Strong Ships

'But my mother is reading the psalms all the time. She
does not deserve that God should so abandon her! I
read the psalms myself, the ninety-first psalm and the
twenty-third psalm every night before I go to bed. I pray,
too.'

'To pray is not to read psalms. To pray is to trust in
God and to be submissive in all things to Him. Be submissive,
then things will change for you. Put your family
in God's hands. Love God's will. Strong ships are not
conquered by the sea; they ride the waves! Now be a
strong ship, not a battered one.'

(H.M. Balyuzi, Abdu'l-Baha - The Centre of the Covenant, p. 213)

Almost three weeks have passed. Last weekend the rain poured down our fingertips into rushing puddles and oozed into mud. Rain has never felt like more of a burden; not when I waited for the little rivers in between rows of earth to dry for lettuce seeds to be sown, not when I awoke and walked to class at 8:00 am in a misty coldness, not when it flooded the highways we tried to cross to visit our neighbors and their children. No, this week has been more dreary and slow than all things gray and unpredictable. In frustration, Nasim and I made a list of all the things we needed:

patience
a car
an apartment
a plan
detachment
courage
joy

The only thing we could do was open our little prayer books and begin to recite the words that would be our only assistance. All our enthusiasm was soon lost in the words of the Tablet of Ahmad, a prayer often recited in times of distress. Several times we repeated this tablet. Finally, after an honest consultation about our plan of action we fell asleep in the heat of the night.

Yesterday morning I woke up with a stretch and suddenly, with the most electric pain I've ever felt, my neck burst into flames! Well, it felt like it did. Thinking perhaps the pain would go away eventually I submitted to having a kink in my neck for the next few days. Fortunately a friend took me to her chiropractor where I was able to be seen immediately. Still in pain, I've been unable to leave the house for much more than a doctor's visit. We were unable to look for apartments. A few days ago we had looked at an apartment near the neighborhood in which we've been spending much of our time. Needless to say, the apartment was perfect. We had our concerns about the location (it's in the middle of a very steep hill). However, the landlady emailed us with her excitement both about the Baha'i Faith and us as tenants. In close correspondence we were able to lower the rent and seal a deal; we seemed to have a fully-furnished place to live at a very low cost! In addition to that, one of the friends is lending us her car for the year beginning tomorrow!


Then today, during a soothing rain shower, we had a dinner party with eight of the friends. Sometimes you just need to be together to get any sense of what you're supposed to be doing. This dinner was exactly the plan we had been praying for. "What can we do for you?" they asked us through laughs and sips of juice. "Well, actually, we would rather ask what we can do for you? We feel like this year is very short and needs to be in support of what you all are doing such that when May comes you won't even notice we're gone." Nasim and I have been praying every morning for invisibility, for the sustainabiliy of all of our efforts. The friends nodded and we all agreed to begin looking for animators and tutors and ways to begin study circles in the neighborhood.

There is a word, "confirmation," that Nasim and I have been clinging to these days. We seek confirmation but only if we take steps forward. Just like the ships we can only be directed if we're moving. My Mama wrote to me these words of encouragement in an email after I told her about my neck, the rain, and our lack of activity:

"...there is no failure in action only the failure to act."

As the beloved Master has said, "Strong ships are not conquered by the sea," and even though I know we have hardly even left the shore, it's nice to know that as we stumble out of the port we receive these confirmations. Our prayers are answered only as we step forward.

"No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
We’re all laughing with God"

Regina Spektor