Over halfway

September 8th marked the halfway point in my service in Haifa.  9 months left.

I know that I’ve changed, that I’ve stayed the same.   There are so many beautiful moments, and I wish I could gather every beautiful soul into my hands and carry them with me anywhere I go in the world.  I wish I could explain everything here, or write it down, but recently words have been failing me.  Perhaps pictures would suffice.

I am so, so happy here.  Autumn is slowly creeping around the corner, the pilgrim season starts in a few weeks, the magic of the smell of cold evenings still exists in the world.  

The passing of the last Hand of the Cause of God is still too recent to even understand.  As far as I can remember, I had the bounty of meeting four of them (at least the ones I remember meeting).   `Alí-Muhammad Varqá, `Alí-Akbar Furútan, Amatu’l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum, and William Sears…and now they’re all gone.

“The greatest attainment in the world of humanity is nearness to God. Every lasting glory, honor, grace and beauty which comes to man comes through nearness to God.”

 (Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 147)