Monday, March 05, 2007

What Does Peace Feel Like?

We picked up Baily, Dolly, and Vaneda, and drove over on Saturday to the Purdy Baha'i Children's classes. It is only a short 15 minute drive over the Narrows bridge. George assisted with the class for the pre-readers, with puppets, drawings, and snacks. I took photo- graphs. I'll post a few here, just to highlight the occasion.

The class starts out with a round of prayers, consul- tation and singing. The lead teacher, Carla Jo, was organizing a round of songs that will be presented to a local nursing home for one of their daily activities. The children were told what to expect when they go into the nursing home, and, of course, to encourage conversation and affection.
The children break up into classes, and the adults attend a Ruhi Class while the children are in class. The group here were doing Book 4, on the greatness of this day and the promises it holds for humanity. They were working on a memorization: "This is the Day in which God's most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness. It behooveth them to cleve to whatsoever will, in this Day, be conducive to the exaltation of their stations, and to the promotion of their best interests." ~ Baha'u'llah

This little guy was a lot like me, doing his own thing, sitting by the window. We exchanged a few whispers after awhile, and I found him to be quite charming and endearing, despite his limited vocabulary. It was amazing what a few fluttering eyelashes and a shy smile can do.

I picked up one of the children's books during the snack-time, called "What Does Peace Feel Like" by V. Radunsky, and one of the chapters was on what peace sou
nds like. One child said, "It feels like a growling bear of war who gets shot by a love arrow and the fighting stops."

Another child said, "It sounds like everyone's heart beating, making one big sound together."

And, another child wrote that peace " looks like a cloud high up in the sky that just happens to be there, giving happiness to everybody, white and fluffy peace."

A number of other books were on the shelf, one of which was "Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed" by Emily Pearson: "Can one good deed from one ordinary girl change the world? It can when she’s Ordinary Mary—an ordinary girl from an ordinary school, on her way to her ordinary house—who stumbles upon ordinary blueberries. When she decides to pick them for her neighbor, Mrs. Bishop, she starts a chain reaction that multiplies around the world. Mrs. Bishop makes blueberry muffins and gives them to her paperboy and four others—one of whom is Mr. Stevens, who then helps five different people with their luggage—one of whom is Maria, who then helps five people—including a man named Joseph who didn’t have enough money for his groceries—and so on, until the deed touches every single person on the planet and finally comes back to Mary."