I remember the first time I watched Kerri Strug’s one-leg vault, I felt sick to my stomach. The conversations around me were centered on how “brave” she had been. As a fellow teenager, I was terrified that she was encouraged to injure herself for the sake of Olympic gold. Why would her coach, who I… Read More What We Should Learn from Simone Biles: Redefining the “Gold Standard”
We made it! My husband, baby, and I have survived our little one’s first 24 months, “despite” being new parents! I say “survive” and “despite”, because according to most parents who gave us unsolicited advice when they found out we were pregnant, having a child marks the end of everything good in our lives. Seriously.… Read More Bringing New Parents Up Rather Than Bringing Them Down: Achieving the “Unachievable”
The #metoo movement was quite intense, to say the least. I knew that the prevalence of harassment was high, but some unexpected people in my circle of friends came out with their own #metoo stories that had me shook. It has also been very hard on the men in my circle of friends, who have… Read More A Four Step Action Plan So That #metoo Can Become #neveragain
After what happened in February 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, I wrote a series of posts about school shootings. It came right before a pre-planned hiatus, just in time for the Bahá’í Fast. I had intended to start blogging again right after the Bahá’í New Year (21 March), but I… Read More The Interplay Between Hope and Despair: Helping Hope Win
This week’s posts were written with the victims of school shootings in mind—from those who died to their families, including those who survived and will carry the trauma with them for a long time. I started off the week with a list of immediately actionable things that each one of us can do. I then… Read More It’s Not Just About School Shootings: The Broader Picture, and What We Can Do
Yesterday’s post was all about personal action that can be taken to eradicate gun violence. And while personal action is an essential part of the solution, so is engaging in the overall conversation about guns. None of us, as individuals, has the solution to this problem; but each one of us holds an important insight… Read More Barriers to Help The Weakest Links in our Communities
We all saw the news last week of yet another school shooting. I have to say that I am fed up that so many children and teenagers in the United States could, one day, be faced with a shooter in their own school. It shouldn’t happen, and yet it does. I remember going through safety… Read More Little Things We Can All Do to Create a Safe World (aka No More School Shootings)
There is a lot of blame going around nowadays. I’m not sure if this is something that has always been a part of our collective discourse—have humans always focused so much of their energy on finding someone to blame for anything they weren’t happy with? As someone who is very religious, I have found myself… Read More Don’t Blame Math; Blame the Mathematician
Learning is essential for both personal development and the building of a community. But it’s easier said than done. When, for example, one has spent a lot of time and poured a lot of energy into one’s education, it can be quite a blow to hear that one might be wrong. Similarly, when one identifies… Read More What’s Love Got To Do With It? The Importance Of Love In Community-Building
The concept of progressive revelation (that God sends us Revelation in increasingly big doses through the different Manifestations of God) is based on the reality that humanity is maturing. It is going through stages that are akin to one human’s development from infancy to childhood, onto adolescence and, finally, into adulthood. As a human being… Read More More People, More Power: How Small Acts Can Contribute to a New World Order