The Next Baha’i Book Study will be on February 18th. This is off our usual schedule.

We have had to shift things around due to family visits, guest visits, and Peggy heading off to Disney World with our Daughter in law for a week with Micky.   There is a lot of family stuff.  This entire family unity thing appears to be quite important in this religious dispensation.  


The Baha’i Faith, along with most other revealed religions in the world and throughout history, points to the family as the building block of a society.  The nature of a family is to provide a nest of love, kindness, compassion, and helpfulness to people in their own homes, and while children are growing.   This requires that people develop the virtues of patience, truthfulness, loyalty, empathy and personal honesty to succeed. 


I’m not saying one has to be perfect in these virtues, but should at least be making efforts.  Even a half-hearted attempt is good, kind of like not following your diet plan perfectly but at least not putting ice-cream on your apple pie.  


Virtues themselves have a profound effect on one’s life and view of others.  Virtues also influence how others see you and your family.  If your family life is harmonious and loving, it can assist others in understanding how a selfless attitude contrasts with a purely selfish, angry, and materialistic point of view.  An inconsiderate and self-centered life  often includes unhappiness, envy, divorce, lawsuits, ulcers, angry slamming doors, and generally not having a good time on vacations.  


The Baha’i Faith promotes the unity of the family, the society, the nations, and the world. This all inclusive unity among people refuses to be dimmed by the ancient superstitions of racial superiority, fanatical nationalism, class distinctions, economic differences, or even if you prefer Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip.  This last is a BIG thing in my wife’s family, but they have maintained unity for a long time. (Just don’t be in the kitchen at a family reunion when they are making sandwiches!)


A central purpose of all religious faiths is toward treating other people as you would like them to treat you. (Sound familiar?)  This is not an accident.  When people make war or get violent in the name of religion it is a sure sign that they never really understood the spiritual messages at the heart of their holy literature. This has been going on a long time (Remember the Spanish Inquisition - everyone forgets the Spanish Inquisition), so we cannot blame Facebook, Twitter, or even the Internet.


 The spirit of religion has been working hard from the beginning of life on this planet to drive a strangely stubborn generation of humanity toward spiritual maturity, mutual love, and justice. Why people resist this so hard is a question best asked to somebody much smarter than me.  (Maybe my uncle Mel, he went to Princeton and actually bumped into Professor Einstein in the hallway once.)


So, if you can make it to the Baha’i Book Study on Feb 18 around 7:30, we will read and discuss The Advent of Divine Justice for about an hour. We look up words and discuss its thoughts and ideas.  Then around 8:30 we break for tea and continue to discuss it but over some sweet dessert (to go with the tea of course).  We leave at 9:30 as a kindness to those of us who are rising at dawn to greet the day for some reason.


Hope you can come the 18th. We also hope to get on schedule in March, but no promises.
Best regards,
Peggy & David

The first Baha’i Fireside discussion for the year 2020 will take place on Saturday, January 11th at the Schlesinger’s home.

It will begin with dinner at 6:00 P.M. After dinner at 7:30 (ish) we will listen to a brief presentation by Sohrab Mogharrabi, who will speak about the spiritual forces that are now disturbing a society based on materialism, prejudices, and lack of equality.  Baha’is believe that such a society is no longer sustainable.  Amazingly, they believe that the spiritual evolution of humanity will bring us to maturity in the future.  Right now, well....


After the presentation we will discuss Sohrab’s topic, ask questions, and people may share their understanding and viewpoints as well. The goal is for a free exchange of ideas in a safe and accepting atmosphere.  To assist that effort, we will be serving dessert around 8:30.  Conversation usually continues during dessert so that people are filled both spiritually as well as physically.


Please let us know if you are coming (602-697-1099), and also let us know if you have any food allergies or special requirements. We will do our best to accommodate. In any event, please RSVP so we have enough dessert. (And maybe even enough dinner)


This topic is especially relevant due to the 24-hour news cycle that has somehow become a big part of the media environment.  With competing stations seeking to attract viewers to their advertisers, each story is presented as a major crisis.  While there are genuine crisis events, a while back I heard a news report of a coming Maraschino Cherry shortage. (I am not making this up--obviously this was a slow news day), but I am certain we could all somehow survive eating ice-cream sundaes without the little cherry on the top. (Perhaps replace it with a healthful Brussels Sprout?)


The Baha’i position is, humanity, once free from the bondage of prejudices, hatred, and fear that handicap many people and nations, will flourish and discover that there is more to advancing civilization than simply making things work faster. Indeed, the current fixation of some people with their smart phones might be considered an affliction, or at least those who text as they cross the road.  (If you gave a Zombie a smart phone to stare at we would never notice he was a Zombie.  Just sayin...)


An encouraging statistic I recently came upon was that there exists 342 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) around the globe whose purposes are to help relieve homelessness, provide medical care to the needy, and to deliver food to people who are starving. Interestingly, the major cause of hunger in much of the world is warfare. This is, of course, also why Europe is awash in refugees. It is not a shortage of food, as American’s obesity clearly shows, but our failure as a global society to curb violence.  Yet, dedicated volunteers working with the NGOs spend their time helping their fellow humans. One day in the future, perhaps the news stations will report on a shortage of wars as well as Maraschino Cherries. 


So, please let us know if you will be joining us for dinner on January 11th at 6:00 P.M.  Text or call 602-697-1099.  We will look forward to seeing you at our first Fireside chat meeting of the new Gregorian year 2020. (The Baha’is have a different calendar, it’s our year 176.)  


Take care and please let us know if we will see your smiling face on the 11th for dinner.
Warm regards,
Peggy & David

Dec. Baha'i Fireside Talk will be Saturday the 7th at the Schlesinger’s home

Dear Friends,


With Thanksgiving behind us, we all face the coming month with an intense desire to visit the Gym and exercise off all that stuffing, not to mention the Pumpkin Pie you just “had” to eat since it was brought by a guest. Indeed, the second helping of pie you also ate was to ensure that the person who brought it knew you appreciated the gift a lot. You persuaded yourself that this was the most courteous thing to do, and courtesy is a virtue as you know. ;-)


We will be having dinner on December 7th at 6:00 PM. Please RSVP so we may have sufficient food. After dinner, the program will begin around 7:15 with Nicholas Mentha talking about Baha’i principles and concepts. I am told there will again be a visual element to the presentation. Afterwards people will join in general discussion and questions and responses. Often a good deal of wisdom and laughter surfaces from everybody during this time. After a bit we will break around 8:30 for dessert and more conversation. Dress is casual, the food is free, and nobody is obliged to speak if they do not wish. Please advise if you have food restrictions. We will do our best to accommodate.


Although eel pudding was a tasty treat from the food vendors in London at the time of the Pilgrims, we will not be having it since eel pudding did not make it successfully across the pond. But many other foods have traveled across the oceans causing many Europeans to believe New World food to be European and the Americans to believe some European food is American. The same is true for many Asian foods.


Italians love pasta originally from China, and Persians love rice originally from India. Italians like New World tomatoes. Irish love their South American potatoes. Mexicans love beans, which originated in the Amazon, and Japanese love Portuguese-invented Tempura. The entire world loves a fruit from Venezuela called the banana. German Chocolate Cake originated in Massachusetts from a baker named German. Chocolate itself is a New World species but do not tell the Belgians or the Swiss.


The point is that the world has long been traveling, moving people, animals, and plants around (Palm trees, for example, are not native to Arizona.), and generally buying and selling products between nation states and continents. Often the foreign product becomes embedded into the culture where it landed. When the Last Old-One Dies who remembers how it was before the foreign food arrived, people feel it has always been in their diet and they had Tacos forever.


Thus, we have been led to believe that global travel and trade is somehow new. People, plants, and animals have been moving around since the ancient Sumerians built their extensive shipping business about 5,000 years ago between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, an area called the “cradle of civilization” by those who like to say these profound things. The Sumerians also divided the circle into 360 degrees but did not tell us why.


Likewise, very few of the problems we now face are totally new. While humanity has the power to live peaceably, productively, ecologically with shared resources, we choose to remain selfish, nationalistic, prejudiced, and warlike. These, as you see, are spiritual problems not problems with nature. The goal of this era is to bring our inner spiritual maturity up to match our technical maturity. I believe it was Mahatma Gandhi who said. “There is more to advancing civilization than simply making things happen faster”


Hope to see you for a slow-cooked meal at 6:00 PM on Saturday December 7th, a presentation on the Baha’i Faith, and a time to ask and share ideas with the group.


Please RSVP (This is French and means in English: Text us that you are coming!”)
With warm regards,
Peggy & David
602-697-1099

Next activity at Peggy & David's

Greetings Friends, This is a reminder that our next fireside discussion will be on October 5th.  We will not be having an event until that date.  On that date we will offer dinner and a short discussion of interest related to the Baha’i Faith or some of its teachings. 

Last time we had a wonderful presentation by a naturopathic physician who opened our eyes to multiple possibilities.  It apparently is the unanimous opinion of all physicians worldwide that Fruit Loops cereal does not belong to any food group at all and probably should come with a warning label.

While a healthy diet (rich in green leafy vegetables no doubt) is certainly important, in the greater scheme of life it is not how long we live, but what we do with the time allotted to us. A long life spent in indolence (a great word!) and sloth (a great animal) accomplishing nothing, not helping others, living alone in a cave with only pizza delivery and Internet to keep us alive, would be a wasted life.  A good tasting life perhaps but wasted.

The solitary cave dweller would learn nothing of human virtues, nor would he or she learn compassion, forgiveness, patience, forebearance, courtesy, charity, sacrifice or justice.  To learn these things, we must be among people who are fallible, mistake-prone, forgetful, needy, sad, and also people who are friendly, joyous, loving, and kind. One must learn to be patient with people delivering pizza to a cave.

It is in the crucible of living with our fellow humans where we learn to practice traits called virtues. All the economic reforms, political arrangements and electronic gadgetry will not make us better people. That is an internal process that, alas, seems to have gone astray in many. Much like the animating life force that germinated the world’s religions has often been reduced to a rigid formula of activity without tying it to daily behavior.  A few brave souls over the centuries have earnestly worked to embody the Divine spirit of love, unity and lofty virtues of their faiths and were singled out and either killed or hailed as saints. I am not sure what makes the difference, but one can never tell with the Spanish Inquisition.

Combining a sensible diet with a compassionate and trustworthy character may seem like an odd combination, but actually relates to the balance between the physical and the spiritual, the sluggard and the fanatic, the oblivious and the obsessive, the cheese and the pepperoni.

We will be sending a reminder near the end of this month regarding the October meeting on the 5th.  Perhaps you might want to put this date in your calendar app so you will not forget it and feel remorse (or possibly relief.)  Hope all of you are enduring the month where folks in Arizona become impatient for the summer to end. (Unlike the folks in Maine who see summer only as a brief interlude between blizzards.)

Best regards,

Peggy & David

The next Baha'i Devotional and Book Study evening will be June 11

Dear Friends, the next Devotional and Book Study evening will be June 11

 We begin at 7:30, discuss until around 8:30 whence we break for refreshments and further conversation,

 Summer is upon us and travel is keeping many of us busy. Some of the group has been visiting friends and family who live elsewhere, and others are taking vacations or visiting places related to their special interests. Still others are camping in the mountains or practicing surfing at the beach. There seem to be many good reasons to leave The Valley of The Sun during summertime.

 Travel is something that used to be reserved for the very wealthy or the very poor. The poor took one steamship ride in steerage at the bottom of the ship to settle in their new country. The wealthy took long vacations to Europe or the Far East that took a few weeks of sailing to get there, a month or so of travel and hotel living, then a few weeks sailing back to our shores. To check their email.

The idea of spending about 10 days crossing the Atlantic was normal, and about two weeks to steam to Japan. In the case of the Pacific crossing, there was a stop in Hawaii for supplies and coal. No doubt, the folks on board took the opportunity to attend a luau, which is a Hawaiian word meaning, ”For a lot of money we will feed you roast pig, purple porridge and dance around.”

Today a person can fly to Japan in one day or get to London about 11 hours from Phoenix. (Non-stop even!) Yet, we still complain about the food, the temperature, the seats and the choice of movies offered to us. We seem to forget that we are in a chair in the sky traveling close to the speed of sound in the stratosphere. Perhaps it might be wise to count our blessings. I hear that the religions of old gave that concept some high praise.

Contact: Peggy

Next Bahá'í Book Study will be on May 14th at 7:30 PM

Greetings Friends, It has been some time since we had a Bahá'í Book Study so I am delighted to announce that the next one will be this upcoming Tuesday, May 14th at 7:30 at the Schlesinger home.

     We had a wonderful group at our monthly Fireside Presentation last Saturday evening when Roman Orona spoke on the qualities that define a human being.Apparently, we all potentially possess wonderful human qualities, which prove our membership in that definition. But being human has not always been about intellectual or spiritual qualities.

   The Romans, you remember them- dressed in togas and sandals-, actually originated a term that has evolved in modern English as “mankind.”   Today we think the “man” part of the word refers to males alone, but its origin was not at all gender specific.

    If you have ever used a manual transmission, done manual labor or read a manuscript you will see that “man” refers to the Latin word Manus, which means “hand.”  

    Thus, “mankind” refers to all those who share a common shape of their hands.  Apes, monkeys, and similar beasts do not have the same shape hand as do people. Dogs, chickens, and Hippopotami have even more differently shaped hands. And forget about dolphins.

      Mankind referred to the common and distinctive shape of human hands in Rome.  Alas, the ancient Romans died out, the Coliseum fell into disrepair, Nero burned down key buildings, and only Catholic Priests and a few teachers now recognize Latin’s importance in understanding English.  I studied Latin in High School but did not keep up since there was no place where I could use it to talk to native peoples.  Besides, my homework had to be done on stone tablets and they were hard to carry to school.

But I digress.

    Starting at 7:30, we will be reading together and discussing Gleanings on Tuesday.  If you have a copy please bring it, if not, we have a number of extra copies. We read and discuss as we read and also look up any words whose meaning may be not clearly known.  While there are dictionary apps on my phone, we still look words up manually!

    Around 8:30, we stop reading and start having refreshments. They are sometimes modest and straightforward but usually highly caloric. We believe that calories eaten when one is having a good time are not important, therefore, there is usually cake, brownies, or ice cream or something else covered in chocolate. Chocolate being, as we all know, one of the major factors in good conversation.

   At 9:30 P.M., we disband since some of our group must rise early to go to work, or iron their toga, or see what happened on Facebook during the night. 

    We hope to see you Tuesday, May 14th at 7:30 in the evening.

Contact Peggy & David 602-697-1099

The next Bahá'í Dinner and Fireside presentation

Greetings, we have been in Japan until today so pardon this tardy notice of our May Bahá'í fireside meeting.  We have the pleasure to host Mr. Roman Orona as a presenter.  He will speak about of “What it means to be Human.  As many of us consider ourselves human, we may all have some opinions to share. Those who are unsure may ask questions.

Mr. Orona, who is a writer, musician, performer, and many other things, has a project called “I am Human” which offers the world a web site.  You may wish to look at https://www.iamhumanmedia.com/  to see his efforts.

Roman will make a brief presentation, which should be highly interesting, and then we can all ask questions and discuss the concepts.  This is an audience-participation type event.  He has threatened to make this a multi-media presentation, but we will have to see. (We have been away for a long time and right now cannot really remember much from before our journey.)

The dinner is served at 6:00 PM, and the talk will follow at about 7:30. (That gives us time to clear the table.) At around 8:30 or so we break for refreshments and continued conversation.We may also continue desserts. We believe in desserts.

If you have dietary issues please let us know in your RSVP.  We do ask for a positive response so we may be sure of having sufficient food. Food is a very important part of dinner.

As for Peggy and David, they visited many cities in Japan, and braved their Cherry Blossom Festivities. The Japanese are unfailingly polite, and we had a wonderful time. Although the new money, strange signs, different types of manners (Courtesy is the “prince of virtues”), and many rules regarding footwear and slippers, kept us quite busy.  

For example, it is discourteous to hand money to a merchant when paying for anything- you must place it in the tray. You must then receive the receipt with both hands.  While not difficult at all, there were many types of manners to learn. We believe we avoided any international incidents.We did not place our chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice, which we heard is grounds for deportation.

Hope you can attend our May 4th Fireside Dinner at 6:00 PM.  Please text Peggy at 602-697-1099 if you plan to attend.

We look forward to seeing your smiling faces for dinner at 6:00 PM, and you will, no doubt, have a wonderful time meeting Roman.  

With best wishes,

Peggy & David

Pegatha27@gmail.com

Service at Feed My Starving Children

Come join us at Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) as we pack food for children that need it.  FMSC has uses an assembly line format to pack rice, protein, and vegetables in meal size packets that are shipped to developing countries around the world.

Below are the details.  Please either click on this link to register (link, if you need it, the join code is K27VB4) or email me and let  me know you are coming.