This visual backdrop also heightens the expression of my life, my family's and that of the Bahá'í community I have been a part of for nearly sixty years. These photographs paralyze (1) by their facticity and the absense of fact or (2) by what might be called the physicality of reality. In my writing I try to get behind and beneath this surface physicality. The memorabilia, of course, which will survive me and be of any relevance to the ongoing history of the Bahá'í Faith I would tend to think are not relevant, although only time will tell down the future's mysterious track. No photographs or memorabilia are included here.

Given the importance to us on earth of these two physical forms, I have tried to place them in a long term perspective, a longue duree, as one school of historians calls the long haul.