In Midnights, In Cups of Coffee

This post is horribly overdue - I should have posted it about three weeks ago. But...life is what it is, right now and time and space feel weird and strange, so here we are.

I have been a Baha'i for an entire year, now. I formally declared in a friend's living room three days before Naw Ruz in 2019, and here we are, in a brand new year. This year looks a whole lot different than the last one, but not all for the negative. So...I figured, in light of all the hard things in the world right now, I'd talk about some of the awesome good that has come out of life in the last year.

Being part of the Baha'i community here has...exploded my life in a lot of really neat ways. I know a lot more people locally than I ever did, and they have showed me such amazing love. A friend recently said something about all the Baha'is they knew being amazingly kind humans, and...oh, they are not wrong. The ways these people have accepted me, in my altogether true, and have helped me find ways to serve and grow alongside them has been astonishing. These are the people of my heart, and I am so glad Baha'u'llah has helped me find them.

My husband is here now! We did the immigration dance, and he came here in June last year, on our second wedding anniversary. I am so incredibly grateful he's here - especially now. Having someone to talk to, to snuggle up to, to play video games with, to cook with...it's still magical in a million ways. I know a lot of people prayed for us and hoped for us and helped us along the way, and I still am sometimes startled and delighted that we got here.

I've found a lot of strengths inside myself I didn't know I had. I'm willingly going out and being social and attending lots of devotionals and other community events now - because my community has made me feel safe and welcome. And sure, it helps that right now they're video chats so I can do it from the comfort of my computer chair at home, but still - I love that there is a place for me to be a part of such an awesome community who is trying really hard to be a force for such good in the world.

I've been making our Baha'i community newsletter every nineteen days for a while now - I've learned so much about design and accessibility and how to make sure that people get the news and information they need in a way that's easy, aesthetically pleasing, and not too intimidating. I've really enjoyed learning the programs I'm using, and seeing how happy this connection to each other has made others in my community. It doesn't feel like I am doing something all that big, but here we are.

I've started recording myself reading various books from my childhood, as a way to spread some joy in the world. I'm posting them on Facebook and Twitter, and it's just been fun to share these happy things in the world, to give people a moment to breathe, to forget the world outside, and just enjoy a fun thing.

This year has been a lot of change. A lot of new things, a lot of hard things, and the world feels like it's a whole lot of struggle right now. So I thought focusing on some bright moments might help. We're going to get through this together, friends. As the Universal House of Justice reminded the Baha'is of the world in a Naw Ruz letter they sent us a short time ago, "However difficult matters are at present...humanity will ultimately pass through this ordeal, and it will emerge on the other side with greater insight and with a deeper appreciation of its inherent oneness and interdependence." We're in this together, my lovelies. We've got each other, and we're gonna make it through. The world will not be quite the same, but there are still flowers that are gonna bloom and birds that are gonna sing and somehow, we'll find a way. Take care of each other, love each other..

I hope to hear about the things that made your heart bubble up with joy over this past year, and maybe even what you're looking forward to in the months to come. We've got this. Today might be hard, but tomorrow will come. It might be hard too, but that's okay. We'll face it together.

They Linger in Closets and Under My Bed

It's almost the end of the year! Well, almost the end of the Baha'i year. Right now it's the last few days of Ayyam-i-Ha, then just 19 more days after that is Naw Ruz, the new year. Year 177 in the Baha'i calendar! And so I find myself in a very reflective mood.

So much has changed this year. Heck, so much has changed in my life in the past few months. I have more stability in some ways, less in others. Things I thought were going to be wonderful things that brought good to my family haven't, and things I didn't think would work out have worked out in ways I'd never expected. 

Right now, though, I have to be patient. I have to wait for a lot of things that are completely out of my control to come to fruition, and the world being dark and full of cold and snow isn't helping much. I know spring's gonna come someday, because it's never not come, but right now, things feel...more impossible and hard to sit with than I wanted them to be. I've talked before about the power of sitting with someone in the quiet spaces, and how it's okay to not have all the answers, but this time, it's a little different.

You see, we're heading into the Baha'i Fast. The last month of the Baha'i calendar is a time of fasting (abstaining from food or drink from sunrise to sunset, if you are able - no putting yourself in danger if medical stuff prevents you, or if you are elderly or very young or travelling), and also a time of prayer and comtemplation - reflecting on the year that's past, disconnecting from our material self and focusing on our spiritual selves. So...sitting in the quiet spaces is almost expected to happen during the Fast, as we sit with ourselves and with each other. 

It's not about punishment, it's not about atonement or absolution, it's about letting go of the world and sinking deeper into our relationship with God. As Abdu'l-Baha wrote, "this material fast is an outer token of the spiritual fast; it is a symbol of self-restraint, the withholding of oneself from all appetites of the self, taking on the characteristics of the spirit, being carried away by the breathings of heaven and catching fire from the love of God". 

For 19 days, it's not about us, our meat-selves and our "idle fancies and vain imaginings". We pause, we reflect, we pray. It's not easy, but its an act of love that requires a lot of patience. So, there's patience layered on patience layered on patience, right now. Patience for the upcoming Fast, patience for my life stuff that's going on in the background, and most of all, patience for myself. I'm not perfect at any of this. In fact...I'm awful at a lot of it. But this year, I'm going to try to sit with myself, in my perfectly imperfectness. I will sit with my joy, with my heartache, with my ardent love for Baha'u'llah,with the things that aren't where I want them to be and the things I don't know yet where they're going.  As Baha'u'llah reminds me in one of my favourite Hidden Words, O SON OF MAN! For everything there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials." (The video below is a sung version of this passage by Rosanna Lea, which is what helped me memorize it a while back.)

The Wisest Amongst Us and Fair

The world is bound by a lot of rules. The rules of the road, the rules of the classroom, the rules of common etiquette, there are rules everywhere. Sometimes the rules are easy and they make a lot of sense - they're there for our safety, to protect us and keep us from injury, harm, sickness, or death. Sometimes, they're less obvious, but we're still expected to follow them. We're told so often that rules are there for our own good, even if we don't understand them. There will always be rules you like, and rules you don't; rules you are willing to follow and rules that are dealbreakers for you.

When I mention to people that I'm a Baha'i, if they know anything about the Faith, they usually ask about the rules. (And even if they don't, people generally realize that religion = rules). They ask what they are, or they mention ones they know and ask me how I cope with obeying. (For me, a lot of the time the "no alcohol or other intoxicating things" is the one that people tend to get stuck on.) Why would I choose to be a part of something with rules like that? There's rules about prayers, about how to live, there's whole books on it. The world is full of enough people telling you what to do , why would you willingly listen to one more?

I stumble over this a lot. The no intoxicants one is easy - I've struggled with that sort of thing in the past, so this, to me, is a convenient way to take the temptation out of my own hands. I never made what people might consider "huge mistakes" with anything, but I know I've made some pretty ungood choices in my past when influenced by those substances. So now, it's nice. I can just go "I don't drink because I choose to trust that Baha'u'llah asked me not to for some very good reasons", and it's done. It doesn't matter if you agree with the decision, but I feel better and more okay with sitting with it. It's not about me trying to keep myself away from something that I struggle with (although that's a nice bonus), it's about me trusting that He asked me to do this, so I can keep a clear head and help the world be a better place.

Some of them are trickier. I'm not always great at remembering my prayers, backbiting and gossip are often very, very tempting, but I try. I try because I want to - because when I was seeking, the rules felt manageable, like I could try to do it, and as I've continued to try my very best, I have seen so many ways following Baha'u'llah's rules have helped me be a happier, kinder, safer person. I've been able to do more, and be more, and I've been able to serve my community in ways I'd never ever ever thought I could.

The rules give me structure, and structure makes my brain happy. My brain *likes* knowing what's next. It keeps my anxiety dinosaur from roaring quite so loud, it keeps my brain spiders from skittering around making messes of things. So now, I can go to Feast even though it means more people than I'm technically happy with in terms of crowds and social stuff and small talk. I can make the newsletter, I can speak up during consultation, I can make friends in my community, I can live and breathe and sleep a little easier, because I get to give so much of the hard decisions to someone else. Baha'u'llah's already told me what to do, so I don't have to stress about it. Baha'u'llah said to "Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday", and to me, that just means that hey, every day is a new day where we can do a little more, try a little harder, and make the world a little happier. And His rules help me do that.

Last night I was talking with a dear friend about some stuff in my life, and he reminded me of another quote I like a lot: "Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning" - in context, it's talking about the fact that we are all going to die someday, and will be accountable for the choices we make, but to me, it also is a nice reminder to think about the day I've had. What did I do well? What was good? What did I learn? What would I change the next day? It helps me refocus myself, and to think about how I am using the rules and guidance that Baha'u'llah has given us, for myself, and for the world around me.

The rules are there because I am loved, because He knew what I'd need to be able to be my best self, what humanity would need as it grows and changes. They're not there to put me down, to subjugate us, but to give us hope, and life, and the tools we need to make the world more awesome. They're an audacious ask, a act of care and compassion. They're an act of trust - trust that we will follow His guidance, that we will trust that He knows what we need, even if we don't understand it yet.

So yes, there are rules. Not nearly as many as you think, and it's surprising how many are just natural extensions of trying to be a good person. But they're rules I can sit with, and that's all that matters.

I Caught Wind and Hit the Road Runnin'

(This was originally supposed to be posted before the Bicentenary, but I got sick. I think there are still some good thoughts in here, though, so I am still posting it.)

In just a few short hours, I will be on vacation for 10 whole days. I'm super excited, and not just because it's a chance to step away from work for a little bit and reset my batteries, but because my time off is going to be FULL of adventures.

If you're not aware, next week marks a pretty big event in the Baha'i world - it's the Twin Holy Birthdays! We get to celebrate the birth of the Bab AND the birth of Baha'u'llah, one day after each other. That in and of itself is pretty cool, but on top of that, this year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Bab, so it's extra super special.

There are SO many things going on in my community in the coming days. We've got celebrations large and small (and trust me, if you have some free time and want to celebrate with us? There's lots of ways we can do that together, no matter if you're a Baha'i or not. We're excited, and we want to share that with everyone!) and it's going to be a time of joy and reverence and celebration and excitement and deep, deep faith. (Also snacks, because you gotta feed body AND soul. It's important.)

I've been thinking a lot lately about my place in all of that - how can I serve? How can I make my mark on this momentous occasion? What does service even look like?

Part of me REALLY wants it to be a big fancy thing. Bright lights, neon signs, big impact. Name goes down in history for doing huge things, changing the world. But...that's not really what I'm good at. If this was a video game, I'd be a support character. The healer, not the hero. The character with one or two moves that aren't useful except for like super specific circumstances when they shine, or one of a pile of minions that aren't super great on their own, but stick a bunch of them together and magic happens.

Is there room for me? Is that enough? Not just right now, as we move into the Bicentenary period, but other times, when there's not this great momentum moving us to this amazing moment? How can I serve Baha'u'llah, my community, the world...when I am just one me?

(image courtesy of besw515@gmail.com, used with permission)

I think about this idea a lot - that anything I do in the spirit of service, is worship. So it doesn't matter if it is a big thing or a small thing, if I do it in the right mindset, it's an act of worship. 

This has helped me reframe a lot of things in my life - I don't have to be necessarily the most bestest and brightest shining-est Baha'i who everyone knows is going out and doing the stuff in the best perfect-est way - I can keep living my life of small joys and small moments, of noticing and breathing into the quiet. 

It's like how I do the newsletter every Baha'i month for my community. It's a small thing - just a page or two on what's going on locally and around the world, events that are coming up, stuff we want to celebrate, things we want to be aware of, anything that we want to share with the community as a whole. I love it because it's something I can do from my house, so no matter where my brain is at, I can get it done. And it's something that is helping my community be better connected to each other, and helping me be better connected to it. It's been changing my community in small subtle ways, and it's been really fun to see. 

So I might not be at every event (my work schedule makes that tricky), I might not be out there teaching children's classes or working in obvious ways in my community, but this is my small way of sharing my skills with my Baha'i community. 

And it's not just about doing "Baha'i" things either - anything counts! So hey, if you make REALLY GOOD bread and you put your whole self into that, and into sharing that with people? That's worship. Checking in on your friends who just had a baby and bringing them soup or other needed things? Totally counts. Do you make sure you show up at your job every day and do your best to do whatever it is you're asked to do? You've got it, that's worship too, if you do it all in a spirit of honest service.

To me, that's the hard bit - it's easy to do good things, but to do them as honest acts of service, instead of waiting for the praise and pat on the head or whatever sort of reward...that takes a bit more work. But, I'm trying my best, and every day, I try to do it a little better than the day before.

So I don't know what the bicentenary will look like. I don't know what my service will look like. But I will go in with my best most honest heart, and do whatever I can to show the love of Baha'u'llah to the world around me. It's all I can do. 

Could I Rise Above the Flood

The world lately seems so angry and frustrated. Heck, I'm angry and frustrated too. It's hard not to be, not to feel powerless when there's things you need that seem to be constantly dancing just out of reach, when it feels like you try so hard and so long and nothing comes of it. It's hard not to feel like Charlie Brown and the football, a little. 

I've been working through one of the Junior Youth Empowerment Program (JYEP for short) books with a dear friend of mine lately - it's called Breezes of Confirmation, and it basically talks about the idea of putting in effort, and God confirming those efforts (framed mostly around growing up and figuring out what sort of career to follow, or what role you will play in your family and neighbourhood). It's aimed at 11-14 year olds, and honestly, I love it a lot. It takes this big scary idea of "how do I know I am on the right path", and makes it approachable.

So, in the midst of all this anger and frustration and not getting what you think you need, how do you sit with it? How do you stop from constantly feeling like every job rejection, every broken promise, every "we should hang out" that never actually results in seeing your friends, every time you try to do something nice and it falls flat, is like Lucy yanked that darn football away again?

Maybe you don't. Maybe you feel SUPER MAD about it for a bit, because, well, feelings are feelings, and it's okay to feel them. Maybe, if you're me, you ask your husband to go for a walk with you even though it's dark because you just want to get out of the house, out of the place that reminds you things aren't where you want them to be just yet. (We're moving in a few weeks, so things feel weirdly stuck and in-between right now.)

But then what? You have your anger squid moment, you get your ice cream, then what? How do you keep going? How do you know when God's saying "hey yo it's all good just wait a few" or "hey yes you are on the right path, it's just longer than you think" or "oh maybe you should turn left here at this stop sign"? 

A lot of it comes down to trust. We are reminded to "[n]ever lose thy trust in God. Be thou ever hopeful, for the bounties of God never cease to flow upon man. If viewed from one perspective they seem to decrease, but from another they are full and complete. Man is under all conditions immersed in a sea of God’s blessings."(Abdu’l Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 205.) And sure, it's nice to know we're immersed in that sea, but sometimes those blessings are hard for us to see. It's hard to have trust, but isn't that what faith is all about?

We gotta start with putting in the effort. If we don't give God a place to start, He's got nothing to work with. It'd be nice if He just dropped things in our laps, but as Abdu'l-Baha reminds us, "Make thou an effort that thou mayest take thy place under the sun and receive an abundant share of its dazzling light." If we just sit at home in the dark with the blinds closed...God can shine all the light on us that He can possibly manage, but we'll never see it. It's like...God wants to rain good things down on us, but we've got to be ready. As a friend put it the other day, if we're just standing on our porch in a raincoat and boots with an umbrella up, the rain can come down forever, and we'll never feel it. We'll be dry, but trees don't really grow well in deserts.

Heck, Baha'u'llah himself reminds us of this, in one of the Hidden Words - "O SON OF BEING! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant." So, we do our best. We live and love and try and wait and maybe sometimes we do have a temper tantrum or ice cream for dinner or whatever it is that we do when we are just our most vibrating anger squid full of feelings, but God sees us, He sees us trying, and one of these days, we'll kick that football so fast and so hard it'll bounce into the next neighbourhood. 

Hope You Laugh More than You Cry

Summer's over, it's turning into fall, and it feels like everything is changing. The leaves are going to lose their colour, I'm starting to pack to move into a new apartment, my husband is looking for work (he immigrated here at the end of June)...so much is going to be different by the time the year ends. I've kinda been...swamped under it all. Work is tricky right now and it is taking a lot of my patience, and there are so many details to figure out with my move, and there are SO MANY boxes to pack. Plus, we're managing on one income right now (but God willing, not for much longer!). So much going on, and very few moments to squish it all into, let alone to just breathe and...not think about any of it.

Change is hard. I've lived in the same apartment in the basement of a house for almost 7 years, I know my neighbourhood inside and out. I know when the buses come and go, I know where the good bread is found, and the best spot to get coffee. Admittedly, I'm only moving 3 kilometers away, but still. New neighbourhood, different sector of my Baha'i community, different apartment (but no more laundromat trips! We will have on-site laundry!). New patterns of life, new struggles, new challenges, new joys and delights.

I'm trying to just sit with all of this change, and trust that God's going to see us through, as he always has. I might be saying Remover of Difficulties ("Is there any Remover of difficulties save God?  Say: Praised be God!  He is God!  All are His servants, and all abide by His bidding!") over and over and over (it's a nice short prayer, and I find it helps even as just a mantra to keep me chill), but that's because I know He's got us, and is holding us and guiding us through this. Even if I am shaking in my boots most of the time and have cried from exhaustion and stress more than I want to admit.

There's a quote I found recently from Abdu'l-Baha that I really like - "Man must turn to the light and not think that the form of the lamp is essential, for the lamp may be changed; but he who longs for light welcomes it from whatever source it comes." (Divine Philosophy, p. 33). It reminds me that in the end, it doesn't much matter where I live or what's going on, as long as I know where to find my light. Maybe it's a flashlight and not a big fancy Tiffany lamp, or it's flickering firelight or a single leftover birthday candle - what matters is that I know where it is and I look to it. So I carry a bit of God's light with me in the prayers I know and the quotes from the Writings that float in my head, and I fill myself with light during my Ruhi circles or Nineteen Day Feast or reading all of the Baha'i books I can get my hands on. I spend time with my friends and my loved ones, I take time for myself when I need it, and I remind myself that even if I was the only Baha'i on an island somewhere, isolated and alone, I have God's love and Baha'u'llah's guidance written on my heart.

So I can face all this change. I'm not doing it alone, and maybe right now there's more tears than laughter, but I'm making my way.

You'll Always Follow the Voices Beneath

I read a lot. Like a lot a lot. As of earlier today, I've read 244 books since January 1st. My e-reader is always in my bag wherever I go, I read while I walk, I read on the bus, I read everywhere and I read super fast. It's just something I've always been able to do - I started reading really young, and I just...never stopped. I like books! They're my constant companions.

The only problem is, though, is that I read in my head. I very rarely have to read out loud in my day to day life, so I've never really thought about it - there've been a number of words where I am not always sure if how my brain reads them is how they should come out of my mouth, but I can mostly get by without worry. That is, until relatively recently, when I've been asked to read things as part of Ruhi circles, or during the devotional portion of Feast! All of a sudden I am tackling language out loud in a way that I've never really had to do before. And often, I'm reading things from the Writings, which means dealing with language patterns that are often unfamiliar to me - it's the language of revelation, modelled on the language patterns of the King James Bible, and sometimes my tongue gets tangled in the bigness of not only the words, but the concepts themselves. 

Not only that, I'm doing this in front of a number of people - if it's my Ruhi circle, it might only be a small handful, but if it is a devotional, it's a bigger handful, and if it's Feast, it means a relatively big handful (or maybe even both my cupped hands). I know my community is just grateful for my willingness to do it, but it trips me up hard. I read in my head with so much ease, but suddenly I'm in front of people and my tongue and my brain just struggle with working together.

On top of all this - I'm a very anxious human. So I'm often trying to read, and also likely wiggling/stimming/twitching/flapping/moving some parts of me at the same time, and also probably giving up on the idea of making eye contact entirely. All of my focus goes to making sure I give the words I am reading the respect they so deserve. I manage pretty well (although words like quintessence and omnipotence never fail to tangle my tongue.)

It's one of the weird moments in my life where I can really notice some of my more neuroatypical traits, and it's kinda jarring sometimes. I mean yes, I often end up with my fidget cube in my fingers at some point during the longer bits of Feast so my brain can pay attention, or I handflap when I get really excited (come on, how could you not be excited by the phrase "That time has come." from the 2019 Ridvan message?), but those just feel like extensions of my emotions or an attempt to make sure I'm giving people my attention and focus. When I have to read out loud in front of people, there's a little voice in the back of my head going "NOT ONLY are we reading out loud BUT ALSO people are gonna notice you're twisting and rubbing your fingers or tapping your feet or or or or or".

So a lot of this is just me...learning in public, I guess, how to accept myself in all of myself, in all of my most imperfectnesses. I might need to practice reading out loud (my cat makes an excellent captive audience), I might not ever be able to properly look people in the eye as I read prayers or quotes from the Writings, I might always be a twitchy kinetic stimming bouncing joy bean - and that's okay. I'm Ash, and I'm always trying. As Baha'u'llah tells us, O SON OF BEING! Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning" - which to me has always felt like a reminder that I should always think about my actions, and always strive to keep a humble posture of learning, no matter what. So, I will keep reading at Feast, I'll keep embracing my handflaps of joy and the way hearing about some aspects of pilgrimage or the history of the Baha'i Faith literally making me have to lie down on the floor flattened with my limbs stretched out like a starfish. 

On the Edge of the World, or Wherever We Are

Sometimes, I feel so grounded in my physical spot in the world. My house, the street I live on, my city, the people I see every day. the bus routes I take, that's my whole world. Other days, I delight in the joy that my world is SO much bigger than that - I have friends scattered all over the globe, in so many different time zones and countries and cities and towns and places. I spend a lot of time online - when I struggle with facing the outside world (it's gotten better, but sometimes, the world is still too big and I am still so very small), my pocket friends (they live in my phone, which fits in my pocket, mostly) were always there for me. Heck, they still are, all the time. We share our lives in a million ways, big and small.

If it wasn't for that sort of online existence, so much of my life would be different. I'd not have my fantastic husband (met him on Stack Exchange, in one of the Arqade chat rooms), or most of my best friends, I'd not have learned about the Baha'i Faith, I'd've probably struggled more with various aspects of my personality and identity, but here I am, as whole as I can make myself, with a pretty cool bunch of humans at my back.

I know the internet is so ubiquitous now that a lot of people don't blink at the idea of having pocket friends in countries they've never heard of (I've had to explain where Guam is a lot, and I've gotten a lot better at American and European geography, and time zone math!), but it still delights me endlessly that I can just...find these people. It's given me so many different perspectives and things to delight in. 

It does make things uniquely complex, though - try getting friends together for some role-playing games when you've got up to a 14 hour time difference involved, or remembering who is sleeping and who is awake when you found the BEST comic that you just HAVE to share. That's not even mentioning the giant pile of immigration paperwork and time and money and prayers it took to get my husband here! Add in my meatspace localish friends who I *can* physically hang out with, and sometimes I am just very glad for things like my Google calendar to sort out when and where I gotta be. 

I'd not change it for anything, though. My friends are some of the best people I could ever ask for. They've seen me through joys, and sorrows, through weddings and births and sicknesses and graduations and so many things in between.

I've been thinking about my friends a lot lately, as my life goes through all of this change. How I've come to realize that these people are still here, still supporting me through all of this chaos and magic and joy, and it's really been bringing home this idea of unity in diversity that happens to be one of the core tenets of the Baha'i Faith.  As Baha'u'llah stated, in one of the Hidden Words, "O CHILDREN OF MEN! Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest."

We're all different - different places, different thoughts, different looks and hearts and wants and needs and experiences. Our relationships to each other aren't perfect, we still fight and argue and have impassioned discussions about how the world should be, but we're also lucky to be able to see outside ourselves, to understand that this tiny spot of ground we happen to put our feet isn't all the world is. 

It seems like lately the world is convinced we need to be divided - along country lines, states/provinces, gender, sexuality, religion, whenever we can shove each other into neatly labelled boxes so we can have an us and a them, where the us is good and the them is bad, the world seems to delight in it. It breaks my heart. 

Maybe you don't have a world-spanning online community, but I challenge you to start looking outside your boxes. It's not going to be easy (I still struggle with some of the challenges of the different perspectives and personalities I encounter, both online and in meatspace, every day), but I think it's worth doing. Maybe you'll just learn a new food you've not encountered, maybe you'll make a new friend, maybe it won't go perfectly at all - but if we are going to make the world better, maybe we can all try to stretch ourselves a little further, open our arms a little wider. 

Every Single Day, I Walk Down the Street

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to truly love myself. It's something I struggle with a lot, and I know I'm not alone in that. The world tells us to love ourselves, to pamper ourselves, all of those messages about self-care and bubble baths and crushing that workout at the gym and treating yourself to that one thing that will make you feel better.

But what do you do when you don't have money for fancy pedicures or massages or trips away or bubble baths? What do you do when you work weird hours and have no tub and can't afford to take time off work? How do you love yourself when you are exhausted and stressed beyond all belief?

It's not easy. Some days I just feel like everything's impossible, that there's nothing good left in me. I can't summon up the energy to heat up a Cup Noodle, let alone anything else, and that mountain of cardboard that needs to go to the recycle is threatening to take over the kitchen again, and it all feels like it is just too much. I don't have the time or the wherewithal to do any of that "self-care" stuff, it's all I can do to just get home, curl up in bed, and hope the next day will be better (or at the very least, different).

Something I keep clinging to is this idea that it's okay to not love all of myself every day. Some days are easy - I put on my swishy black bellydance pants and I go out and I feel like I can conquer the world, or I pull on my patch covered denim jacket and dance my way through my errands. Other days, I might just love a tiny bit of myself. Other days, I have to trust that even if I can't see the good, it's still in there. And other days....other days I gotta turn to something outside myself.

One of my favourite Hidden Words is "O SON OF MAN! Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty." I love holding onto that - this idea that God loved the idea of a me SO MUCH that He couldn't bear there not being a me in the world. So here I am, born out of such a great love. So how can I not love me, if He loved me enough to make me, just as I am, in all my awkward strange frustrating beautiful ridiculous miraculous wholeness? He knew I wasn't gonna be perfect, because none of us are, but He made me anyhow. Doesn't matter how many people barked or mooed at me as I walked down the street, or how many people told me I was too much or not enough or that I'd never or that I always - at the end of the day, there's something bigger than all that for me to hold onto.

It's not perfect - there are days where I sit and am like "Okay, God, but why did you create me just this way, with these problems or tricky bits?" And I probably won't ever know the answers to all that. But that's alright. I just put one foot in front of the other, and trust that God's holding onto me, and He'll see me through. (And maybe I also raid the change jar for enough money for ice cream, because that's good too.)

I've also given myself permission to find the things that feel good to me. I wear bright happy dresses because I like the way they look and feel, I wear pants that swish when I move because I like clothes that move as much as I do. I don't like socks, so I don't wear them (unless it's too cold). I figure that even if I can't fix everything, if I can at least feel good in the things I am wearing, it's a small step. And they might not always be the things that other people think I should wear (when you're tall and fat, people have LOADS of ideas of what you "should" wear), but it makes my heart bubble up with joy, so I figure that's good enough. The rest of the world can just deal with it - God knows, literally, that I am a bright joyful chaos bean of absolute love and delight, and if other people don't like handflaps of joy and holographic nail polish and clothes that make it clear I have a body that takes up space in the world, well, I can't help that.

So, sit with yourself. Find just one tiny thing you love. Think about how the universe put you together just so, so that one thing or three things or however many things could exist. I promise you, even in the darkest dark, when you can't find a thing to love about yourself, someone does. Maybe you don't see it as God loving on you, maybe it's just how your friend says they love your smile or your partner compliments your cooking or your kids tell you you are soft and good for hugs. Whatever it is, hold onto it. Write it down, somewhere you'll see it. Don't worry if you can't do the bubble baths and wine or the mani-pedis or the trips to faraway places or massages - there's plenty of room for small joys too.

Emotion, Devotion, to Causing a Commotion

Every day, a million million things yell for our attention. Buy this car, eat this sandwich, wear these clothes, put on this makeup, go to this vacation spot, and EVERYTHING WILL BE BETTER. Your skin will glow, your dog will stop using that corner of the living room as a bathroom, your kids will stop fighting over who gets the last Pop-Tart, you'll be happy and everything will be perfect.

We all know it doesn't work that way. It would be great if all my problems could be magically solved with some fancy cheese and the right pair of shoes, but...having consumed a lot of string cheese and walked right through a whole bunch of flip-flops, I'm still waiting for that magic moment. 

So what now? What do I do to make the world better, to make myself better, to get even a tiny itty bitty fraction closer to whatever it is that we're supposed to be striving for? 

Step one, I've found, is realizing that it's never gonna be instant. You'll fail, a LOT. You're gonna let people you love down, you're gonna let yourself down, the community that's supposed to love you and walk with you is gonna let you down too. Because oh hey, we're all just ridiculous meat people trying to figure out this giant cosmic mess. It's a pretty big thing to be trying to do while also making sure the kids are dressed and the cat's fed and oh hey did someone drink the last of the milk again? 

The best part about this, for my Baha'i self, is that it's....kinda expected I'm gonna suck at stuff sometimes. Why else do we have loving Writings that tell us stuff like "Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday."? Sure, fine, today sucked, you messed up, you tripped and fell on your face, but...hey, guess what, tomorrow is a brand new day. You can try again.

I think that's something we forget a lot, this sort of kindness. Obeying the rules (whatever they are to you and however they look) isn't easy. If it was easy, we'd not need them written down and laid out for us. There are "rules" of the Baha'i Faith that I know are a struggle for me. Like Baha'u'llah's reminder to " let your heart burn with loving kindness for all who may cross your path". Some days I don't want to be loving and kind! I want to be angry and stompy and knock over buildings like Godzilla. But He knows that, and He's made room for it, as long as I pick myself up, dust myself off and keep walking the path He's set for me. 

Maybe we gotta do that for ourselves, too. It's so easy to compare ourselves to our family or friends or that stranger down the street who REALLY seems to have it all together. It's easy to think they've got it all sorted, that they're following all the rules and they're not spilling spaghetti down their shirt and ending up with mismatched socks. But maybe their yesterday sucked, and we're just seeing them in their much better morn. Even if we aren't, even if we are seeing them in their default state and we don't feel like we could ever measure up, we owe it to ourselves to remember that in the end, that's not what we're here for! We're here for such a short time, and we have so much to do and to learn and so many ways to grow and so many tiny little miracles to experience. 

It's good to know what the rules are, what we're seeking to achieve. But it's also good, I think, to acknowledge that knowing and doing are vastly different things. After all, we're told "let deeds, not words, be your adorning," for a dang good reason I think. Words are easy, doing's the tricky part, and to keep doing and keep trying even when we have scraped our knees for the hundredth time (I have the scars to prove it, I can show you)? That's where the real love is. 

That's the answer, I think. Find the love that drives you. For me, it's the love of God and Baha'u'llah, for you it might be something else entirely. But it's in there. Love yourself enough to keep trying, to keep doing the things out of that love that drives your very soul, and that's what obedience really looks like.