I didn’t do anything for Ayyam-i-Ha last year…I am pretty sure I spent the Intercalary Days cleaning my house and reading. This year has been vastly different. On the first day, Tuesday, I spent the evening at my friend’s house…
Category: Haifa
Music in department stores is the same, no matter where in the world you are. As I wandered the one department store at one of the malls in Haifa last night with a friend, I realized that the piped-in music…
A Saturday unplanned became a Saturday of relaxation and time with friends. I went next door for brunch, and six lovely ladies and I cooked and ate a large meal…eggs, bacon, pancakes, potatoes, coffee, tea…yum. Then I hopped on a…
4 months until I leave Haifa, Israel and go back to the United States. My departure date is June 7. 11 weeks until the event that I came here to work on occurs. 3 weeks until Ayyam-i-Ha. 19 Saturdays until…
I wore these earrings today, which I bought a year ago: They’re metal and quite heavy. I walked over to a table at lunch where several of my friends were sitting. The guys immediately noticed the earrings and starting discussing…
we felt the silence, in the way a child knows to be quiet when the room hushes suddenly. it wasn’t heavy…it lifted the heart, and around we went our shoes in varied sounds and rhythms. the city moved on, in…
Today I noticed that we have 99 days until a Very Important Event (I should have noticed 100, but it has been a little busy around here!). Last night I spent time with people I usually don’t see very often, and it was…
This morning was a little ridiculous. Lucia came over to eat breakfast with me before the Celebration of the Birth of the Bab (we’re on a lunar calendar for some Holy Days here). In the span of 20 minutes, I…
There were boxes of old books in the parking garage today, marked “FREE!”, with that musty smell and slick dust feeling. We dug through them, hugging the discoveries to our chests. The tip of my nose starting twitching, the usual…
My heart is in a wistful mood, my tiny little sorrows shake the dust from my soul. My laughter has strong intention behind it. Music with piano and soft whispered tones reaches inside me, perhaps in 43,200 minutes words will…
One year ago I had just arrived in the Holy Land to start 18 months of service. One year ago today I stood at the top of the mountain and watched fireworks. I have attended several weddings of dear friends,…
Baha’i weddings are so unique…each couple’s style comes through in the ceremony. Two of my very dear friends got married this weekend, and I have to say it was one of the best weddings I’ve been to. There was the…
Every day. Crossing a street to sanctuary. Counting worn pebbles through thin soles of shoes. Trying not to step on snails (I have a horror of that crunch). Smiling in a general way, and then specifically. Spending nights staring at…
As of December 8th (tomorrow), I will have been in Haifa, Israel for one year. I keep writing little pieces of some kind of summary, but my words have been failing for a while now. I know I’ve changed, and…
It completely slipped my mind to write a blog post about this when it happened… A few weeks ago my flatmates and I were having a quiet evening at home, I was chatting with my dad on the phone. Suddenly…
Before this past weekend, I had never been camping. I’ve been to cabins, lots of road trips, and so many hotels I can’t even count anymore. But somehow I missed out on the camping thing.  We had nine people and camped…
“Love is the means of the most great happiness in both the material and spiritual worlds!” -Abdu’l-Baha Sometimes I don’t know how I got here (physically, spiritually, emotionally). Most days everything feels normal…and then there are the times I find…
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…
In just a short time I will attend the funeral of the last Hand of the Cause of God, Dr. ‘AlÃ-Muhammad Varqá. He passed on to the Abha Kingdom on Saturday evening. The obligations of the Hands of the Cause of…
Sunset last night was the start of Yom Kippur, which means that for 24 hours everything is shut down. I do mean everything. No one drives, so my flatmate and I went for a long walk….in the middle of the…
Today was the commemoration of the Martyrdom of the Bab, which we observe on the lunar calendar in Israel. I woke up at 9 am to make a giant breakfast and shared it with some friends in my building. At…
(Credit to Vahid for this picture) cobblestone streets really great handwriting tea at Bahji in the afternoon spanish moss on willow trees vegetable stands on the side of the road broken pieces of colored glass in the sun old cemetaries…
A cockroach crawled up my jeans leg while I sat at a bus stop yesterday. I had to shake it out…it was about as long as my index finger and quite…wriggly. Not so much fun. Also, I had an entire…
The heat has not been crippling this summer, and I work inside an office during the day, so I do not get the brunt of it. Maybe 15 years of Chicago winters went so far into my bones that I…
I used to write love songs. I would run the tips of my fingers over dry earth, my eyes over the trees passing by. Pulling out every word, using the mortality in my thoughts, idealized in eternity. I used large…
I am strangled by time zone differences and my inability to communicate. I spent the day doing nothing except watching documentaries and baking gluten-free cookies. I didn’t even clean, respond to emails, make phone calls…not one useful thing. Oh, well…
There are certain things that are meant to be done during daylight, or at least at a time when you aren’t asleep on your feet. Cleaning bathrooms, for example. First, I am not a person that likes to clean bathrooms…
“…as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.” -Gibbon, The History of the Decline and…
I drove a car today for the first time in nearly 8 months. (Well, to be completely honest I took a driving test here a few months ago, but I only drove a few blocks, so I don’t think it counts.) It…
Every morning about 10 of us take a sherut to work from our apartment building. A sherut is like a mini-bus, and it arrives every day at 7:45 am. Today it did not arrive. 8 of us stood outside our…