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Circumnavigation: A Personal Perspective

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RonPrice View Drop Down
Knight
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  Quote RonPrice Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Circumnavigation: A Personal Perspective
    Posted: 19-Jul-2009 at 22:08
Four hundred years(1519 to 1919) after Ferdinand Magellan and 237 men left Seville1 and began the first successful attempt of humankind to circumnavigate the globe, 'Abdu'l-Baha's Tablets of the Divine Plan were unveiled in New York. Those Tablets initiated another attempt to circumnavigate the world but, this time, in spiritual terms.  An English edition of all those  tablets was published in 1936 just as the North American Baha’is were planning their first formal teaching program, the Seven Year Plan, which began in May 1937.  The year I joined the Baha’i Faith, in 1959, those Tablets were published in book form under the title Tablets of the Divine Plan for the first time.2-Ron Price with thanks to 1&2 Wikipedia.

Only 18 men returned to Spain
in that harrowing voyage and
this new voyage was also just
as harrowing and is not for the
timid and the overwrought, not
for the vainly pious, those who
are pusillanimous of spirit, nor
the bloodless prigs among us...

This much is plain: the journey
is not for those wary & in despair
of love------this trip on unvariable
storm-lashed brigs....unreasonable
rains, long waits for salient doves
to bring living twigs....with a lean
provision of devotion, with weeks
& months of never-ending dark—
this is no vacation..with unhygienic
perils such as chronic & committed
rapture or incipient dedication------
forget your notions of a luxury cruise.1
It was that way for Magellan and.......
circumnavigation still has problems...
in this new planetization age......!!!!!

1 With thanks to Roger White, “A Parable for the Wrong People,” The Witness of Pebbles, George Ronald, Oxford, 1981, pp.69-71.

Ron Price
19 July 2009

Ron Price has been married for 47 years(in 2014) and a teacher for 35. He has been a writer and editor for 15, and a Baha'i for 55(in 2014).
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opuslola View Drop Down
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  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Oct-2009 at 20:50
Ron, a wonderful poem, but what does any of this mean?
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/
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  Quote toyomotor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2014 at 23:26
Originally posted by opuslola

Ron, a wonderful poem, but what does any of this mean?
I see! Stumped him.LOL
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  Quote RonPrice Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2014 at 00:32
Belated thanks for your response, folks. Poetry, opuslola, is often a puzzle to readers. Much of the prose-poetry that I write tries to find relationships between events in history and my life, its beliefs and values. Four hundred years(1519 to 1919) after Ferdinand Magellan went around the world, one of the Central Figures in my religion published an important book(in 1919) I simply put the 2 things together in my little piece of writing and related them to my own life.-Ron Price, Australia

Edited by RonPrice - 12-Feb-2014 at 00:35
Ron Price has been married for 47 years(in 2014) and a teacher for 35. He has been a writer and editor for 15, and a Baha'i for 55(in 2014).
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red clay View Drop Down
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Feb-2014 at 12:34
Ron, Opuslola is quite often more than puzzling to most.  Apologies for the inappropriate responses.
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
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