I'm experimenting with some ideas for a Web calendar for the Richmond Cluster. Here are some calendar hosting Web sites I'm looking at:

http://www.google.com/calendar/
http://www.30boxes.com/
http://www.eventful.com/
http://www.airset.com/
http://www.socialweb.net/
http://www.calendarhome.com/
http://calendarhub.com/
http://www.calendars.net/
http://www.famundo.com/
http://www.hipcal.com/
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/
http://www.kiko.com/
http://www.localendar.com/
http://www.meetwithapproval.com/
http://www.myhomepoint.com/
http://mosuki.com/

This thought came to me yesterday:

The first idea you try, doesn't have to do everything you want it to do.

I pondered that for a while, then this thought came to me:

The first idea you try, doesn't have to do anything you want it to do.

This is for anyone who might be curious about what I've been doing with my time for the last few months.

Some of it has been driving Patty (my wife) to and from her Master's degree classes. She's working on a Master of Education with emphasis on emotional disturbance. I also put together booklets for the Kindergarten class she's teaching, that she gets from the Internet and from materials at the school. I posted earlier about the work I've been doing on the computers.

Some of my time has been spent in an Internet discussion, posting ideas from some research I'm doing on the gospel of Jesus. Jesus calls His gospel the "gospel of the Kingdom." I've noticed in previous research that what He says and does in the gospels is full of implicit references to Old Testament writings. I'm going through the gospel of Matthew, trying to take a fresh look, using the Ocean Software Library to search for Old Testament writings that might be relevant, with two questions in mind:

1. What kingdom is He talking about?

2. What good news is He bringing about that kingdom?

Some of my time has been spent working with a friend of ours from France whose been staying with us. We've been working on some problems he's been having with his computer, and on some of his projects.

Some of my time has been spent on some work I've been doing for my Baha'i Local Spiritual Assembly.

Some of my time is spent enjoying life with Patty.

Quest for a humane egg

A friend of mine has been trying to practice a humane diet. She says that giving up eggs is especially hard. I thought maybe it was possible to find places to buy eggs that are only from chickens that are treated properly. When I bought eggs this morning, I noticed that some are labeled "Free Roaming." I bought some, just to help me get into the right spirit, not that I trusted the label or had any idea what it might mean.

After I got home, I did some research and found some examples of what it might mean:

My Quest for a Humane Egg
by David Sudarsky
http://www.thevegetariansite.com/ed_eggs.htm

Maybe I can find a some people who raise chickens, who take good care of them, and who will sell me some of their eggs.

Down Memory Lane

The Carpenters, 1971, "We've Only Just Begun"

Down Memory Lane

Petula Clark, "Downtown"

The last two months I've been having a lot of adventures on computers. Some of them are related to working on the old Power Macs in Patty's Kindergarten class, and some of them are related to helping Charlotte with the Gentoo system on her computer.

Power Macs

Two or three years ago Patty salvaged some Power Macs that other teachers were getting rid of, for her Kindergarten students to use. She found some educational games for them on CDs, and her students use them a lot. This year she wanted them to be able to use them to go to the Compass Learning Odyssey Web site, and to be able to print on the printer connected to her PC. The teachers all have new PCs this year. The iMacs they used last year are for the students to use now.

She has four Power Macs: three are 6250/100 and one is 6250/100 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_5200_LC ).

There were three of them that could go on the Internet, but they kept crashing. Also, the students keep moving system files and changing their names.

I was completely lost in Mac operating systems, and I needed more time to practice and experiment. I found out I could emulate a Mac in Windows on my computer at home, so I did. I Installed the same Mac OS that's on the computers at the school, on my virtual Mac at home, and spent dozens of hours studying and practicing so I could fix the systems at the school, and set them up to do what Patty wanted them to do. Now I'm a Mac wizard. Then I found out that it's impossible to use the Compass Learning Web site on those computers at all.

Gentoo

Charlotte has Gentoo on her computer at home because that's what's on the computers at the lab where she's been working. She was having some troubles with it, so I installed it on my second hard drive to practice using it so I could help her. Fortunately I encountered exactly the same problem she was having starting the desktop, and I found a solution. Of course that was after dozens of hours of study and practice.

Other adventures

While I was working about those projects, I learned a lot about emulators, programs that create a virtual computer and operating system on some other computer and operating system. Now I have a virtual Mac running System 7 in Windows XP on my PC, and a virtual PC running Debian Gnu/Linux, and Debian running in coLinux. I'm on my way to becoming a Debian wizard now.

I just noticed that I didn't have comments enabled!

Loaves and fishes
Youth Service Project
Started 6/5/05

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Day One:

Patty and I came home in the car. There was a crowd of young people hanging around at the corner. One of them was sitting on a bicycle where we usually park the car, and didn't move, so I parked somewhere else. I went up to the apartment with Patty, and got the mentoring book. I had decided that the next time I saw young people hanging around outside our apartment building, I would go out and talk to them about mentoring. The Book was "The Miracles of Mentoring," by Thomas W. Dortch, Jr. and The 100 Black Men of America, Inc., with a forward by Tom Joyner of the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Daniel was cheering me on.

I went out and said I'd like to talk to them about mentoring. I showed them the book, and said that they're all mentors, because they all have children in their lives, watching them and learning from them. The only question is, how good a mentor are you?

Some of the boys acted disdainful, but one of the two girls asked to see the book. She looked at it, and said it looked good. I said I'd like to get together with them sometimes, and go through the book together. The girl said we couldn't get together. I don't remember exactly what she said, but I got the idea that she meant someone would come and break it up. I said that I saw them getting together all the time. Then I said, "All right, whenever I see you hanging around here, I'm going to come out and read this book to you." She said that everyone would go away.

I started reading, and everyone started going away, only most of them just went across the street and stood on the corner there. I read louder, screaming at a few points that seemed especially significant to me. I was wondering if someone would call the police because of me, and sure enough, in a few minutes two police cars pulled up. I kept reading. The officers got out of their cars, but they didn't come to me. The went to the young people, and it looked like they were having a friendly conversation with them. Little by little, over a period of several minutes, they drifted away. I kept reading until the last one left, then I went to the officers and asked them if they wanted to talk to me. One of them gave me a big smile and said "No, you're fine!"

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Day 2:

There were some young people standing at the corner again, so I got the book and started reading it to them again. They walked half a block away and stood there. I kept reading, but I wasn't yelling this time. Sometimes two or three walked past me. One came to me and asked me if I was reading from the Bible. I said no, it's about mentoring. He asked me if I was getting paid for it. I said no, it was my own idea. I think he asked me if I live around here, and I said yes, right here in this house. Then he apologized and went away. I'm not sure what he was apologizing for.

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Day 3:

I went one block up and down the street, in all directions from our house, standing at corners, and in the middle of the block, saying the prayer for youth. I also went to the other end of our block, where Burley lives, and did my poem for the people who live there, who were sitting on the porch. Later, when I went with Anita to see Walter and say prayers with him, I told them both about about Day 1 and Day 2. I also told them about the poem, which tied for second place in the Just Poetry Slam May 30 at the Firehouse Theater. They suggested that I do the poem for the young people, and tell them about the Slam.

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Day 4:

I tried to talk to the young people about the poetry contest, but they just made fun of me.

I found someone to do skits with me for the people at the other end of the block, and I found some children to work with.

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Day 5:

I read with some children.

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Day 6:

I walked around the neighborhood in my pajamas.

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Day 7:

I walked around the neighborhood in my pajamas again.

I asked people to pray for the young people in our neighborhood to learn to serve the community.-

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Day 8:

I read books with some children.

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Day 9:

I read books with some children.

I passed out a sheet to some of my neighbors, about ways I might be of service:

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Free services for neighbors

Offered by Jim Habegger

Examples:

- Help with computers and the Internet

- Help with learning crafts

- Helping children with reading and math

- Cooperative games with children

- Help with finding all kinds of information

Other services may be available. Just ask!

Now I've found a good use for this. This is something I really want to remember.

Today I suspended my posting privileges on the Planet Baha'i boards, for three days, because I said something uncomplimentary about someone without at least one week of preparation.

Within a few hours, something wonderful happened. I had a complete paradigm shift. I realized that instead of trying to acclimate Baha'is to the ideas of all the people we're marginalizing, I need to work on reducing emotional abuse. I can build that around the Guidelines for Local Spiritual Assemblies on Domestic Violence, and on the Five Year Plan goal about awareness of social issues in the larger society.

Then I won't need to keep doing all these things that set off people's Covenant alarms.

Now I see rw's big mistake. Imagine trying to treat a domestic violence situation with mediation and conflict resolution.

In the previous post, below, is a message I sent, called "Message in a bottle," to every Baha'i in my address book, and posted on a Planet Baha'i discussion board.

One of the people I wrote to sent me this, in response:

The blessings of Bahá'u'lláh are a shoreless sea, and even life everlasting is only a dewdrop therefrom. The waves of that sea are continually lapping against the hearts of the friends, and from those waves there come intimations of the spirit and ardent pulsings of the soul, until the heart giveth way, and willing or not, turneth humbly in prayer unto the Kingdom of the Lord. Wherefore do all ye can to disengage your inner selves, that ye may at every moment reflect new splendours from the Sun of Truth.

Ye live, all of you, within the heart of Abdu'l-Bahá, and with every breath do I turn my face toward the Threshold of Oneness and call down blessings upon you, each and all.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 192)

"O friends! Be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed, neither be neglectful of your high destiny. Suffer not your labors to be wasted through the vain imaginations which certain hearts have devised. Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life of all men, the letters inscribed upon His sacred scroll. With the utmost unity, and in a spirit of perfect fellowship, exert yourselves, that ye may be enabled to achieve that which beseemeth this Day of God. Verily I say, strife and dissension, and whatsoever the mind of man abhorreth are entirely unworthy of his station. Center your energies in the propagation of the Faith of God. Whoso is worthy of so high a calling, let him arise and promote it. Whoso is unable, it is his duty to appoint him who will, in his stead, proclaim this Revelation, whose power hath caused the foundations of the mightiest structures to quake, every mountain to be crushed into dust, and every soul to be dumbfounded. Should the greatness of this Day be revealed in its fullness, every man would forsake a myriad lives in his longing to partake, though it be for one moment, of its great glory -- how much more this world and its corruptible treasures!"

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 196)

This morning, an intense longing and yearning came over me, to see more followers of Baha'u'llah awaken to our high calling.

In this world of chaos, confusion, fraud, delusion, glorified brutality, gift-wrapped emptiness, shameless self-gratification, polished heartlessness, and senseless sensuality, I see some people standing on the shores of a fathomless and surging ocean of healing waters, some feebly flickering lamps standing next to an inexhaustible reservoir of oil.

Is it only one more delusion?

"O wayfarer in the path of God! Take thou thy portion of the ocean of His grace, and deprive not thyself of the things that lie hidden in its depths. Be thou of them that have partaken of its treasures. A dewdrop out of this ocean would, if shed upon all that are in the heavens and on the earth, suffice to enrich them with the bounty of God, the Almighty, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. With the hands of renunciation draw forth from its life-giving waters, and sprinkle therewith all created things, that they may be cleansed from all man-made limitations and may approach the mighty seat of God, this hallowed and resplendent Spot."

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 279)

"O My servants! Deprive not yourselves of the unfading and resplendent Light that shineth within the Lamp of Divine glory. Let the flame of the love of God burn brightly within your radiant hearts. Feed it with the oil of Divine guidance, and protect it within the shelter of your constancy. Guard it within the globe of trust and detachment from all else but God, so that the evil whisperings of the ungodly may not extinguish its light. O My servants! My holy, My divinely ordained Revelation may be likened unto an ocean in whose depths are concealed innumerable pearls of great price, of surpassing luster. It is the duty of every seeker to bestir himself and strive to attain the shores of this ocean, so that he may, in proportion to the eagerness of his search and the efforts he hath exerted, partake of such benefits as have been pre-ordained in God's irrevocable and hidden Tablets. If no one be willing to direct his steps towards its shores, if every one should fail to arise and find Him, can such a failure be said to have robbed this ocean of its power or to have lessened, to any degree, its treasures?"

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 325)

Are you there, O people of Baha, moth-like lovers of His light?

I've searched for you everywhere. I've been aching to walk with you and talk with you, to hear your tales and tell you mine, to sit around a campfire with you, and dream and plan with you.

Are you shunning me, O people of Baha? Am I unworthy of your company?

Maybe you are all around me, and I simply don't see you.

Yes, maybe so.

Maybe you are there, somehow, somewhere, in every person I know. Maybe you've been aching, like me, to find the others. If so, what veils are over my eyes, that I don't see you, or what labyrinth am I in, that it takes me so long to find you?

Can a message like this find its way to you?

I'll continue praying, and making efforts, to find you. I hope you'll be looking for me.

Jim

Memory Lane: Songs I remember

1950

Mona Lisa, Nat King Cole
Lyrics: http://www.webfitz.com/lyrics/Lyrics/1950/21950.html
Clip: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=60136066&loc=109&sp=1

I've decided to:

1. Put up some Web pages to facilitate independent investigation of complaints against the Baha'i community and its institutions.

2. Choose some stories of former members, explaining why they left, to show people who want to join.

I'll explain later how that came about, and how I plan to go about it.