Encouraged by the responce their actions elicit....

The last few months have been such a rush.I graduated from College in May. I really miss the life I had there and more than anything the friends I left behind or who also moved away. I miss being constantly around people and having life be so seamless. There is nothing like the intensity of living with the people you work with and studying with the people you eat with and playing with the people with whom you pray. I still don't know. Maybe I should have stayed longer. Maybe its just my wander lust that made me decide I should graduate and leave. I will keep wondering i guess, that's ok, but am content with all of my fractured life here too.

In my new New Mexico home, there is little of the continuity of Earlham. My work ends and is left at in the office at five every day and Baha'i life is it's own spinning world. The friends and social life I have do not connect much with the first two. I have never lived like this. When I grew up, school work was the same as living and breathing and hobbies and friends did not seem to interrupt the flow of the universe. The lines are beggining to blur though, thanks to God, my real life is able to seep into other areas. At work, I am able to do Baha'i service sometimes as I have free time on the internet and my friends in many cases are people who come to or might soon come to the devotional or study circle at my home. It is so amazing to live in this cluster. Every day I am amazed (although I guess I shouldn't be) at the way in which everything that happens around me is just like the guidance of the House of Justice. I can't believe how easy it is. Living in C clusters for so many years, it seemed logical and reasonable that what I read about A clusters might happen someday, but it seemed so far off that I couldn't really connect to it. Now I see all around me people who start study circles in their homes and who invite one, two or dozens of people to share the Word to God with them. I see everywhere long time Baha'is with Ruhi Fever working so hard to finish the sequence and even more heartening, I see new Baha'is on fire in their love for Baha'u'llah and leading the community in service to the cluster as a whole.

I got to go to a devotional gathering last night that my friend Daniel hosted. It was so cute. He just became a Baha'i a couple of weeks ago and this was his first devotional. As soon as he became a Baha'i, he was ready to serve. I think he will teach me what it really means to give a home visit and he will teach me what it means to be unrestrained as the wind in my teaching. How many Baha'is get a seeker at their first devotional gathering? How many Baha'is sit there and teach for an hour before even calming down enough to pray? He was so excited today that he called me three times during the day to ask about some little aspect of the devotional and to invite me to come early if I could and to tell me to come hungry because he was making dinner. I am so excited to live in a community with this kind of enthusiasm.