in a Baha’i-owned, little house. These are some of the things she does on a day to day basis:

• Teaches classes of moral education for children.
• Animates groups of junior youth (ages 12 to 14) to learn about spiritual topics and to do service in the community.
• Facilitates the study of courses from the Ruhi Institute with youth and adults.
• Organizes devotional gatherings for the whole San Juan Tepezontes community.

She loves being there (as you can tell) and I am very happy for her.