This is the last cheesecake I made: double chocolate truffle. Definitely not healthy...but it was fun to share it at Naw Ruz. Now I am trying to think about what I could create for the upcoming Ridvan festivities, which include, as always in our community, a couple of potlucks. Perhaps it's time to have fun making a different kind of cake.

As a part of a religious community, I sometimes feel like I'm split in several directions. There are all the activities one does as a part of participation in a faith group, one you have conscientiously chosen and study, and to try and integrate into your daily life. Then there's the "rest" of life: events, school, work, family activities, journeys, secular writing...and I find trying to separate these, to have one apart from the other, very artificial. I have been reflecting about this because an old friend posted something to Facebook which I found distasteful, and I asked my husband and eldest daughter if I was overreacting. Both said no, and in fact my daughter, who, at 21, is part of the culture of youth, whatever that is, basically said that you can't just be part of the faith when it's convenient, or words to that effect.

When you are a part of a faith community, of course it's a question of doing your best all the time, and of course sometimes you will mess up. We all do. Practicing faith is a process, not a product, obviously: but sometimes, there are observable results from practice, in that you make choices which may be difficult and sometimes unpopular, but which are nonetheless important because they come from that inner part of the self that I think of as the spiritual and grounded self, not subject to change when it doesn't fit the expectations of the world. It's not that you are judging other people, but at the same time, it is important to call your own self to account, and to be able to say, honestly and lovingly, if something doesn't fit, to yourself and to those you care about. You can't be two people in one person; the colloquial way of saying this, I suppose, is that you have to walk the talk. There have been so many times in my own life when I have fallen short of that, I am the last person to feel or occupy any kind of sanctimonious position, but at the same time I am conscious, as I grow older, of all the things I wouldn't have done...

I suppose it's that precarious place of regret, contextualized against "what I know now". I'm fifty: things change. On the one hand, a person can say, about any given event or past choice, "Oh, I now understand why I had to go through that", and it is helpful. So if the purpose of tests is learning, I suppose by my age you learn a little more! But sometimes faith offers protections, as well: in our faith, for example, there is a clear standard of moral behaviour and if you are able to practice it, I can tell you from the position of hindsight, you will look back with less regret.

I think about the next years of my life: at my age, I may yet have another 30-40 years on the planet, if all goes well. I want to make them better than the last ones. Of course there have been many wonderful things in the past, too numerous to even count. But hope is always present: this reminds me of a wonderful passage from Baha'u'llah: "Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday." I like this...and I think it applies to days and months and years...so that I always think and hope that today will be better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today. Always, the expression is Insh'allah: God willing.

Process, something like making cake. You start with the basic ingredients, and then you practice and practice and practice, and eventually, you have the recipe by heart and you can make it a habit, so that every time, it comes out right. Hopefully spirits grow like that, and eventually, maybe there is no difference between the spirit, every day, and what you do with it.