“Wait, Anna Nicole died?!” – At lunch yesterday.

Now, in the grand scheme of life, this little tidbit of information can’t really even be considered news. In fact, it makes me rather sad that this is considered newsworthy back in the States. The point is that here in Haifa, if you do not make an active effort to seek out the news in the world, it might just pass you by. It can be a little insulating. Things that we would have not been able to avoid in the States completely pass us by even after 2 weeks.

I try to make an effort to check out a couple different news sources every day just to keep up…but it can be difficult to weed through the silly stuff.

(This makes me happy…I see these flowers on the way to work every day.)

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I’ve been feeling rather like this animal recently:
(On the Terraces, Thursday night)

At this moment, I am working my way through a container of hummus (with tortilla chips instead of pita bread, of course). Last night I read about 450 pages of a fantasy book I borrowed because of extreme boredom. And my flatmates and I rearranged the flat in a heroic effort of furniture shifting and dust bunny battles. So perhaps I am not as slow-moving as I think in my own head.

It is starting to be spring here in Haifa, with the accompanying crazy weather patterns. Yesterday there was hamsin, today torrential downpours.

I think people think that I’m a rather busy person. Perhaps I am…my Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are usually quite booked with classes. I guess I just don’t see things as busy here…maybe that will change.

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I am still reading Muhammad and the Course of Islam, but since it is such dense material I am taking my time.

I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Tipping Point and I just finished reading Blink, Gladwell’s more recent book on the power of snap judgements. It is fascinating.

I borrowed Years of Silence: Baha’is in the USSR 1938-1946 last week, and finished it over the weekend.

Years of Silence presents the dramatic and harrowing story of the imprisonment, torture, and exile to Siberia of Russian Baha’is during the Second World War who refused to leave their pioneering posts regardless of the consequences.

Excerpt from the book:

“Indeed, when the human heart is bereft of the fear of God, it changes into a frightening and dangerous monster; for one who believes in the might and omniscience of the God who watches over us all and is aware of all of our doings, would never perpetrate such brutality and inequity towards other human beings and would never subject the servants of God, all of whom are the signs of divinity, to tyranny or maltreatment.”

My great-grandfather likely knew some of those Baha’is, since most of them were from Iran, and he had a import-export business. It was a very difficult book to read because it was so heart-rending, but I think it is important to read and understand these things about the history of the Faith, the things that normal human beings suffered.

Last night I started reading The World Order of Baha’u'llah, which are letters from Shoghi Effendi. Some people have a hard time reading Shoghi Effendi’s writing because he manages to put so much information in, but it is really great so far.

I am really enjoying having so few distractions that allow me to read so much. Also, thanks to all of those people who have been lending me books!

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It is easier to write with teardrops/raindrops on the window
and running in rivers down the street.
It is easier to speak in the dark when no one can see my eyes.
I am running out of words and desperately digging through paragraphs
to see what I used before.
(papers are falling to the floor all around me)
It is hopeless to use words and pictures and sounds separately.
It is impossible for me to put everything together coherently.

I am racing against myself, against my thoughts to catch up to the dreams I’ve been having for so many years. Three to four dreams a night and it is certainly starting to add up…I guess my soul is taking trips around the world and keeping busy.

Put it down on paper quick!
Write!

Find new words for every image because although I wish so hard I could paint these things…someone else has taken that picture already, has used the canvas to show it and I can only throw it down on screens and paper.

(This morning, from an office window)

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When there are no tangential people surrounding me, I lose my grip on the strange and random. Those conversations are close to my heart. I miss the artists and dreamers and odd little occurences sometimes.

We would take in the peculiar and wonderful moments/words/phrases, spin them around in our minds, and throw them back out in the world as part of a fast-paced dance of story-telling and fanciful wishes.

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(from Dictionary.com)

honesty:
1. the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness.
2. truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness.
3. freedom from deceit or fraud.

trust:
1. reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.

Beautify your tongues, O people, with truthfulness, and adorn your souls with the ornament of honesty. Beware, O people, that ye deal not treacherously with any one. Be ye the trustees of God amongst His creatures, and the emblems of His generosity amidst His people. They that follow their lusts and corrupt inclinations, have erred and dissipated their efforts. They, indeed, are of the lost. Strive, O people, that your eyes may be directed towards the mercy of God, that your hearts may be attuned to His wondrous remembrance, that your souls may rest confidently upon His grace and bounty, that your feet may tread the path of His good-pleasure. Such are the counsels which I bequeath unto you. Would that ye might follow My counsels!-Gleanings From the Writings of Bahᒵ?llᨼ/i>

——————————————————–Honesty with tact, trust without being naive.Self-honesty, then honesty with others, finally resulting in being a person whom others can be honest with. How hard do we make it for those around us to be honest with us? Do we have natural inclinations to protect our hearts/egos/etc by not allowing honesty, even from those closest to us?

All of those walls that make it so hard to trust, and yet we reach out for the company of other human beings, share with them our hearts and hopes, our fears.

Do we encourage each other to strive toward these things? I guess we’re all striving.

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I questioned my own existence for a moment last week. It only lasted for a second, but it was quite terrifying. While in conversation on MSN with one of my friends back home, she asked “Sholeh, is that you talking to me, or someone pretending to be you?”

I sat back and thought about it for a second. Was I really carrying on a conversation, or had my body been taken over by aliens or evil spirits or a person with a talent for such things? A million questions ran through my head as I sat there, stunned.

It was extremely disconcerting. It turns out that I had been giving one-syllable answers to her conversation, and this worried her since most of my friends know that I rarely stop talking.

—————————————————-Hello to all of you BWC folks discovering my blog. Don’t be shy to make comments or come up randomly to me in the lunchroom. I’m only a little scary, I promise. We can have awkward conversations and smile across our trays of food.

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Someone didn’t quite make it.

On the soccer field, Friday.

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