true story

this just happened, after some time of silence and work...
me: wow, I suddenly feel like an idiot!
officemate: any reason in particular?
me: no.

needless to say, we both laughed quite a lot... :)

prayer

this is one of my favorite prayers at the moment:

O seeker of Truth! If thou desirest that God my open thine eye, thou must supplicate unto God, pray to and commune with Him at midnight, saying:

O Lord, I have turned my face unto Thy kingdom of oneness and am immersed in the sea of Thy mercy. O Lord, enlighten my sight by beholding Thy lights in this dark night, and make me happy by the wine of Thy love in this wonderful age. O Lord, make me hear Thy call, and open before my face the doors of Thy heaven, so that I may see the light of Thy glory and become attracted to Thy beauty. Verily, Thou art the Giver, the Generous, the Merciful, the Forgiving.

- 'Abdu'l-Bahá

one word for everything

this is just a good summary:

the whole world in my hands

took this one a while ago... such a beautiful sunset:

the power of "yes, and..."

a friend and I were sitting earlier today trying to figure out a script for another movie. I can't tell the full details just yet, but it was very interesting to see how we helped each other's creativity. four of us had basically done some brainstorming yesterday, came up with a couple of possible ideas on how to go ahead, but hadn't really gotten anywhere with it. so we sat down today, the two of us, and in my mind I tried to keep the "yes, and" idea, not to shoot any of the ideas down, but to try to help out, ask questions and push him along whenever he came up with anything. and I must say it was amazing to see how far we got! we helped build on each other's creativity, we nailed down a couple of ideas, ironed out the details, and have a whole lot to work with, in just two hours! not only for a first episode, but an overarching story and theme for the future as well, which will help give us a framework and make it easier to come up with more ideas.

if you haven't heard of "yes, and...", read this on wikipedia, it's all about improvisation.

and it's finally done!

it's been more than a year since I first announced the creation of my website, theaqdas.org, and now it is time again.

after having papers like this:

and my friend looking like this:

we are finally done. the new version of theaqdas.org is online, and I must say that I am quite excited about this. besides studying everything again and reconnecting the synopsis to the verses, questions and answers and notes, there are some site design improvements, and added functionality: admonitions, concordance and paragraph summary.

it's been an amazing journey, learning a lot of code and programming techniques, and also all the studying that's been done. I can only hope that other people get some sort of benefit from this, for me it's been absolutely amazing. hoping to do more in the future... :)

it's been a year and a half

wow. that's all I can say.

Akko day!

yesterday was the Akko open day, to celebrate the recognition of the Baha'i Holy Places and gardens as UNESCO world heritage sites. as Bahji was open to the public to wander around and see the beautiful gardens, we were asked to help out as ushers to make sure people could get directions and help, answers to their questions, and everything else that might happen. there were some exhibitions, children's playing area and more. unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the event, but I'm sure there will be something coming up here and there soon. it was a really beautiful day, and it was really enjoyable to be standing around watching people come.

as a source of encouragement, we were given this quotation to read:

Be ye sincerely kind, not in appearance only. Let each one of God's loved ones centre his attention on this: to be the Lord's mercy to man; to be the Lord's grace. Let him do some good to every person whose path he crosseth, and be of some benefit to him. Let him improve the character of each and all, and reorient the minds of men. In this way, the light of divine guidance will shine forth, and the blessings of God will cradle all mankind: for love is light, no matter in what abode it dwelleth; and hate is darkness, no matter where it may make its nest.
- 'Abdu'l-Bahá

as there was quite a bit of free time at first (we made sure to be on our posts ahead of time), I had the time to learn this quotation by heart. and it very much served as a reminder during the day, whenever someone came and asked anything, I tried to remember the "let him do some good to every person whose path he crosseth". hopefully I did!

I also figured out why we went to daylight savings yesterday and not tonight, as (in my mind) would make more sense. it started raining a little bit at approximately 4.30, and then about 10-15 minutes later it got heavier and heavier. the program was supposed to continue until 5, but with this we had to close down everything and start packing up. had we not gone over to daylight savings but waited a day, we would've closed another hour earlier, which would've meant less people coming...

already looking forward to next week, open day in Haifa! :)

someone has way too much time on their hands

I just got this sent to me... utterly hilarious, check it out:

absolutely beautiful site

do check out ganbahai.org.il, which is a newly created site for the Baha'i gardens in Haifa and Akka... all I can say is wow, it's stunningly beautiful.

and yes, it's even better actually being here... :)