Journeys 2 Gether

Many thanks to my wonderful friend, Justin Nevill, for creating this website...

to check it out-to see what we are up to-go to

this website!

Love Rio

Exultation

Many of the world religions teach us that the passing of the soul from the body to the next world is not cause for despair and sadness, but for happiness and rejoicing. As a dear friend put it to me...our inability to comprehend this truth is reflective of the duality of the human existence, the balance that we are all striving for. It also is in keeping with the crumbling of the old world order and the synchronous rising of the new-as more and more our spiritual sides mature and become aware that our physical bodies and our mortal existence is not the pinnacle of our being that our materialistic society portrays it to be.

I have been given a gift too precious to fully describe. I have seen a friend's battle to remain focused on the ultimate objective of God's will as the crude housing that we call our body failed. I have watched living become difficult, the most taken for granted, simple tasks become arduous labors, resulting in exhaustion and nausea. Sat alongside a bed while pain and agony repeatedly beat away at the mental reserves and willpower to die gracefully.

But most of all, I watched the trembling hands, and wandering mind return to the prayers; the mouth-sometimes silently and through dry, parched lips-repeatedly offer forth the exhortation "Ya Baha El-Abha!" I have listened to the holy words of God uttered with a waning voice, but a spirit that was desperately trying to burst freee from its earthly confines and shout its praises aloud so that all could hear the beauty!

I don't know how this works either, but I know that she will always be watching and assisting us. Thank you for giving me this wonderful part of life, and thank you for all the secrets you have given me-and most importantly for the assurance that our souls do not rely on our bodies to sing their song to the heavens.

Please say a prayer-any kind that you can-for a dear friend and sister who has been freed from this plane of existence and is now moving onward in her journey.

Destination...?

New Zealand is looking like the clear choice for settling down right now...Ashley and I are both really excited about it. I don't think I have met a single person who had bad things to say about the country...
Hopefully we will have some letters of introduction to the Baha'i's over there...and if anyone knows anybody who would be willing to show us their neck of the woods we would love to have contact information...
send it to riosawhill@gmail.com

time vs. money

I have seen this face-off before
I have seen the pendulum swing one way
one day,
then the other the next.
Restraint and sacrifice, teetering between necessity
of materials,
and the necessity
of precious moments.
Sometimes we cram greatly to one extreme,
at the expense of the other
and sometimes we walk the balance beam between.
How much money will I need
to make my memories of this time pleasant?
Can I ever get enough to outweigh the loss
of seeing a child's beautiful child-smile?
When I look back on our last conversations,
will I regret that I cut them short to go to "work"?
How long does it take to realize
that you can't take it with you?
and yet...
I cannot stop thinking of money...

Having Left This World...

Baha'i Prayer for the Dead
(If it is for a man, then substitute son, him and his when saying it)

"O my God! This is Thy servant, and the daughter of Thy servant who hath believed in Thee and in Thy signs, and set her face towards Thee, wholly detached from all else except Thee. Thou art, verily, of those who show mercy the most merciful.
Deal with her, O Thou Who forgivest the sins of men and concealeth their faults, as beseemeth the heaven of Thy bounty and the ocean of Thy grace. Grant her admission within the precincts of Thy transcendent mercy that was before the foundation of earth and heaven. There is no God but Thee, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous.

Then repeat six times the greeting 'Allah-u-Abha',
and then repeat nineteen times each of the following verses.
We all, verily, worship God.

We all, verily, bow down before God.

We all, verily, are devoted unto God.

We all, verily, give praise unto God.

We all, verily, yield thanks unto God.

We all, verily, are patient in God.

endings

two more endings
one drawn out too long
another cut much too short
added to the earlier story
of an expected passing
that was surprisingly unexpected
in threes he comes
but it is simple statistics
the longer you live
the more lives you will bear witness to
as they come to a halt
and while some are planning weddings
and some are birthing children
others spend their time mourning
and wiping tears from their cheeks
as they try to find ways to say goodbye
to someone that has already gone
a small comfort it can sometimes be
when my soul swells with remembrance
and I realize that they are not gone forever
but living on in every one I see

Literary Privacy

I was reading a book by Chuck Klosterman. Chuck is quite a thinker...as much as any of us. I could relater to Chuck because the majority of the thoughts that he wrote about revolved around the way he perceived everyone else perceiving him. Perfect.
Perfectly selfish and egotistical. If I had the same experiences as Chuck, I could have wrote that book.

In his book her does a lot of writing about his relationships with women. It struck me, that I too could do the same thing, although I haven't yet. Its not that I would have a lot of women to write about, its that I could spend pages dissecting what I think that they were thinking in any given situation. Some of my worst moments in the past few years have been when I actually vocalized these dissections to the women in my life. I have definitely learned that a little censorship of my internal voices is a good thing. But...

Once a little time has passed...can I share my thoughts then? What if I change names? Situations? Who will know? What about my future wife? Can I write about her? Us? When will it be okay? Chuck didn't necessarily wait--he just wrote about what he was feeling...it doesn't always have to be damaging. But the one thing he noted that makes me cringe, both because I know it to be my own tendency as well as knowing how much it angers me when I experience it...

Is the fact that often time the things that I can make into cohesive thoughts on paper-with my words-are things I don't know how to say out loud.