The Ruhi Signature

We've been hosting a Ruhi course at our house. It's a Baha'i thing. Ruhi is an institute that puts together mateIrials intended to provide a consistent and measurable set of spiritual deepening for Bahai's worldwide. Think 'prepared Bible study' and you've got the right idea...except we're not studying the Bible. We're studying Bahai Writings.

This has been a major touchstone for me recently. I thank God that the Ruhi class comes to us. If I had to travel to get there, I probably wouldn't go -- too distracted. Instead, it comes to us: adult classes; children's classes and guitar players, piano players, violin/cello players. and a roomful of people unafraid to sing.

Every Friday evening, our house fills with people, love, joy, music, laughter, and spiritual work.

I'm glad for this because we're putting our spiritual signature on the house we restored. We built it with our hands; with the Ruhi courses, we're signing it with our hearts.

May the energy of these evenings  become part of the vibrations withn this house. I want that to happen. I want that very much.

Thanks, Maggie. I needed this right about now

Devon Gundry - Armed

Devon's a Baha'i. This song is a Baha'i prayer set to music. The actors are all Baha'is, and not professional acting talent. For those of us in the Baha'i community, we can spot Red Grammer as the man in the suit who helps the mugging victim. Don't know who Red Grammer is? Look him up here.

I Must Not Fear...

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear... And when it is gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear is gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Thank you, Frank Herbert.

Scientists say Copernicus remains, grave found

 

Researchers said Thursday they have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus by comparing DNA from a skeleton and hair retrieved from one of the 16th-century astronomer's books. The findings could put an end to centuries of speculation about the exact resting spot of Copernicus, a priest and astronomer whose theories identified the Sun, not the Earth, as the center of the universe.

Scientists say Copernicus remains, grave found

Yes, Comes The Thaw Indeed

This year, R's 'struggle subject' has been Spanish. He has a 'struggle subject' every year. Last year it was writing. The year before that, math. He struggles, he breaks through, and he blooms afterward.

We've been hunkering down for a long, seige-like approach to Spanish. Each time we've had a 'Struggle Subject' in the past, it's taken most of the school year to fix it.

So, imagine my surprise to hear last night that R had his breakthrough yesterday in Spanish. He not only participated in the 'championship' competitions, but he won. Twice. And he served up the first defeat ever to the reigning undefeated kid! R came home full of pride and motivation for the study of Spanish. In three weeks he transformed himself from and 'F' grade to a contender for the head of the class.

THEN we went to Boy Scouts.

A large group of Webelos visited Troop 22 last night. When it came time to line up for the flag ceremony, R, a first year, was surprised to find that the senior troop leadership picked him to act as Patrol Leader for most of the Webelos. He stood there, at the front of the line of scouts, with a look on his face that said 'how did I get here?' And he dutifully paid attention to the proceedings - not his habit when he hides in the crowd. In the crowd, he loses focus and daydreams.

After the flag ceremony, the troop announced the wreath sales contest winners and awarded prizes to the top scouts. R was not expecting to win a prize. But he did, nonetheless. $15 at the Scout Store. Another reward for his hard work and effort. A successful outcome for his first foray into the neighborhood, on his own, to deliver on a fundraiser. That made a good first impression for the Webelos: they were lined up behind a young man who also was a real leader.

We celebrated Spanish and Wreaths after the meeting by going out for ice cream!

If my kid sloshes water out of his shoes as he walks through the house. If he leaves a damp spot on the sofa when he gets up... I won't mind. It's just the melting away of his reticence. The real R is steadily emerging.

Comes the Thaw

R had a Boy Scout campout this last weekend. The troop went to Camp Meriwether, on the Oregon coast. I went along. He had some good decompression time with his 'boys'. He's starting to get the hang of it within the troop. He's not yet contributing as his full potential, but he's starting to be proactive about some duties, and also starting to show his true colors within the troop.

He often hides his skills. They're there, though. Like something valuable, frozen deep inside a block of ice, we all can catch obscure glimpses of those skills, but cannot reach them. People don't know how to utilize him because they can't get a good handle on what we can or will do. Boy Scouts, however, is starting to melt that facade away, starting to call him out as a doer and a leader. He won't fully thaw for some time, but the shell is getting thinner with each campout, each merit badge.

Scooby Doo: Haunted House Hallway Chases

 

I was checking in with an old friend this morning, when an image popped into my head:

 

Over the last few months, we've been unable to button up the real estate situation. Doors have been closing, closing, closing. Just closing.

Our response has been to keep seeking open doors, and to pray for a speedy, safe resolution to the situation. Of course, some days all I could pray for was to 'just make it stop' and leave it up to God to know what I meant by 'It'

Suddenly, stuff starts happening. Doors start opening in unexpected places. We all know the karmic pattern: a door has to close for another to open. Doors are just flying - I really can't keep up with the massive swirl of opportunities coming and going at home and at work. Life looks like one of those Scooby Doo chase scenes in the hallway of a haunted house, where we get to watch everyone run from room to room, doors opening and closing in a flurry. Which door opens next? what/who will come out of it?

The process of having opportunities come out of nowhere is unsettling. It just adds even MORE chaos to a chaotic time.  But I can now ground myself a little more in what's happening. Silly as it is, the Scooby Doo imagery is rather comforting. The chase always ends; the bad guy always gets caught.

This, too, will end well. I can feel that way about it now. But it will end....how? That's what I don't know. God will show us.

Doors are going every which way!

Release. Release. Just Let Go.

There's a voice in my head lately. It goes like this:

"Release it. Release it. Go ahead, release it. ReLEASE it. It's okay. Release....it.
Release it. releaseit releaseit releaseit.   Oh c'mon, release it! releaseitreleaseit
releaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseit
releaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseitreleaseit!"

Those gentle readers who know why I would write the above can understand that I'm working so hard to do exactly that.

"Release it."

The voice is trying to help. Still, I'm experiencing full-fledged anxiety.

You see, I am dealing with a full-fledged heartbreak, and doing so for the first time without the shroud of low-grade depression to deaden the feelings of uncertainty and fear. Low-grade depression may have led to much of my personal inward struggle as a young man, but it was also my protector, my armor. It deadened the joy, but it also killed the pain.

Odd as it may seem, I wish to celebrate this as good news, worthy of the family blog.

I suspect that I am feeling difficult times through all of my emotional faculties. I am feeling fear, anxiety and uncertainty in full flower. It's like being partially deaf, getting a hearing aid and going to a symphony. The change from the deadened familar to the exhuberant whole is unsettling. All that information available requiring mental processing is overwhelming.

It's okay. Let it go."

I had a pretty good handle on my depression during C's Cancer. C's cancer was indeed a fearful time. But it was different. It was an external effect upon the family. It was not heartbreak; it was crisis mitigation. We avoided heartbreak thanks to a victorious outcome. This current situation is directly tied to choices I made, as family leader, which put us inadvertantly in an unstable (notice I didn't say 'dangerous', or 'crisis') position. I tried to help my family recover from the aftermath of cancer. I wanted to make it all better by changing our world. Ultimately, I succeeded in not making it better. I just made it a whole lot of work.

I am in new emotional territory. I am grieving something to the point of violence. For the first time in my life, I can truly relate to the crying, screaming, tear-your-hair-out grief.

"Release it. You need to exercise Detachment."

I am glad, I think, to be having this lesson in heartbreak with an inanimate object - a house - instead of learning this with a loved one (Aki, our aging and geriatric dog, comes immediately to mind). I put so much into that house. I demanded so much sacrafice and effort from my family to achieve the goal that we all bought into. And we achieved it. That's the heartbreak. We DID it....and yet it's entirely possible that we should not even try to hold on to it...that letting go so soon is the best thing for my family.

Though it could easily have turned out so much worse, I still feel real physical pain from this situation.

"Release it. Let it go."

Learn to manage it NOW, N, before you have to manage the heartbreak of something really important.

"Um... you're not letting go yet, you know that? Detachment. Detach!"

Yeah. I know. I'm working on it. Speaking of which, mister voice-in-my-head, wouldn't this be a good chance for you to practice your ... patience?

Now Is The Time For A Global Society...

From Reuters. Whoa.
[link]

LONDON (Reuters) - The international financial crisis has given world leaders a unique opportunity to create a truly global society, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say in a keynote foreign policy speech on Monday.

In his annual speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Brown -- who has spearheaded calls for the reform of international financial institutions -- will say Britain, the United States and Europe are key to forging a new world order.

"The alliance between Britain and the U.S. -- and more broadly between Europe and the U.S. -- can and must provide leadership, not in order to make the rules ourselves, but to lead the global effort to build a stronger and more just international order," an excerpt from the speech says.

Brown and other leaders meet in Washington next weekend to discuss longer term solutions for dealing with economic issues following a series of coordinated moves on interest rates and to recapitalize banks in the wake of the financial crisis.

"Uniquely in this global age, it is now in our power to come together so that 2008 is remembered not just for the failure of a financial crash that engulfed the world but for the resilience and optimism with which we faced the storm, endured it and prevailed," Brown will say in his speech on Monday evening.

"...And if we learn from our experience of turning unity of purpose into unity of action, we can together seize this moment of change in our world to create a truly global society."

According to a summary of the speech released by his office, Brown will set out five great challenges the world faces.

These are: terrorism and extremism and the need to reassert faith in democracy; the global economy; climate change; conflict and mechanisms for rebuilding states after conflict; and meeting goals on tackling poverty and disease.

Brown will also identify five stages for tackling the economy, starting with recapitalizing banks so they can resume lending to families and businesses, and better international co-ordination of fiscal and monetary policy.

He also wants immediate action to stop the spread of the financial crisis to middle-income countries, with a new facility for the International Monetary Fund, and agreement on a global trade deal, as well as reform of the global financial system.

"My message is that we must be: internationalist not protectionist; interventionist not neutral; progressive not reactive; and forward looking not frozen by events. We can seize the moment and in doing so build a truly global society."

Blazer Game

Thanks to our friends, the Loverinks, for helping us score four tickets to last night's Blazers-Rockets game. Final score: 101 to 100, Blazers in overtime. Blazers won the game on a buzzer-beater shot on an inbound pass with 0.8 seconds to go.

From this morning's article in The Oregonian:

"It is, and maybe always will be, one of the greatest shots in Trail Blazers history.

"And it came after Brandon Roy was about to be a goat for at least 48 hours.

"I thought I lost the game," Roy said.

"In a stunning end to a grueling and sometimes ugly game, Roy swished a long three-pointer at the overtime buzzer on an inbound play that started with 0.8 seconds left that gave the Blazers a 101-99 victory over the Houston Rockets on Thursday.

"Wow. Unbelievable shot," Roy said. "I can't say I called it. It was a blessing from above."

"Roy's shot was the ultimate ending to a see-saw final two seconds that saw him make what many thought was a game winning shot with 1.9 seconds left, only to have it erased by a three-point play by 7-foot-6 center Yao Ming with 0.8 seconds left. Yao was awarded the go-ahead free throw after Roy reached in and fouled him while he made a baseline jumper."

The kids had a blast at a delightful game. I got to explain a bit about how basketball works to my lovely daughter; my son already gets the basics of the game, so he was right in it.

The thing they liked best? The blimp that flies around the stadium and drops coupons. Oh, they liked the T-shirt cannons, too.

It was Kevin Duckworth tribute night, so that was fun, if also a little bittersweet. Blazer alumni were there. Chris Dudley worked one of the T-shirt cannons. Somewhere in the fourth quarter, while the fancam was running on the arena jumbotron, the whole family suddenly popped up. The camera framed the four of us: M and I grooving to the music; R bopping around, all involved; C sitting stately and contemplative, yet clearly watching the game closely. The kids were thrilled. Everybody around us was excited for the kids.

We were up really late last night. The kids will probably be useless at school today. But they got to go, and they had a lot of fun.

Thanks again for the chance to go, Loverinks -- it was awesome!

---

Oh, our second house is being shown today. Just a little thing, that...

Photos from PCB Design West back in September

 

I just got a couple candid shots of me, during my presentation at the PCB Design West conference back in September.

 

Thought it'd be fun to share them here.

Wow

Just... wow.

Will Barak Obama be the man to lead us out of this? I don't know. God could put the most qualified person in charge of the US and they could still fail to lead us out of this. This is tricky. As for me, I am willing to let Obama try.

 

Would John McCain have been better? I don't know.  I would have been willing to let him try, too.  I do not know exactly who is the most qualified to lead us through this. I was willing to support whomever we chose; we chose Obama.

 

But... is it possible that the world just became a different place because the United States believes in Barak Obama? Ah, now that is entirely possible.

 

Bahai's are not supposed to be political (apolitical is not the same as being anti-government.) We will continue to pray for the protection of the leaders of our country. We can support the government and the laws we live under.

 

The Johnson family prays for the Obama family. May they have the utmost safety, protection, and wisdom as they transition to their new roles.

House on the Market

We've got the Lesser Way house back on the market. It's not listed with the MLS quite yet...we're flying a craigslist ad for the property as a FSBO at the moment. I expect that our 'realtor for life' will get us listed within the next couple weeks.