This morning I direct you to segment on television (which is prefaced by a movie commercial but hang in there). It's a brief spot done by my friend Susanne Alexander of the Marriage Transformation Project and I think it's self-explanatory: www.myfoxcleveland.com/myfox/pages/InsideFox/Detail?contentId=2030554&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=5.7.1
for you to look at.

Susanne and I have been friends since we were teens. It's interesting to me that both of us have ended up interested in similar topics: her life, and her husband Craig's, are largely devoted to the work they do with assisting couples, while my first published book is on the subject of marriage.

Winter has finally arrived, and I completely wiped out on ice yesterday en route to class, ass over teakettle. It wasn't glamorous, but fortunately it also didn't hurt too much, so I picked myself up a little gingerly and off I went again. The prairies are where winter is really hurting, though, and we have been watching the National news with some pleasure that we are not, currently, in Saskatchewan. My sister made it out from her home in Saskatoon just in time; she is here in the Ottawa Valley to say goodbye to her mother-in-law, who is preparing to leave the world and who had her last Christmas with all six sons and their families gathered round. At the same time they (Andrea and her husband Steve) are waiting for the arrival of their second grandchild, any minute now. And so it goes...winter turns to spring, death turns to birth.

With this I would like to share with you a lovely prayer I encountered last night at our Ruhi group. This is written by the sister of 'Abdu'l-Baha, whose name was Bahiyyih Khanum: we Baha'is refer to her as "the Greatest Holy Leaf", a title of love and deep admiration. A recent book about her life, by Dr. Janet Khan, is called Prophet's Daughter, and can be ordered via the same links I gave you a couple of days ago for the van den Hoonaards' book and for mine. If you are interested in Baha'i history, I recommend it. I am about half-way through reading the book, and gaining a much stronger sense of an astonishing woman in a difficult time. Here is the prayer that this gentle and intrepid soul wrote:

O kind Lord! O comforter of anguished hearts! Send down Thy mercy upon us, and Thy grace, bestow upon us patience, give us the strength to endure. With Thy generous hand, lay Thou a balm upon our sores, grant us a medicine for this never-healing woe. Console Thou Thy loved ones, comfort these handmaids, heal Thou our wounded breasts with Thy bounty's remedy, restore our festering hearts.

With the gentle breeze of Thy compassion, make fresh and green again these boughs, withered by autumn blasts; restore Thou to flourishing life these flowers, shriveled by the blight of bereavement.

With tidings of the Abha Paradise, wed Thou our souls to joy, and rejoice Thou our spirits with heartening voices from the dwellers in the realm of glory.

Thou art the Bounteous, Thou art the Clement, Thou art the Bestower, the Loving.