It's been kind of fun, looking around at the wonderful world of blogging. It seems like a whole lot of them are devoted to the expression of adolescent angst -- the girls doing "Oh my gosh, I'm so pathetic", and the guys being generally pretty obscene. However, there are some good ones out there, some like Juan's are devoted to serious comment on current events, or are more professional. I found one where a woman was keeping a record of her pregnancy, which made me smile, because I did the exact same thing in my journals -- although to be frank, when one's pregnancies are many years in the past, every agonizing detail really isn't all that interesting any more. But it was at the time. :-) I'm not out here to write a "good" blog; I'm just out here being me -- pretty much like I always am.

Over on talk.religion.bahai, the old re-hash of infallibility, Covenant, Will & Testament, spheres of interpretation and legislation, and the whole ball of wax is starting up again. I started up a response, then cancelled it. I've gone round and round about this stuff, so many times during the past couple of years, often with the same people -- I just don't want to do it anymore. If the center of what the Baha'i Faith has to offer the world is that we've got divine guidance at the helm, as opposed to the rest of those sorry schmucks out there, then it isn't offering much. If values such as freedom of expression and due process are things that we are supposed to "outgrow", then the Faith has nothing to contribute to the progress and well-being of mankind.

The center of the Baha'i Faith is not the Lesser Covenant -- the authority structure of the Baha'i Faith, but the Greater Covenant, the response of the human soul to the call of God.