heart memory

in May ten years will have passed since my soul journey to East Africa. i sometimes remember Asmara, Eritrea and tears come to my eyes. it was such a powerful trip. such a look into the nobility of being human. my heart is still attached and i hope that whatever happens in my future, a part of it is getting back to "the Continent".

yeah, ten years and my passport is stamped on so many pages that i had to have new pages added. i know it has been ten years because today i go to the US Embassy to have my passport renewed for another ten years.

it is strange the things in our lives that mark the time. the first passport i ever had was for going to East Africa. during a 3 day visit to the Baha'i Holy Land in Haifa, Israel, it was stolen. well my ENTIRE bag was stolen and it was by the grace of God that i got out of Israel and back home. that in and of itself is a story. needless-to-say, my passport says, "Issued- U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv, Israel", a temporary passport...so i have to tell people at customs when i enter any country, "Go to page 21. My passport was extended.

today i turn in my old one for a new one. i was elated when i found out that i get the old one back. the photo of the 22 year old me has a great tan. my new one will be a much paler version. the effects of life in the city!!!

so 22 is now 32 and with countless life changing experiences under my belt still, none move me like my memories of East Africa. none.

Japan:1st Nite Highlights

I arrived at the Narita Airport in the early afternoon. Layli told me to give her a call when I arrived but of course I hadn't printed out the email with her number. So I found an internet station, logged in, got her number and the bus info.



Of course it was awesome that the exit I took led right to my bus stop. Shibuya Excel Hotel. Meeting in the lobby.

Layli met me right after work and we headed to her house. I had stayed up pretty late the night before salsa dancing and started to feel it. Luckily Layli is as laid back as me and she was cool with me taking a nap at her place. We were going to a Baha'i gathering that night. It was a social night that had been going on for years. I found out later while at the gathering that it was the brain child of Layli and other friends years earlier. They started it and other folks took up the responsibility over time. I was so impressed by this. That this effort had not become an "event" that people could say, "Remember when we did this.." No, it was more, "Remember when this started and now look at what it has become." What the evening has become is a portal to the 3 core activities. I will touch on this in a moment.

When we first arrived I must admit it was a bit awkward. It takes a minute sometimes in Asian cultures for people to warm up. Once we got to talking with folks though it didn't take long for me to become comfortable. I was immediately introduced to two Maxwell students, Khotaro and John, who would later take me out for a walk on the town. It is incredible that over ten years later, I am still meeting Maxwell students. It doesn't come up in conversation very easily anymore so I don't realise sometimes that I am in the company of other Maxwell attendees.

Okay, portal to the three core activities. When Baha'is choose to take on a social activity that has the purpose but to: 1) to engage others in the spirit of the Faith 2) to naturally mention the Faith or one of the three core activities in their conversations, one begins to see something unfolding. The fact that I am living in Korea and involved in the Ruhi Study Circle process opens a point of commonality with most Baha'is around the world. This is basically how the conversation at the social in Tokyo went:

Baha'i 1: "So where do you live?"
Baha'i 2: "In Korea"
Baha'i 1: "Oh, really. I was just at Summer School there. I didn't see you there."
Baha'i 2: "Yes, I was busy but it looks like I should've gone because a few folks from here went to it."
Baha'i 1: "It was a wonderful meeting the Baha'is in Korea. We talked alot about the Ruhi Study circles."
Baha'i 2: " Yeah, they have been going well. It started off a little slow and there still is a need for more tutors but people are really starting to see the wisdom behind being involved in them. "
Friend: "What is a study circle?"

The young woman who asked about the study circle was from Korea and was very interested in joining a study circle in Tokyo. She and I were able to talk some about life in Seoul. It was my first real experience where I saw how natural it is to mention the activities of the Faith in certain places. I also saw that when we are striving to live a Baha'i life it is not unnatural to mention the Faith. It becomes as normal as talking about where you work or where you live. It is your life not an extention of it. It that one night. At that one occasion I learned so many lessons about how the process works and the importance of the condition of the individual believer being spiritually healthy.















In the first picture there is May, Layli, myself, and the young lady from Korea. In the second picture, in the place where Layli was, is a woman who is from China. She is a friend of May's. May invited her and she invited her friend from Korea. So in our small group, every woman was from a different country but we also established a VERY important commonality, all of us were in our 30's!!!

Submitting to Reality

The reality that this will not be in chronicalogical order but a bit stream of conciousness. I will begin in 2006, Seoul South Korea. There is Korea 2002, 2003, 2004. There is Vietnam 2004. There is Australia 2003. There is Japan 2006 and 2004. There is Zimbabwe, Lesotho, South Africa 1998, and my true heart's journey Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haifa Isreal 1997. Before that is my time at Maxwell International Baha'i School, British Columbia and serving in Diversity Dance Workshop in Washington State.

I will write from the present while ,eventually, pulling in the past.

The Beginning

To write of the places I have been and how my heart has been changed, I would have to start with the summer between fourth and fifth grades. I think I was 10 years old and had only been to my grandparents house in Vermont. A trip I cannot remember very well. The reason I see this particular trip as pivotal in my life is because of the wisdom I gained but I am getting ahead of myself.

For my entire 10 year old life I was surrounded by the most beautiful religious community, the Baha'i community. Growing up in South Carolina could have been potentially difficult for a mixed race child of a wierd named religion yet these years hold a sweetness in my memory. My parents would host bonfires in the backyard of our country home for people living in the Florence-Darlington areas. I think people came up once from as far away as Frogmore, which is about a three hour drive from my parents home. Ahhh, the singing and talking and laughter that filled my house and yard. I would fall asleep cradled by these sounds. I would visit Baha'is with my dad and attend gatherings at the Louis Gregory Baha'i Insitute, which would be a pivotal place in my life as a youth. My identity as a Baha'i was all I knew and all I knew was acceptance and love. Then there was the trip that opened my young eyes to other realities.

One day after children's class, I was invited by the host to accompany her and her daughter on a road trip to Kansas for a Baha'i summer school. I was so excited when my mother said it was okay for me to go. Little did she know that this would be the first of many, yeses. A couple of weeks later I got comfortable in the back seat of my children class teacher's car and off we went. I remember watching the scenery change as we passed through the States and loving how different each place was. I was an inquisitive child I guess because a young man who traveled with us turned to look at me from the passenger seat to say, "Next she will be asking, 'Why is the sky up?' " Everyone laughed and I remember being miffed and sulking for a little while but I got over it.

On the way to the summer school we stopped over in Kansas at the home of a family who shared my last name but not the same family line. This family would later be important to me when I moved to Chicago. They had a young son and I read to him in bed and stomped mushrooms in their front yard because I didn't like them. The parents loved the fact that I read to their son but I got in trouble for stomping the mushrooms. I didn't think about the fact that now they were in bitable baby sizes.

The next morning the baby, his mom, my question weary travel companions and me all left for the Baha'i school together. I could hardly contain my excitement. I was going to get to meet other Baha'is and become friends with them.

The first thing I remember is not being able to make any friends. No one would talk to me. I intuitively felt that I had two things against me, I was too young and an outsider. This was hard for a child who was used to a different reality. I ended up befriending another outkast. A little girl who obviously was not wealthy and usually alone. Depsite this friend, I stayed alone alot. I don't remember much else about this trip other than learning to make paper, that the baby had an allergic reaction to eggs, and my heart breaking.

I had learned that Baha'is could be like everyone else. That they could be cold and unwelcoming. That attention was paid by some to financial status. That people who are unlike themselves could be shunned. Even now as I think about this my eyes tear up because this is when I lost my innocence as a Baha'i child. I had seen and experienced many harsh things in my everyday life but the Baha'i community had remained untainted. I can't remember if I said something to the adults I traveled with. I don't remember talking much on the way back to South Carolina. All I remember is longing to be home.

Yet it wasn't my heart breaking that made the trip so pivotal, it was the decision I came to. That I was a Baha'i and loved Baha'u'llah because it was who I was. I could not imagine a life without this identity or this love. It was a good thing for me to see at such a young age that the religion was perfect not the people in it. I decided that I would not let the way other Baha'is behaved toward me make me turn my back on what had shaped my life. I remember conciously making this decision at 10 years old. I remember realising, "I am a Baha'i because I want to be not because of the people."

This independance completed my sense of independance that came prior to the divorce of my parents. This was only the beginning. From that time on I have traveled many roads and experienced many changes of heart. The trip to Kansas in the summer between fourth and fifth grades forever bound my heart to the Faith I had grown up loving.