Vanuatu

Dreaming of Vanuatu

By John Taylor; 2007 May 12

The mechanic tells me that my brake lines rotted out. He showed it to us, with the car propped up high in the garage. I have read my Agatha Christie and I know that is how murderers do their work discretely, they just cut the brake lines and wait for the victim to crash. But fortunately the traffic was light where mine failed and I lived to tell the tale. Thomas was impressed by seeing the bottom of the car; now as we drive our bikes across town he imagines the brake lines on the takyon generators of his supercharged, superfast interstellar bicycle foul up. When he grows up he will be very happy working as a technical consultant for some future Star Trek show, because he is very imaginative in his technical obfuscation.

In response to the Canadian Baha'i Fund's deficit crisis, our community is holding a sale of donated items. Here is our secretary's email announcement: "A Yard Sale will take place on May 19th at Taylor's with the community offering up items clearly priced for this sale in hopes of increasing the total beyond the pledged level. The rain date for this is the 26th." If you live within driving distance of Dunnville, do get your donation in to us by next Saturday.

Here is a professionally made video on Youtube about an Australian Baha'i pioneer's activities in Vanuatu,

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaeT9nEofHE>

What a pleasure it is to see your fellow believers in far flung places!

I found this Reuter's news item pretty funny: "What do you MEAN I'm not going to die?" This guy in England is given a year to live by his doctor, spends all his savings, gets rid of everything he owns, then finds out they made a mistake. He is not going to die. Oops. <http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0727013220070507?feedType=RSS>

This sort of story makes you think about what you are doing with your life, especially when you see how well that pioneer in Vanuatu is doing. As Baha'is we have been promised that a drop of blood in His path is an investment that will have "myriads of oceans" for recompense.

So we can get rid of all we own for God and humanity and we will surely feel a lot better about the loss than that poor shmuck who did same for mere temporary pleasure, thinking he would die soon. Okay, the ocean's water levels are rising fast and the island nation of Vanuatu is going to be one of the first to be inundated. That pioneer may have myriads of oceans of spiritual payback in store, but it looks like one ocean will be enough to erase his post and everybody on it.

But therein hangs a tale.

On Wednesday night I taped a talk by Gordon Naylor, one of my spiritual parents, whose daughter Tahireh is the Baha'i representative at the UN. He told the story of her most recent exploits. In view of the fact that governments are only reluctantly talking about the scientific implications of global warming, she figured it might be helpful to have a meeting on their moral and spiritual ramifications. This, she found, is not a very popular idea among the world's nations. I will not go into details now, other than to say that Vanuatu, the first to sink under the waves, was the one and only state willing to offer the necessary sponsorship for this conference. I have Gord telling the story in his own words, and as soon as I get it transcoded, approved by him (as a member of Canada's NSA he has to check his words over for political commentary) and then, the part I dread, figure out how to put a sound file on this blog, you will be able to hear it for yourself. If anybody can offer me technical help or advice on how to web cast in Blogspot, I would appreciate it.