The Snowflake Chronicles

Midsummer Thoughts

17 Nur 163 B.E. – June 21, 2006 A.D.

June 21, 2006 the first day of summer, Summer Solstice, Midsummer, the longest day of the year and the shortest night in the Northern hemisphere. This morning when I said my prayers, I said a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. Normally when I say my morning prayers, I say a prayer for assistance with tests and difficulties, but this morning they just didn’t seem appropriate. As a Baha’i, I don’t celebrate the Summer Solstice, it’s not a holy day or a day of commemoration on the Baha’i Calendar.

For me, on a personal level, Summer Solstice marks a change in seasons. Spring ends and summer begins, the days will start getting shorter and the nights longer. In nature, fruits and vegetables are in the process of growing and ripening. Animals have given birth and their offspring are maturing. That is the reason I said a prayer of thanks this morning, this is a time to give thanks, a time to contemplate the achievements of the past and look toward the achievements of the future.

So what, it may be ask, do I think about on Midsummer Day? World peace, of course, I think about the fact that Peace on Earth, like the changing of the seasons, is inevitable. It’s the columniation of a long and natural process, a process that began in the dim prehistoric past of humanity. Human migration and passion has separated the species by color, creed, nation and various other artificial designations. Humanity’s oneness hinted at in various myths from the past and proven by scientific discoveries of the present is becoming clearer everyday.

Often times a person looks at the situation in the world, the wars, terrorism and natural disasters, and thinks that we are on the “eve of destruction”. Humanity IS NOT on the verge of destruction, rather it’s in the process of transformation and maturity. Humanity is growing up, becoming conscious that our commonalities overshadow difference between the various segments of the species.

In the late nineteenth century, Baha’u’llah wrote, “… Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come.... “ (The Proclamation of Baha'u'llah, p. viii). Here we are in the early twenty-first century and wars once considered local conflicts are now world conflicts. There are some, who might regard this as a change for the worst, but consider this. The concept of war is changing at the grass root level, individual men and women are viewing war differently today than they did in the nineteenth century. Individuals are viewing humanity differently today than they did in the nineteenth century.

Therefore, on Wednesday, June 21, 2006, my thoughts turn to peace and my prayer is a prayer of gratitude. Gratitude because I am living in the greatest time in human history, I living in the age when war shall end and peace established upon Earth. Despite the problems and difficulties, this process causes to me and the rest of the human race, an age of transition is the best time for a writer and mystic to live.