Long Time, No Post!

I've meant to post here lately, but I've been caught up in community happenings that are taking up a massive amount of time. Therefore, this post will be utterly informal, fairly disjointed, and full of the craziness that makes up my life.

You have been warned.

On Saturday I went to the Baha'i Center for our Cluster Reflection Gathering, and it looks like things are only going to be getting more intense this summer. It's wonderful! Our cluster has two main goals that we are focusing on at this point:

1. For all people who have only 1 or 2 more uncompleted courses in the Ruhi sequence to finish them by the Martyrdom of the Bab, July 9.

2. As the best birthday present we can think of to offer, to advance to an A Stage Cluster by the Birth of Baha'u'llah, November 12.

As for me, I hope to finish both Books 3 and 6 (yes, I know I'm all out of order! I did 1, 7, 4, 2, then 5 [the new 5, not the old one], and now 3 and 6 simultaneously), organize the June-ior Youth Summer Program (get it? It's in June, and it's for junior you— yeah, maybe it's not that clever after all), and hopefully co-tutor the summer Book 7 intensive, so that I can become qualified to tutor EVERYTHING. Bwahaha. And in the meantime, I'm still looking for a job, teaching the preschool class at Four Corners Baha'i School, and going to TVI.

And people wonder why I haven't updated.

Or rather, they don't. Because I don't know that anybody out there is reading. But hey! It's my goal to become a better writer and blogger, so I get to wonder. What priviledge!

Actually, I do have a new essay in the works. It's about the age of maturity. But it's a very sensitive subject for me, and it's difficult to really ribe tuchus and write the thing when I want to start pacing in agitation.

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Unrelated self-reflective question #1:
I wonder if anybody else who studies Book 6 is sure that the authors were somehow spying on their thoughts to find just the right material for the bad examples? "You're kidding, she actually thought that? Oooh, let's put that in for sure!" I am equal parts humbled, embarrassed, and amused.

Unrelated self-reflective question #2:
Do I talk too much at Feast? Stephen (who is an assistant to our Auxilliary Board Member for Propagation), didn't realize that I wasn't an Assistant as well. When I corrected him, he was surprised, because I "have so much to say." Does coming off as an authority of sorts when I'm definitely NOT mean that I should ease up? Or, since Assistants are supposed to encourage and focus the community at large, does it just mean that I'm doing a good job? I've always had a problem with this. When I first went off to college, my mother begged me not to argue with any of my professors "for at least a month." I try not to beat people over the head with the latest guidance, because not everybody has access to it, or the free time to study it right away. Kaveh is so patient with everyone, and reminds me that everybody comes around eventually. It's just hard when you care so effing much! I imagine that, in `Abdu'l-Baha's place, I would have gone berserk and started breaking valuables. That, thankfully, is why he is the Perfect Exemplar!

So, new goal. Pray for detachment. Pray for patience. Pray for the ability to see the end in the beginning. Wonderful things really ARE happening in this community. Amazing, exciting, incredible things are just at the point where you can tell it's on the cusp of exploding into something more beautiful than anyone can yet imagine. There is a spirit in the community of being on the very top of the hill; it has been an uphill battle to this point, but pretty soon we will have to run to keep up with the process we worked so hard to begin. I just have to remember that it is my prayers and my actions, not whatever I say to people, that will help to push things over the edge.

Pray to be ready for it when it comes.