Today we met at the home of B and J, so we could see the carpet J bought when he was in Uzbekistan with Shahabuddin. All of us were present which was lovely. We did not meet in June.
H told us that David Spangler has offered to hold a day when he talks about the Seven Pillars. This will help to raise money for The Abode. We tried to help figure out the best date for this, and it will probably be Nov 1st. H also had some personal news, her son has graduated, after all the trials of those teenage years!
Recently, M emailed out a newsletter from the Seattle Sufis Board, with information about what is coming up, and also told us about some changes to the structure of the Board.
J told us that the money we raised for Ibtisam paid for the new tiles on the floor of the trauma healing center which she is building. It was great to know that we made a difference. Ibtisam is also having success in doing fundraising, which is wonderful.
T's parents are coming to visit - and this is a mixed blessing for her family.
J's news was that his son is going to Sarasota to Shahabuaddin's class for young people. This is exciting too, and so we started talking about parents and children relationships - current and when we were children. This led some of us to deep waters, and painful memories, and along the way we discovered a big difference between the often large and tangled extended Jewish families, and the small and often isolated English-heritages the rest of us had, where feelings were not encouraged to be displayed. We thought about this on a larger scale in the Middle East, and wondered how it affected the families there. How do our families come to peaceful resolution and compromises? Is it the same on a bigger scale?
