Family Circle

FAMILY CIRCLE

It was a long and arduous journey.  The family had trekked all day long in search of shelter.  They had been moving steadily across the arid land with nothing but their cloths and need to be on the move.  Water was scarce and almost non-existent; the sun beat hard upon them.  The children did not understand the reason for their abrupt departure from what was left of their home.  The father lead the way followed by his two daughters and behind them his son and taking the end of the line was the mother.  The little food they had was already gone and they needed to find shelter soon.

As it turned out they saw a rise of land and headed towards it.  At the top of the hill were the remains of what was some structure older than anyone would have been able to guess.  What was left of the structure offered nothing more than a break from the wind as it cooled off in the sunset.  The father, mother and children, sat in a tight circle too tired to do much more than sit back and breathe in the air.  A soft and gentle voice broke the silence as the youngest child sang a prayer in his cracked and parched voice.  As if on cue, each member of the family took turns reciting a prayer from memory until the last one chanted by the father.  The silence that followed was different from that which preceded the praying.  There seemed to be more peace in the air. 

The father looked up at the stars and their light rained down on the family.  As he looked down and glanced at the others one by one a smile grew on his lips.   Slowly each member of the family began to smile in an unspoken understanding.  The smiles were then broken by joyous laughter and a feeling of understanding, love and joy.  The realization that came to the family and brought them to this point was the understanding that you could lose everything you have in this life but if you have your family, you have lost nothing at all.

-Shiidon, January 2009

Well lots have happened and this story is the result of the events of this weekend.  This weekend marked the 26th Touchstone Bahá'í Youth Retreat.  This event started around 1979 and I remember attending then as a youth.  Now I am assisting with the event.  We were about 100 strong this weekend and needless to say I lost some sleep which I am looking forward to catching up on.  I saw many beautiful souls from twelve to early twenties enjoying each others company.  We had a fantastic presentation from a dear friend from Houston on Racial Unity.  I had not seen her for at least twenty years if not more.  It was incredible.  I am still think about the lessons learned from that morning.  I returned home to shower and rest.  I took the short walk in my back yard to the creek and sat for an hour listening to the water flow, the crickets chirp and the wind blowing though the tall trees and grass.  I prayed, meditated, sang and just enjoyed the sun set along the length of the creek.  This story came out of that time.  There were many verses that came to my lips as I walked about but they have gone on to the air and the wind can blow them wherever it wills.

This story stems from something that my beloved father has told me all my life.  First of all he had made it clear to us growing up, seeing starvation and suffering, that the poorest person in this country is wealthier than the majority of the population of the world.  While he is not basing this on any statistics, it rings true to me.  The other is that during times of trouble while we were growing up he would always remind us that as long as we had each other and nothing but the cloths on your backs, we had everything we ever needed.

The photo is one of the creek that runs through my back yard.  This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago.