It's been a while, I'll admit, but the time off was needed

And it all flowed out, all at once

I'm at the House of Worship in Wilmette, IL right now; sitting at my friend Sarah's computer, staring at a bulletin board with two maps of Chicago and its suburbs, various fliers and a clipping from the local newspaper with a story about the House of Worship and its staff. I've been here nearly every day since the move. Taking breaks to sit on the floor in the Cornerstone Room to say prayers for Spiritual Growth whenever I can. I feel different in a lot of ways. Better. But I'm beginning to question to what extent 'better' means. Is this feeling simply a sheen, a spray-on coating that covers the degenerative feelings I've had over the past...several years? I try to spend time looking deep within, eyes forced closed, another eye darting in a black...something. I don't find much most of the time.

There are moments, however, where I see and feel a brightness in me. When I can't contain it all and it model-volcanoes its way out of my mouth and eyes and any other opening it can find as a mass of something that I can't quite put my finger on. What to call it, I can't put my finger on, I should say. The feeling is something different. Something welcoming and exciting, but short lived. Like the small charge left in a flashlight as you're crawling through a tunnel on all fours. I try to smack it to get those last ions and watts out, and soon there after it goes dead.

A friend explained to me a while ago that her goal was to be a hollow reed for Bahá’u’lláh, the profit founder of the Bahá’í Faith. That if she could work her best to be as a reed, or conduit, to Bahá’u’lláh everyone could see how much she loved Him. That it expanded within her body and outside it at the same time. Moving in unison with all the other people who felt this way. Like a limitless, growing, unseen ocean. She says the feeling is hard to describe, but people recognize it when they see it; whether they're Bahá’ís or not. As if it's something that we have all felt at some point, in a dark tunnel. But back then, when we were at our purest, at our most like a hollow reed, we glowed. I'm just trying to get back to that point and remember that that light is always there.

Now, where's my prayer book...