Posts from — August 2006

I’ve just posted a story I wrote some years ago at the Baha’i Arts Academy. The writing course that year was one of the most stimulating I have attended, wonderfully tutored by Roger Prentice.

Whiteness Voe, Shetland

I can only described what happened as a release. Something was penned up inside, and it came out in a poem (Clift Hills, Shetland) and a story - Clift Hills Crofts. This may not seem to be hugely productive, but Roger’s tutoring tapped into memories and experiences that infused themselves into the poem and story.

Technorati Tags: writing, Shetland, story

London sunrise

I have to thank the Neocrats for this poem by Khalil Gibran. It is very appropriate for the state of our world.

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

Sunday 20 August, 2006
It’s worth setting what Baha’u'llah says about the state of the world alongside what Gibran wrote about the nation.

We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned. They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy. They have conceived the straight to be crooked, and have imagined their friend an enemy.

Baha’u'llah’s vision encompasses the whole human race and is expressed in a far more encompassing language than that used by Gibran.

Technorati Tags: poem, Gibran, religion, nation, Baha’u'llah

Saturday 19 August, 2006 It’s so autumn - and it’s only August! Cool, showery… Can I possibly be thinking nostalgically of the impossible heat of July?

The UK National Spiritual Assembly’s Freedom to Believe website has been updated. Please have a have a look. Freedom of religion or belief is a vital, much neglected, [taghuman right[/tag].

Technorati Tags: Freedom of religion

Q: What does the wonderful word tetrapiloctomy mean? No conferring now.

A: ??

Saturday 19 August, 2006
Congratulations to Bilo. He got the answer (with a little prompting). It is “splitting a hair four ways”.

Tetrapiloctomy is the activity of super-pedants. I count myself merely as a baseline pedant.

Technorati Tags: word, tetrapiloctomy

I’ve only just come across Correlating, a Baha’i blog with the aim of exploring some of the possible connections between sociological knowledge about communities, religion, culture, and so on, with the Baha’i Faith. It’s a new blog, but there’s already some interesting material here, so have a read.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, blog, communities, religion, culture

Friday 18 August, 2006 When our daughter was born, Erica and I both wanted her to have a Welsh name (Erica is Welsh, and my Scottish roots had been reflected in the boy’s names). After discussing various names, we agreed on “Angharad“, a name that comes from the ancient Welsh tales of the Mabinogion. It means “more love” and is related to the Welsh word “cariad” meaning “one who is loved”. She nicknamed herself “Hari”, since most English people mangle the word “Angharad” when they try to say it.

Erica and I took Hari and Doug out to dinner last night at the excellent Wellington, a pub-turned restaurant in Welwyn, last night, to celebrate Hari’s MSc by research. The dinner did not do anything for my diet!

Needless to say, young Jakey came with us.

This young man started crawling yesterday, by the way, and today has realized that he can crawl towards people and things that he wants to reach. Babies develop very quickly at this age - almost every day brings a new accomplishment or two, and we can see things “clicking” in his mind, as he puts one new skill and another together to achieve something he couldn’t do yesterday.

Hari’s research is something to do with T-Tauri stars. Don’t ask! She’s now pursuing the research for her PhD.

I blame too much StarTrek during her teenage years.

Technorati Tags: T-Tauri stars

When you use your mobile phone (cell for my American readers, do you feel compelled to walk around?

I do, and I notice that other people do as well. Is this a male thing? Or do women wander around with their mobiles clamped to their ears as well?

Why? I mean, why do we do this? I don’t wander around when the phone is attached to the wall by a cord. I don’t usually wander around when I’m using the cordless phones we have at home. So why do I feel the urge to walk around when I’m talking on the mobile?

A relatively trivial matter, I know, but it’s irritated me for years. Write your thoughts, theories, answers in the comment space!

Technorati Tags: mobile phone, cell

Q What is a phlebotomist?
A ?

Only one person in the office knew the answer to this question today, and she was a trained nurse.

The reason I ask is that I saw the phlebotomist at the doctor’s today, a rather stern lady in a white coat who asked me if I’d eaten anything that morning (I saw her at 9:50 a.m.) before she did what she had to do.

Answers on a postcard (as they used to say on radio quiz shows before the days of emails and texts) - or, better, answers in comments to this post, please. And no cheating by looking the word up before writing in. There are no prizes. I’m just curious to know how many people know the meaning of this word without looking it up. I have to admit that I had only the vaguest notion before the one medically trained person in the office was able to tell me.

Friday 18 August, 2006
OK, Leila has the right answer (see in the comments section). She was only the second person I’d asked who’d any idea about phlebotomists. It really does sound like a profession from the 18th century, someone who would bleed you, supposedly to cure your ailments. I cannot believe that the 21st century National Health Service still includes the profession of phlebotomist.

Technorati Tags: phlebotomist