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description= I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love. -Abdu l-Baha;
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Text of the page (random words):
always realize it even now i m pretty sure that i only have a tenuous grasp on what they are and have the potential to be since this isn t something that everyone has a lot of experience with i thought i would share what i know about organizing reflection gatherings that are meaningful and successful what is the purpose of a reflection gatherings reflection gatherings are intended to elevate clarify and unify a group s vision of their service they provide a space to think about the progress and challenges that they have experienced in the recent past understand what has been learned see next steps and plan ahead for the future they also provide context for what individuals have been experiencing and learning both through study and through consultation with others first thing to consider who should attend a reflection gathering there are many different types of reflection gatherings all of which draw on a different subset of people perhaps the best known example is the cluster reflection where all those participating in the community building process from a particular geographic area in the us this is usually either several neighboring counties or a metropolitan area gather along with those who are new to the process but would like to learn more about how to become engaged this could include tutors animators children s class teachers hosts of devotional gatherings study circle participants and junior youth local institutions such as assemblies committees and those serving in appointed roles and more some participants might even live outside of the cluster but travel to serve within it especially in early stages of development the main factor is their geographic focus but this isn t the only kind of reflection gathering next week i ll be hosting a children s class teacher reflection for my state participants include anyone teaching assisting with or learning to teach grade 1 2 or 3 of the children s class program of the training institute anywhere in the state of indiana sometimes folks from neighboring states also join and that s not a problem as we ve never run out of room this is a short gathering only three hours or so last week was a gathering for people all over our three state region who are focused on learning about engaging youth and young adults in the main sequence of courses while all of the participants were tutors they had different roles in this particular learning process some mainly tutor those study circles some primarily focus on visiting the families of youth especially those who are younger and are still under the care of their parents some are animators who are working on helping to accompany other youth on this particular path of service but all are committed to continuing the conversation in their own communities and widening the circle of people who are engaged in this area of learning this gathering was just over two days long so you can really have a reflection gathering at any level people who serve one particular neighborhood can benefit from a reflection gathering people who are currently tutoring book 10 of the sequence of courses people who have started a new junior youth group within the last three months second thing to consider what questions are being asked sometimes this is actually the first thing in that case the people coming are whoever is thinking about these questions having particular questions at the center of the gathering gives it purpose aside from just a recitation of recent events in the case of our group focused on youth in study circles we have several questions that we started with at our gathering in august what is the nature of a conversation that attracts young people to join a book 1 study circle what are ways and spaces in which study circles can be formed how can we accompany participants in book 1 immediately into the field of action how can a cadre of tutors support one another in action and learning in november we saw that we needed to focus more tightly for now on the first two questions with an added question of how animators can also serve a role in inspiring youth to become engaged the point here is to show that the questions a gathering is focused on should be few in number specific focused on immediate needs and steps answerable through action and reflection on action a question like how can we have lots of new study circles would be too broad a question like how can every cluster in our region have 50 100 new participants in study circles in the next three months while somewhat more specific doesn t make sense where most clusters in the region have yet to learn how to engage 10 new participants in study circles in a three month cycle how many study circles have taken place in our region over the last year is specific and easily answerable but is rooted in study rather than action and reflection you can see how choosing the right questions can easily make a gathering fruitful and productive or create confusion boredom or despair third thing to consider do you have something on which to reflect there is nothing sadder than a reflection gathering where asked about their experiences there is nothing to share because nobody has been engaged in the process in question more commonly is the situation where everyone has something to reflect on as an individual but the experiences are so scattershot and unrelated to each other that there is not enough experience with any one particular thing to answer any questions about it in this case it can sometimes help to include an experiential portion of the gathering just so that everyone has something pertinent to talk about for example if a children s class teacher gathering is focused on learning about how to effectively describe the nature of the program to parents in order to elicit their support for and reinforcement of the qualities being taught part of the gathering could involve all the participants going out to visit with the parents of children in a local class and speak with them about the program yes this takes a fair bit of organizing the organizer needs to consult with the teachers of the class reach out to the families organize times for them to be visited assemble information and addresses for each family put together pairs or teams arrange transportation for those who need it and then also help to coordinate the collection of information and the organizing of follow up but it s so much more effective than having a theoretical chat with a group of teachers about how they might go about talking with parents should the opportunity arise fourth thing to consider where are you strong if you have a lot of things you could reflect on and are not sure where to focus focus on your strengths where was there the most growth it might feel a little backwards i know my first instinct is always to shore up my weaknesses before anything else but strength builds on strength if your group is fantastic at starting new junior youth groups it s natural to build on that strength and focus on how to expand groups so that they have a sustainable number of participants over time those new and strengthening groups might very well inspire more adults to become engaged in study circles on the other hand to ignore those small new groups in favor of throwing all your effort behind bringing new adults into the process means that the groups continue to form meet for a while and die out within a few months the animators without support eventually become disheartened the adults seeing no long term value to the community fail to become engaged parents having noticed that activities don t last over the long term don t trust the teachers of children s classes to stick around yes i m making all this up but there s a real inertia involved in both growth and stagnation focus on what s already moving and then move on from there fifth thing to consider stop considering and start doing if you re not having reflection gatherings because you re not sure you could do them perfectly just try something truly some of the one s i ve put together over the years have been a mess but they ve always been a net positive experience i ll almost certainly look back over all this advice in a year and be so embarrassed by my lack of understanding that s one of the side effects of blogging i suppose we put things out there whether we re feeling totally prepared or not coordinating is a lot like that too whether you re serving in a formal role or just as one tutor in a group of friends who wants to help make things a little more organized maybe your first gathering is just about learning what you want to learn about and that s totally legitimate as long as you re focused on learning through service and moving forward you re doing it right tags coordination learning reflection service unity categories from life two reflections on breath november 11 2017 0 yestderday i was dealing with a family crisis and didn t get the chance to write a new blog post so instead of my regular reflections you get a poem i wrote a month ago sorry for the abrupt change of pace but the blog must go on bahaiblogging two reflections on breath 2017 i hadn t been to the ocean in years didn t have a reference to say this is calm or this is wild i only knew that it pushed me back to shore like an angry teenager i told you get out and i laughed and punched back again and again because there is such a fierce human pleasure in fighting without anger just because it is difficult and just because 1852 not for nothing you fought and not only for your own personhood a woman lecturing from behind a curtain but because you had seen the ocean of his mercy run to the shore and jumped in 2017 when my feet danced out from beneath me and something pulled i was unafraid i knew i simply had to breathe out but not in until my feet were mine again until i was cradled again by air and sun and sky but my feet were somewhere just too many inches out to sea and salt water forced itself into my throat and i thought i can t believe i am going to be the idiot who drowns in three feet of water this is my unbelieving mind 1852 and you walked willingly to the theft that awaited you air from your lungs years from your life words of poems you would never speak and that the world would never hear there was silk around your neck and songs in your soul until the animal part of you ceased to twitch and think and beat in salty streams they threw your body down a well 2017 until there was my body and there was the sky and there was the fierce pain in my chest and ashamed i said oh there s the family let s go back and see what they need pretending to laugh while the ocean ran from my nose and i breathed knives and needles and joy 1852 then there was no more body and no more sky only the ocean closer than your life vein you immersed yourself and swam free context while tahirih s birthday is not known for certain she was approximately my age on her death tags death history poetry religion categories from the mind on failure november 10 2017 0 i was recently digging around through a bunch of links i had bookmarked and came across an article by carol zou who i had the pleasure of knowing when we lived and worked in the same neighborhood in dallas texas carol is an artist whose primary form of art is empowering communities to create their own art if that sounds strange to you at all sit with it a while it s actually a really helpful way of looking at artistic expression anyhow she published an article last year called who is allowed to fail some things she notices a recently arrived refugee must prove their business idea is foolproof in order to receive a 5 000 loan but a middle class 18 year old can take out a student loan for ten times that without so much as a conversation about how they intend to pay it back or even how they plan to successfully graduate a bank can get a bailout after making bad decisions with their money but a renter will be evicted from their apartment when they start missing payments anyhow i don t want to summarize the entire article because it s carol s work and you should read it for yourself but it definitely got me thinking about the privilege of failure part of this is the privilege of defining success and failure for ourselves in the the baha i community we ve been encouraged to see past narrow conceptions of success and failure that breed freneticism or paralyze volition we talk about a learning process an experiment rather than a failure failure to move forward and learn is a problem failure to adhere to a formula for results is not artists get this they ll tell you about a sketch or a draft it s one of many and we re lucky when we re in a community of others who get that but this freedom to focus on learning over results is a matter of privilege when i was teaching at a school a decade ago i was in charge of the writing club at first the 12 and 13 year olds in my class made almost no progress with their writing no matter how hard i worked to develop a meaningful prompt they would spend inordinate amounts of time coming up to me and asking me to spell words for them or erasing their handwriting and re doing it neatly they were shocked when i told them that we re only making drafts here that i cared not one bit about their spelling or their margins at this stage that they could have as much paper as they wanted that i would personally go to the store and buy everyone new notebooks if they ran out of space that they could try and try again in search of powerful language that they could fail children without paper who are graded on their work don t get to say oh i don t need immediate results i just want to learn about improving my writing after around four months they did start writing some beautiful things until i got sick and another teacher came in and scolded them for their sloppy work that was a failure of mine that still weighs on me i never did learn how to protect them from the needless critique of adults flush with power people with money for more notebook paper are allowed to fail people with power are allowed to fail people with social capital are allowed to fail we expect it we respect it but not when it s the wrong kind of people making the mistakes it would be really easy to let this kind of pervasive social attitude slip into the community building process that the educated the wealthy the powerful have the right to try and fail and reflect and learn and move forward while those who are without need to be cared for and patronized and protected from their own failures in waiting or abandoned to deal with the consequences of their lack of continual success in this kind of scenario we get teachers who can snap at children while children who lash out are expelled from the class we get youth who are fed education bite by bite without ever being invited to be protagonists in their own learning we get adults whose lifetime of acquired skill and wisdom is never put to use either for the ...
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