The Gift of Education

A close friend of mine, who happens to be a Baha'i, picked up and moved with her family to the Dominican Republic two years ago. They wanted to help relieve poverty on the poorest island in the western hemisphere. Avoiding the pitfalls of so many well-intentioned aid organizations, they spent those years getting to know the population and looking holistically at what is actually needed and what can raise up local resources. 

Their conclusion: a library.

They are currently fundraising for the project and they're almost halfway to their goal of $19,000 to get it funded sustainably. 

Please consider giving. Here is their indiegogo campaign:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/263528/

The video below documents their thought process and goals. 

In case you want to "follow the money", they provided this pie chart of their budget.

Paid Service

The first Local Spiritual Assembly of Bekune, Cameroon (1960)

I previously wrote about the changing role of Baha'i Centers and how they are no longer central to the model of Baha'i community growth. Changing how we meet our space needs could (on paper) reduce costs by around $25k/year. That amount of money is just enough to hire someone full-time.

I also previously wrote about the problem of incumbency in Baha'i elections and how current membership status should not be considered when casting votes.

These offer a backdrop to a related topic that has the potential for significant positive change in Baha'i communities. There is a stumbling block lying ahead for communities as they grow, but the bump is avoidable.

Oregon currently has three large Baha'i communities: Eugene, Beaverton, and Portland. These have at least 100 active participants, a Baha'i Center, and a history of many decades. Each city has for the last 15+ years had a dedicated Assembly secretary who acted as a workhorse, providing upwards of 15 hours every week of their free time (aka, retirement) serving the local assembly. Within a few years of each other, all three left their posts due to retirement or other work. Filling in behind them was a cadre of working parents and others who looked on the appointment with a kind of horror realizing the magnitude and criticality of the work.

Guidelines

Here is roughly what happened in Portland. The new secretary looks in the Guidelines for Local Spiritual Assemblies to see what to do. Can't resign from Assembly, but can resign from being an Officer. Ok. But Shoghi Effendi really really doesn't like that. Ok. Guidelines outline duties of Secretary. Yep, the duties are well articulated and extensive. Aha! There it is!

"These duties can be divided up among various different secretaries or other officers if the Assembly should choose to do so. Some larger communities have found it helpful to further divide the workload of their Secretariats. For example, they may have any or all of the following: a General Secretary, an External Affairs Secretary, a Recording Secretary, a Membership Secretary, and/or a Personal Status Secretary. In some larger communities, the work of the Secretary may warrant hiring paid staff, in addition to any volunteers."

Then the thought comes, "What do churches do?" There are some obvious similarities. A brief trip to Google returned the answer. The average church has one full-time paid employee for every 70 congregants, and on average they spend 50% of funds on staffing. "Lean" churches spend 35% on staffing. In Portland, the Assembly was spending less than $5k (6%) on paid service for the bulletin, website, and others duties, but nothing for Assembly functioning. A "lean" church would be spending $28k on staffing in a similar situation. Could it be that the lack of dedicated, paid staff is holding back the growth of the Portland Baha'i community?

Pro: Vision

There are several lines of reasoning indicating that the lack of paid staff is holding back growth in numerous Baha'i communities. The first is vision. In a 2005 message, the Universal House of Justice wrote,

"Maintaining a vision of the potential size of future communities is essential to the further development of Local Assemblies. To administer the affairs of communities whose membership will swell into the thousands, and to fulfill their purpose as the ‘trusted ones of the merciful among men,’ those who serve on Spiritual Assemblies will necessarily undergo intense periods of learning in the years ahead."

When a seed matures, it does not just grow in its current state to become a large seed. It transforms and changes. Similarly, local assemblies will transform their functioning when administering the affairs of thousands. They will need to maintain focus on high-level issues like appointments, policy, and fund allocations while leaving details to staff. In smaller communities, it would seem absurd to pay someone to do Baha'i work. In larger ones, it would seem absurd to rely entirely on volunteers. With time local assemblies will increasingly look like higher institutions, such as the US National Spiritual Assembly with 3-4 members on salary working full-time, along with many paid staff and volunteers. The NW Regional Baha'i Council has a dedicated full-time secretary, along with part-time paid service positions and many volunteers.

The question is, where is the threshold between a small and a large community? Based on the experience of churches, it is around 70 participants. If that number is accurate, Portland should have two full-time staffers where it currently has a small fraction of one. In communities hovering around 70 people, even if the immediate need for paid staff is not recognized, a community ten times larger would require it, so forward-thinking communities should act as if the growth will happen and set up the administrative framework for that reality.

For example, an Assembly could set aside a few thousand dollars to pay for some of the heavy lifting, such as website, bulletin, marriage issues, or whatever they are struggling to accomplish. There will always be some people willing to provide volunteer service, but more often people will appreciate the funds and would not have otherwise been able to put in the hours.

Once the Assembly gets its feet wet and has some experience paying for service, it will be easier to expand and adapt as needs arise. It is far easier to increase a budget line item than to create it from scratch.

Pro: No Burnout

There are two recommended methods for dealing with the heavy workload of the Assembly's Secretary. One is to spread out the work among several members, another is to centralize the work and pay someone.

Anyone who has served on the Assembly of a large community will quickly recognize that spreading out more work among members is generally undesirable. Just being a functional member of the Assembly can easily take 3-4 hours/week. Although this is within reason, membership is compulsory and cannot be turned down. Spreading out the work and increasing the responsibilities of members leads to burnout and absolute avoidance of membership. I've even heard people say that they intentionally remain inactive because they don't want to be elected to the Assembly. Obviously such ideas carry flaws, but they reflect a real problem. I've also seen overburdened Assembly members put their marriages in jeopardy or sacrifice time with their children to perform Assembly work.

Centralizing the work not only has the benefit of causing less burnout among members, but much of the work is better done by a single person. For example, the person maintaining a calendar needs to be broadly aware of events across the city, so it's more efficient for the person in charge of correspondence to also maintain the calendar. Excluding the issue of burnout, spreading out the work still requires someone to coordinate the tasks and triage incoming requests, otherwise the work becomes fragmented. Without someone dedicated to address issues as they arise, the Assembly's response to critical issues may be painfully slow or fall through the cracks.

The problem of burnout is compounded by the additional 15+ hours/week of the secretary, and less-so the treasurer (they can be the same person, by the way). Very few Baha'is are in a position where that time commitment is even possible, notwithstanding their dedication and desire for sacrifice. If the Assembly has no framework in place for paid service, they will have to resign.

Pro: Quality

Centralizing and paying for the work of the Secretary has one significant benefit: quality.

Votes cast while electing an Assembly should be based on merit and character, not available free time or previous experience on Assemblies. This is imperative for the quality of decisions being made.

The election of officers is similar. Votes should be based on merit and character, not available free time or previous work as an officer. It's hard to emphasize this enough. The Secretary has the role of presenting issues for consultation and representing the decisions of the Assembly to others, among other things. The quality of such work should be not sacrificed, so a mature Assembly would focus on the qualities of office when electing officers, not focus on whoever has free time.

Votes for officers are cast by secret ballot among Assembly members, so there is no opportunity to declare one's desire (or dislike) for the position. Once the vote is cast, the Secretary may wish to volunteer their time to fulfill the duties, or request multiple secretaries be elected, but if neither of those methods work then paid service or resignation are the only other options. If the elected secretary has to resign, the quality of the Assembly work will suffer, so paid service seems like an appealing option.

But sometimes money doesn't matter. Someone with a family and a high income, even if funds were available, would not necessarily quit their job to work for the Assembly. In such a case, the Secretary could take on oversight of a paid position, either on or off the Assembly. If on the Assembly, how is the individual selected? If off the Assembly, how do you go about hiring someone? Can they handle confidential matters? (yes, they can) Do you choose someone and ask? Do you ask for applicants? There is the potential for hurt feelings if someone is overlooked. What if several people apply and nobody is qualified? These are issues to discuss ahead of time.

Pro: Growth

The question of growth is more subtle, but it is also a strong indication that communities should look toward paid service.

In a letter to the Counsellors dated 28 December 2010, the Universal House of Justice wrote,

"[those involved in Bahá’í administration] should not imagine that such service entitles them to operate on the periphery of the learning process that is everywhere gaining strength, exempt from its inherent requirements."

Members of Assemblies should be in the forefront of growth activities, and growth activities require time. In general, electors should be voting for those already in the forefront of community building, not those who remain on the periphery. If Assembly members spend most of their time with core activities, then their contributions to Assembly consultation will be richer. If they are bogged down with administrative tasks, or if membership is avoided due to the time commitment, then the Assembly's decisions will be less focused on growth.

To be in the forefront means to be engaged in activities of growth, maintaining old friendships and forming new ones so that their network of friends extends into the wider community. If administrative tasks are spread out among members, they will be drawn away from the forefront, because community building cannot be done in spare fleeting minutes.

In other words, Assembly members and Secretaries will perform their duties better if they are leading healthy and happy lives with involvement in growth activities. Working 15 hours per week in addition to a full-time job and family obligations generally detracts from such a life. However, maintaining the day-to-day operation of the Assembly can be done as a full-time job, leaving both the Secretary, and other members, with a reasonable amount of time dedicated to the work of teaching teams.

Even more, there are always administrative tasks that could be done to further develop the community or address issues more thoroughly, but when people are doing things in their spare minutes, only critical work gets done. I've noticed that people often make recommendations to an Assembly as if the institution has an employee. For example, there was a Feast recommendation that the Assembly organize studies of a recent message from the Universal House of Justice by selecting several hosts and providing each host with a list of Baha'is living close-by to be invited. This is a good idea, but such organizational tasks always fall to the secretary, and such tasks are above and beyond maintaining the basic functioning of the Assembly.

Con: Money

So hire someone? Sounds logical. The only obvious issue is funding. That's where the $25k comes in that could be generated from changing facility needs.

My experience tells me that this is a difficult hurdle to overcome while growing from a small to a large community. When most communities hit 70 active Baha'is, they start looking toward building a Baha'i center, not hiring staff. Ironically, building a Baha'i center dramatically increases the operational budget while at the same time dramatically increasing the workload of the secretary and treasurer (in Portland, the treasurer estimates that the work increased tenfold). Then the tighter funds make it even more difficult to hire people.

Humans naturally love giving money to capital projects, like purchasing or renovating a building, but ongoing expenses require consistent and ongoing sacrifice, and that's just not as much fun. Expense money pulls from income instead of savings. I see the same expense lackluster in my company, where operations and maintenance budgets are squeezed and scrutinized, but capital projects can ask for an extra $10 million without blinking. This is the stumbling block. Paid service comes from expense money, while building projects come from capital money (followed by underestimated expense money). If Baha'i communities start buying facilities before providing for the basic functioning of the Assembly, it's like getting the cart before the horse.

At roughly 60% of median income and 40% more than minimum wage, it would be difficult to accuse someone of profiting from the funds of the Faith by working full-time for $25k. Also consider that payroll tax eats up $3,500, and healthcare another $5,500. The effective income is around $16k per year, minus income tax. $25k might seem high when paying, but it's not much of an incentive when receiving.

My experience also tells me that discussing how to prioritize funds requires exceptional maturity. It is incredibly difficult to identify value and balance fund allocations. It is surprisingly like making a piece of fine art, which is best done by inspiration, not committee. What the Assembly can do is discuss priorities, and someone will have to interpret that discussion into a budget. The important thing is to maintain a realistic appraisal of the relative cost and value of paid service versus other large costs, such as a building.

The first National Spiritual Assembly of Cameroon (1967)

Meanwhile, back in Oregon...

Back to the three communities in Oregon. One elected a new secretary who was also retired, but the new individual resigned after the first year and the situation is still tenuous. Another elected three secretaries who each contribute about 5 hours/week in addition to Assembly meetings, but they are stressed. Another put out a request for paid service to assist the Assembly and hired someone 10-15 hours/week.

In Portland, the lack of paid staff and the lack of coherent decentralizing contributed to a dramatic leveling off of growth about 10-15 years after purchasing a Baha'i center. This is nobody's fault. In fact, I'm almost certain that I would have been among those cheering on the Baha'i center 20 years ago, but hindsight and experience tell another story. I'm not opposed to Baha'i centers. I think they're great, but they're a luxury. This is a question of priorities, and paid staff supporting the core work of the Assembly should go before acquiring buildings.

Baha'i Centers & Growth

In November, 2007, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States wrote a letter to all local assemblies addressing the role of Baha'i Centers as physical assets of communities. The letter announced the formation of a Baha'i Center Assistance organization, with a manual of strategies for Baha'i Centers. I highly recommend reading the letter from the NSA (only 1.5 pages), but I'll share some of the highlights.

It is time to take a fresh look at the role of buildings in building Baha'i communities. Our most precious asset is the vibrancy and love reflected among Baha'is, and our intense focus is currently on large-scale growth. Physical assets and funds must be aligned in support of these goals, and Local Spiritual Assemblies are responsible for maintaining focus.

Assemblies should also maintain a realistic appraisal of the cost, time, efforts involved in purchasing, renovating, and maintaining a Baha'i Center. Building ownership is not an investment, since the day-to-day operating costs will easily swamp any perceived long-term savings. Fundraising, renovations, and "prolonged debates about location, design, and usage," can be detrimental and distract from core activities and growth.

Baha'i community life is moving away from the model of a large area commuting to a central location. Instead, Baha'is are increasingly promoting decentralized activities at the grass roots that serve a much larger population. Considering this shift, Assemblies interested in purchasing or renovating should "give careful consideration to the question of whether such action would support or detract" from the goals of the current Plan of the Universal House of Justice. In most situations, Assemblies should use personal homes and daily rentals for their needs. If a more permanent fixture is desired, a long-term lease of a facility would be appropriate.

"…the best facilities for local Baha'i purposes at the present time are those that allow for maximum flexibility in their use and in the financial arrangements made to secure them."

A 2005 letter to the NSA of the United Kingdom written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice states,

"…the purchase of a building would not be appropriate at this juncture. Beside any financial considerations, the dispersed pattern of activity in the intensive program of growth now unfolding in London will undoubtedly influence future perceptions of the type of facilities required."

These various letters confirm a trend. The inference to a changing community model seems to have solidified. In most communities the Baha'i Center has not played a central role in growth activities. As classes, Feasts and holy days have continued to decentralize, the Centers only become necessary a few times per year, or as a public face with open hours. I've heard from several communities that their Baha'i Center is mainly used for cluster reflection meetings and memorials.

My experience in Oregon and Washington also confirms the trend. Portland purchased a Baha'i Center around 1992. At that time, the community was moving determinedly toward the model of a centralized congregation, and the building provided the impetus for accelerated growth, nearly doubling active participation within five years, and greatly increasing funds. But once the community reached about 150 active participants activity leveled off. Anyone familiar with the science of social groups will recognize 150 as the magic number where group dynamics break down. I wrote about it in a previous post, Monkey Brains, and Malcolm Gladwell devoted a chapter to the topic in his best-seller, Tipping Point.

Decentralizing could help get out of the rut and create new social networks for growth. When attempting to decentralize, a common refrain was, "Why do we own a Baha'i Center if we don't use it? We just need to use it more." Thus, the Baha'i Center became a hinderance to growth, because people felt that they needed to get value out of the center. I hope you consider this issue carefully. To put it another way, people were asking how we can better serve the Baha'i Center, not asking what the needs of the community are, and then asking how physical space can help meet those needs. Taking a step back, the activities that lead toward quality growth are not large events and public talks, they are personal relationships and in-depth study. If a great deal of our funds and energy are spent on the Baha'i Center, then a radical shift is needed to reorient the community.

The model and pattern of growth is far more important, but the case can also be made on a purely financial basis. I'll take the Portland Baha'i center as an example. It was purchased at a fire-sale because it was a 60 year old post office that had fallen into disrepair. The Assembly bought it and spent quite a bit of money on its renovation (by the way, the BCA manual recommends against that). With time, the debts were paid off, so that there now remains only about $20 k of an interest-only loan. Despite the building being essentially "purchased", the costs of owning and operating the center are about $50 k per year. This is because owning is expensive. Besides paying for utilities, professional cleaning, yard maintenance, and frivolities like internet, and several other fixed costs, there are periodic renovation and maintenance projects that can easily reach $40 k each (a good sound system costs $10 k). 

These costs do not include hiring a Center Manager, a job that could easily be 20+ hours per week, and which is nearly impossible to fill as a volunteer. The responsibilities at the center include exterior maintenance, such as yard work and cleaning up human excrement left by campers; interior maintenance, such as cleaning, electrical, plumbing, decorating, organizing, fixing things, stocking, and working with contractors; reservations coordination, such as maintaining a calendar of events, renting to the general public, staffing during events, and running the sound system; or maintaining a public face, such as staffing open hours and coordinating devotions open to the public. These things are difficult to fill with volunteers, due to the hours involved, and many are more efficiently done by a single person. If there is not a manager, or at least a managing committee, a number of issues will be deferred to the Assembly and sap the vitality out of its meetings by discussing how to get the broken lock fixed. The cost of such a manager is at least an extra $20 k per year, and Portland had one during the first two years of owning a center, but not since.

These are normal costs for ownership. Neighboring Beaverton purchased land and built their own Baha'i Center about five years ago. With the extra financing, their cost of ownership is close to $70 k per year, with no paid Center Manager. In both cities, the center takes up over 60% of funds. 

Compare this to another model. Rent a store-front in a central location with a reading room. The price can vary a lot, but it won't be hard to find 130 m^2 for $1500/month ($18k/year). This size would be sufficient for sector Feasts and other gatherings under 40 people. Add on utilities, incidentals, and the price of storage, the cost could generously come to $23 k. For the occasional large gatherings, luxurious  space rentals are often around $200. Let's again be generous and estimate several large centralized events: the occasional Feast and Holy Day, Unit Convention, Annual Meeting, Cluster Reflection Meetings, memorial services, etc. The total cost of such rentals comes to $3 k (remember, nice spaces). That means the same needs that are currently met with a Baha'i Center could mostly be met with half as much money. In both scenarios, a dedicated manager is needed, for about the same price, but in the store-front model, the person is focused on representing the Faith to the public and managing smaller gatherings. The paid service becomes focused on growth activities and less on maintenance. The store-front does not give the appearance of representing the centralized place of worship for all the city's Baha'is, so it's much easier to explain to newcomers that we have a decentralized model of activity. Perhaps the best part of this model is the flexibility. When the lease is up, the Baha'is can simply pack up and move to another neighborhood, or discontinue leasing altogether. If things are going well, another building could be rented in another part of town. The flexibility avoids the pitfall of getting in over your head and having to sell the property at a loss, which demoralizes a community (yes, it has happened).

And then what would we do with the extra $25 k per year that is being saved in such a scenario? Well, that is a good problem to have. Of course, I have an idea on how to use exactly that much money to strengthen the Assembly and get us into sustained growth once more, but that's for the next post.

Carmel Baha'i School

Last week I spent 7 days working alongside 30 other staff to facilitate a Baha'i camp for over 70 youth. There is much to share. I attended the first Carmel session ever in 1995 as an awkward 13 year old and I've only missed two or three years since, transitioning along the way from a camper to a counselor to an organizer. It was this camp, plus a few other annual events, that brought me out of my spiritual lethargy. They inspired me to actually sit down and read a Baha'i book just before my 17th birthday and get involved throughout the year with other Baha'i youth.

For those who don't know, the Baha'i camps in Oregon have always been pretty advanced compared to the rest of the country. Just a few years ago, there were four in the state (now three) plus another two on the Washington side not far from Portland. Most states have only one or two, if any. Going back even further, there was an old camp called "Lobstock" in Lobster Valley (you can tell some hippies were involved in naming that one!) that galvanized dozens of youth into direct travel teaching projects around the state. There were also other smaller intermittent youth gatherings. Back in the 1980s when only a small section of the public knew of the Faith, these periodic gatherings provided a dose of medicine to isolated believers who were starved for the fellowship of other Baha'is. Annual gatherings became the focal point for growth over a large area, providing a Baha'i education and facilitating social connections between hundreds of people.

But that was the eighties. Around the year 2000 things started to change in the worldwide Baha'i community. In the United States, public recognition of the Faith grew dramatically, so Baha'is were no longer worried about people thinking they're in a weird cult. The Baha'i community grew dramatically, maybe even doubling in some towns and cities. The Universal House of Justice announced the new administrative structures of the Regional Council and the Cluster, providing groupings of states or counties with corresponding institutions to manage growth. They also announced as far back as the early nineties the formation of Training Institutes that would provide systematic growth instead of the haphazard stumbling along that is characterized by spontaneous bursts of energy.

These training institutes were under the jurisdiction of the Regional Councils of larger nations, or the National Assemblies of smaller ones. They advanced a sequence of courses designed to build capacity and orient people toward service such as children's classes and devotional gatherings. The Cluster became the organizing unit for reflecting and cooperating, and it was large enough to gather substantial human resources. The sequence of courses completely avoided the reliance on inspirational or charismatic speakers to inspire and educate, exactly the opposite of what the Baha'i schools typified. The courses focused on localised growth year-round, exactly the opposite of an annual event. By contrast, the schools in the US were still organized by an office of the National Spiritual Assembly, not the Regional Councils or training institutes.

Naturally, there was tension between these seemingly incongruent systems of education. It was manifested at first by an avoidance of the schools by those in the forefront of Cluster growth activities (rightly so, considering how busy they were), but also by the attendance at the schools of those disengaged from Cluster growth. In the mid-2000s the Oregon Baha'i schools experimented with incorporating institute courses at the camps, or by making the plans for Cluster growth the focus of the intensive study at the camps. These were met with mixed results. For those already engaged, repeating the same material of study at camp became redundant, and using Ruhi Book 1 as an introductory course for non-Baha'is is not the intended use of the material. For some, studying the Plans of the House of Justice brought them into alignment with where the Baha'i community was going.

What happened next is not surprising. As a result of the House of Justice asking to align resources with the current Plan, the National Spiritual Assembly did not re-appoint most of the sitting members of the school committees around the country. The new members of 2008 were often people already working for the Regional Councils, such as Institute Coordinators. This was the year I was first appointed to the Oregon School Committee. It was very chaotic. Many of the people had never even attended one of the schools. The majority of members asked not to be reappointed the following year, but it did provide the desired shake-up. In 2009 all three schools were analyzed in depth. Each was looked at to see if we should actually continue and whether it was meeting a legitimate need: a family summer camp, a short winter school, and a youth camp. Each had been going on for decades. Certainly, they should not simply continue out of tradition.

We decided to look into moving the summer camp to a new location. It was very difficult to find resources to help with the winter school, and after holding it, we decided to let it go. Then comes the youth camp, Carmel. In discussing it, the main question seemed to be whether it fulfilled a need, and whether that need could also be met in local communities. It may be that holding a big energetic camp is similar to the centralized children's classes that Baha'is hosted for decades: when people are trained, canceling the centralized class actually became the impetus for neighborhood classes. Maybe canceling the youth camp would encourage the growth of junior youth groups. It was tentatively decided that 2009 would be the last year hosting the camp, and that the needs of youth could be met with the growing Institute courses and junior youth groups around the state.

Carmel was oriented toward junior youth. When youth reached 18 or older, they came as counselors and went through extra training to prepare them for the week. The counselor training, the classes for the junior youth, and the classes for the 15-17 year olds were all home-made, and often a speaker was flown in for the youth class. While the attendees were in classes, the counselors were sitting around doing other things.

In 2009, the camp became driven by Ruhi Book 5. The counselor training was mostly drawn from sections of Book 5, and the junior youth classes were facilitated by the counselors using ecological camp material developed by the Ruhi Institute. The amount of time preparing material dropped nearly in half, and the material was actually better. Importantly, the counselors were now gaining skills and experience that they could take back to their communities and put into action year-round. That same year, people working for the Regional Training Institute helped train and facilitate the counselors and the junior youth program, although the youth class was still taught by a guest speaker.

Reflecting that year, it was also obvious that the school was serving needs that wouldn't be met otherwise. The majority of the campers were from areas with no activities, and the act of canceling the school would not be an instigator of their missing Cluster growth activities. Foregoing the school would simply be less of a good thing for many isolated Baha'i families. My own personal transformation growing up came through attending these types of intensive gatherings and seeing the strong contrast between the Baha'i Faith and the general public. It was actually the annual gatherings that gave me the impetus to engage in year-round activities, and I saw numerous transformations in 2009 similar to what I experienced as a teenager. Importantly, the school had just transformed itself to be in alignment with current Plans, and a youth camp could entirely avoid the problems of experienced at the family camp while trying to integrate the Institute courses. By its nature a summer camp for youth always has a fresh batch each year with no experience. Even if a camper had studied the exact material in their home community, they would be in the minority, and may not even remember the material enough to make a difference.

Going into 2010, the school hung on, and made another change. The class offered to youth was actually Ruhi Book 5, unit 1, instead of a knowledgeable guest speaker. That year only two of the 30 youth had ever taken Book 5, and only one of those was bothered by having to take it again. For the rest, their experience at camp became integrated with the process of growth being encouraged in their home communities. By 2011, the youth had the option of Book 5, unit 1 or 2. Those involved in the second unit were of the right age to come back the following year as a counselor, so the camp became fully oriented towards the study and practice of Ruhi Book 5. The junior youth material became more diversified as more material became available over the years. In 2010 the Baha'i-specific book Spirit of Faith was offered, and in 2011 it became a mix for the three grades of junior youth attending. In 2012 it was Eco-Camp, Spirit of Faith, and Power of the Holy Spirit. These study materials were supplemented with crafts, games, campfire devotions, night-walks, skits, scavenger hunts, and sports.

Arriving home from the 2010 Carmel Baha'i School, my wife told me she was pregnant, and thus ended my time on the School Committee. I continued as the instructor for the 2011 and 2012, Book 5 unit 2 classes. Participants actually fulfilled their practice by breaking into pairs, then with an hour to prepare, facilitated a discussion with about 10 junior youth from the camp on the topic of media and advertising.

Yet there is still tension between the schools and Cluster growth activities. I've heard people suggest that Carmel might be damaging to the development of youth or that it draws resources away from more important things or that it is the wrong application of the material (despite Book 5 actually recommending week-long retreats for junior youth). Any gathering of multiple junior youth groups would look almost identical to what is already happening at Carmel, unless it excluded those who are not already in a group. The House of Justice addressed this tension in its 2010 Ridvan message:

"To read the writings of the Faith and to strive to obtain a more adequate understanding of the significance of Bahá’u’lláh’s stupendous Revelation are obligations laid on every one of His followers. All are enjoined to delve into the ocean of His Revelation and to partake, in keeping with their capacities and inclinations, of the pearls of wisdom that lie therein. In this light, local deepening classes, winter and summer schools, and specially arranged gatherings in which individual believers knowledgeable in the writings were able to share with others insights into specific subjects emerged naturally as prominent features of Bahá’í life. Just as the habit of daily reading will remain an integral part of Bahá’í identity, so will these forms of study continue to hold a place in the collective life of the community. But understanding the implications of the Revelation, both in terms of individual growth and social progress, increases manifold when study and service are joined and carried out concurrently. There, in the field of service, knowledge is tested, questions arise out of practice, and new levels of understanding are achieved. In the system of distance education that has now been established in country after country—the principal elements of which include the study circle, the tutor and the curriculum of the Ruhi Institute—the worldwide Bahá’í community has acquired the capacity to enable thousands, nay millions, to study the writings in small groups with the explicit purpose of translating the Bahá’í teachings into reality, carrying the work of the Faith forward into its next stage: sustained large-scale expansion and consolidation."

(The Universal House of Justice, Ridván 2010 Message, par. 9)

This is a wonderful clarification. It says the schools are a form of study, and they will continue to hold a place in Baha'i community life. However, they are clearly not as important as systematic community growth. It is the institute courses and the service associated with them that is the foundation for large-scale teaching. Having annual gatherings is just a tool, a thing, not an institution or something that is mis-aligned with other processes. It is what it is. If they can directly support Cluster growth, all the better, but if they can't we can still have them. If they are a waste of energy, we can stop having them. Fasting doesn't support direct teaching, yet we still do it. Of course, the schools can and do directly support Cluster growth, but how they fit in on a hierarchy of importance is still up in the air. In 2005 the House of Justice wrote in a letter to the Counselors:

"Perhaps the task that will occupy the attention of you and your auxiliaries above all others is to assist the community in its effort to maintain focus. This ability, slowly acquired through successive Plans, represents one of its most valuable assets, hard won through discipline, commitment and foresight as the friends and their institutions have learned to pursue the single aim of advancing the process of entry by troops. On the one hand, you will find it necessary to discourage the tendency to confuse focus with uniformity or exclusivity. To maintain focus does not imply that special needs and interests are neglected, much less that essential activities are dropped in order to accommodate others. Clearly, there are a host of elements that comprise Baha'i community life, shaped over the decades, which must be further refined and developed. On the other hand, you will want to take every opportunity to reinforce the disposition to prioritize--one which recognizes that not all activities have the same importance at a given stage of growth, that some must necessarily take precedence over others, that even the most well-intentioned proposals can cause distraction, dissipate energy or impede progress. What should be plainly acknowledged is that the time available for the friends to serve the Faith in every community is not without limits. It is only natural to expect that the preponderating share of this limited resource would be expended in meeting the provisions of the Plan."

(The Universal House of Justice, To the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors, 27 Dec 2005)

Once again, this paragraph provides a beautiful clarification to the tension experienced with Baha'i schools. It not only addresses elements of Baha'i community life that have been shaped over the decades, but also emphasizes that all elements must be prioritized and evaluated based on needs and resources, avoiding uniformity and exclusivity. The "most well-intentioned proposals" can simply be a waste of energy in light of other priorities. So where do the schools fit in? I think a few administrative changes could assist in prioritizing. For example, if the organization of schools was done by the Regional Councils instead of a single national office, then it would be easier to compare resources side-by-side with Cluster agencies and other appointees. Much depends on having financial resources to prioritize, and that requires a stronger National Baha'i Fund.

My fear is that the administrative capacity to hold these large gatherings may slip away while energy is focused elsewhere. With time, summer schools will clearly be further developed, but if a school is allowed to slip away for a single year, it would take enormous energy to bring it back. Keeping a camp going that has been in place for 18 years is rather easy. People anticipate it and plan for it. Building up attendance takes years. A lot of details fall into place as long as organizers have attended the previous year. Where are the mops? How and when do we reserve the camp for next year? How much food do we need?

In the case of Carmel, there are a few things I worry about. To keep running we need at least 60 students to keep us out of the red, a strong head cook, a strong youth class facilitator, at least a dozen awesome youth counselors, and two strong older youth - male and female - to run the counselor program and coordinate during the week. All these positions are best done by someone with prior experience at the camp and who also brings skills in crafts, games, and music. Each year for the past few years these have been hanging by a thread. Most everyone currently serving has plans to stop sometime soon; from having a baby, being away for school, or gone for international service. Yet each year it always comes off incredibly well (sometimes at the last minute), because when it comes down to it, a core group continues to see the virtue in it and won't let it fail. I hope it stays that way.

The Future of Power

Having worked in the power industry for six years after completing a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, I have noticed a few common misconceptions about power generation. I also live in one of the more progressive and environmentally conscious cities in America, and see a lot of misdirected energies when it comes to saving the world. Here, I'll try to describe how to fix some of the long-term problems facing the planet.

First let's talk about "the grid". My company is the grid. We control the vast majority of high voltage transmssion lines and substations across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and western Montana. Power flows dynamically, so energy goes in at many different points on the grid, and energy comes out at many different points. At any given point, you can measure the flow of energy, but all the electrons are mixed together. I think a good comparison is a lake. You have one person dumping a galon of water into the lake and getting paid by someone pulling a gallon out. Technically they didn't pay for the exact same water that went in.

This is important because I frequently see utilities advertising a "green" option where you can pay an extra $6/month and your electricity will come from renewable energy. That is almost a lie. What's really happening is you are making a donation of $6 that is then earmarked for the purchase, construction or maintenance of renewable energy. The electricity you get is exactly the same as you did before.

In China tipping is not part of the culture. If you try to tip in most restaurants, they will be confused. But there is an expectation to tip when you're a foreigner going on an organized tour. I can imagine how this all began with the first few rounds of tourists. Tourist: "Excuse me, do I need to provide a tip?". Guide thinking "If I say yes, they will give me more money, if I say no, they will not give me extra money." Guide says, "yes". I think the electric utilities are basically doing the same thing. They realized that if they ask for people to donate money and feel good about being green, consumers will, so they ask.

Some people might still think it's a good idea to pay into those projects, but it's not. You are donating to a for-profit company. Why not invest? If renewable energy is not profitable for the company, then it is not sustainable. If renewable sources are good for the world in general, the government can subsidize that industry with tax breaks, and it currently does. This is also a bad idea. I'll get back to why.

The earmarked funds, along with tax breaks, are then ploughed into wind projects. Sounds great? Maybe. The cost of construction and maintenance is currently more than the income they provide over their lifetime, that's why they need financial support. There is also the problem of transmission. There are plenty of windy places over in Nebraska, but there are no transmission lines between them and consumers. Transmission lines cost about $1 million/mile to build, so a long transmission line will swamp any potential profit.

There are precious few windy areas where transmission already exists, and southern Washington is one of the few. This area has seen hundreds upon hundreds of wind turbines built in the last five years, which have shown some of the downsides of wind power. Wind turbines kill animals. The constant sound they make have caused livestock to die from lack of sleep, and they frequently kill birds flying by. The problem is actually worse than it sounds. Wind turbines also destroy the landscape. It's cool to drive by and see them, but the people who live there hate the wind farms.

A misconception about wind power is that someday we can run entirely on electricity generated by wind. Wind projects don't actually generate very much power compared to the amount of land they take up (all of the wind capacity in the middle Columbia river basin equates to about 2 run of the river dams), and we will never be able to run our electric grid entirely from wind. Wind does not generate enough power, and the power is fickle. Turbines turn on and off with the wind, which can't be controlled. When the wind dies down, there must be a huge and consistent source of generation standing by. Wind also blows more often at night, when power demand is at its lowest. Nuclear plants must run 24 hours a day at the same power output, so wind generated at night is often a waste. Night-wind has been used to run electric pumps to bring water back up into dam reservoirs after it has passed through turbines. There are theoretical ideas to use wind power to compress air at night, then release it through turbines during the day. The point is, wind is no silver bullet and will only ever be supplemental to a major reliable source of power.

Most people don't realize it, but the Northwest just hit a milestone and my company is in a lawsuit with wind generators. About a year ago wind power started to generate so much electricity that it started displacing the hydro power. The problem is, you can't just stop the river and wait for the wind to die down, because the river would dry up and fish would not be able to migrate. Spilling water over the dams is an option, but then you're wasting potential electricity. My company had to arbitrate the situation and decided to draw power from the dams and curtail the wind projects when generation exceeded demand. This is a good example of power policy that was not well designed at a high level. Donations and tax breaks were feeding wind generation projects without considering long-term needs and implications.

Another misconception is that using electricity is not polluting. I've seen an all-electric vehicle that says on the side, "zero pollution". Actually, it's a lot of pollution. Nationally, half of the electricity generated comes from coal, and another 20% from petroleum and gas. Even with abundant hydro and supplemental wind , the Northwest doesn't always satisfy the demand for power, so Oregon gets 40% of its power from coal. If we reduce our pollution from transportation but move it to electricity, then all we've done is shuffled around the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Another misconception is that any single country can tackle the problem of global carbon emissions. I have to agree with the nay-sayers like George Bush on this point. He poo pooed on the Kyoto protocol because it divided the world into "rich" and "poor" countries, then only made serious restrictions on the rich countries. Emitting greenhouse gases is profitable, and reducing them is costly. So if India and China are excluded from the restrictions, all we're doing is moving the pollution (profits) from one country to another, with no change in overall emissions output. Don't get me wrong, I think the world should unite with enforceable reductions, but without everybody involved, we should not get too excited about reducing our own emissions.

Another misconception is that we should move towards micro-generation. This is something I was really interested in awhile back. I thought that if you could build a house to funnel all its gutters into one place, then let all the water go through a small generator, you could make some power for the home to offset what is pulled from the utility. When I actually sat down and ran some numbers with the size of the average roof, average rainfall, an efficient generator, and the cost of normal power, I discovered that on a good year you might generate something like $25 of electricity. Even if you were to add solar and wind to the home, it might take 10 years to come close to paying off the installation costs, and that's not considering that the equipment might break during that time. This fad led to a highly green building in Portland built with four small wind turbines on top, which don't make very much power and cause vibration problems in the building. I have known someone with a successful set of solar panels that paid for themselves, but they were a large array on land with some acres. It was a big project, and it was still made difficult because power in that area was cheaper than average, so it took even longer to become profitable.

Another misconception is that there is such a thing as Smartgrid. At a utility telecom conference someone once told me that to get your project approved, you just have to put the term "Smartgrid" in the title. It's a buzzword that management types like to use without knowing what it means. It is actually undefined. It generally refers to one of two things: either having the local utility provide communications to the home about variable power rates by the hour (thus encouraging efficiency), or having smart appliances that use more power at night than during the day. Since dishwashers, dryers, and heaters can already be time-delayed, all this means is moving to smart refrigerators that suck more power at night than during the day. Most people don't realize it, but your fridge represents about one third of your electric bill. Moving consumption to night time is actually a great idea, because it will reduce daytime peaks when power is drawn from a lot of coal. But if all we do is smooth out our consumption throughout the day, we're still not addressing the underlying problems.

There are several novel sources of power generation that I think are worth exploring. There are two kinds of wave energy that have great potential. One harnesses the constant bob of the waves, and the other harnesses the rising and lowering of the tides (neither is perfect). Another that I find interesting is tethered wind. Imagine a big hot air balloon with a huge wind turbine hanging off of it, the whole thing floating in the jetstream with a power cable tethering it to the ground. The wind would be strong and reliable, and it would not kill animals. Tethered wind will likely not pay for itself, but at least somebody's thinkin'. Solar panels are becoming cheaper and much more efficient, but the major revolution in solar will come when panels can be integrated into new homes cheaply. The latest technology has made panels super thin, but not cheap enough. Fusion could be a silver bullet for power generation, the main problem is that nothing can hold the molten material because it burns through any containment. There have actually been breakthroughs in building the power plants to magnetically hold the material, but they are hugely expensive and it is still not a proven technology.

When it comes to available technologies, I'd say nuclear is the best option, supplemented with some wind. Next would be hydro, which is actually a far better solution than most people think. Yes, it would be lovely to have rivers that run freely, with abundant salmon. The question of fish is a complex issue. I won't get in to that. But consider that the vast majority of dams in the United States don't generate electricity, and the ones that do are serving a dual-purpose of flood/irrigation control. If you take away the generation, we'll still need dams. I think hydroelectric generation should be included in the "green" technologies because it does not pollute.

So far I've done a lot of complaining. How about a solution to the world's power generation and pollution problems? It's actually quite simple, and it's what the Economist magazine has been recommending for years. It's not cap-and-trade, it's a pollution tax. If any company is forced to pay a fee based on how much pollution they emit, that would drive up the cost of those fuel sources. The key to this solution is its simplicity. A solution must come from the government, but it should not be in the form of excessive regulation or tax breaks on a certain technology. If the goal is to reduce emissions, then emissions should be taxed to make them more expensive. Investors and companies will respond accordingly and search out better ways to make a dime that don't pollute.

There is something tricky about the power system. It takes muchos billions of dollars to make a power plant, and they are in service for many decades before considering retirement. Most contracts with distributors are renewed every five years, so investors are not interested in what the price is today, they care what it will be in 10-20 years. If there is certainty in the market, then the money will flow into research and construction accordingly. A cap and trade system would be a huge bureaucratic mess, and would definitely be riddled with corruption and favoritism. A carbon tax would be predictable and evenly applied. Giving tax breaks puts government in the game of picking the winning technology. A carbon tax leaves the market to decide the best way to generate power with the least amount of pollution.

The carbon tax is politically non-viable because it will sound like a tax on consumers. Electric rates will go up at first. The first major shift will be from coal to natural gas, which can happen almost immediately because many plants are tooled for both, or companies have gas plants on standby. As soon as coal becomes more expensive, the much lower emitting gas plants will turn on. The next shift will be towards more nuclear plants over the next one or two decades. During that time, research and development will be testing numerous theoretical sources of energy, and out of that a new technology will come to dominate in about 40 years.

The planet faces an overwhelming problem that has so far only seen band-aids. There are only two paths out of the mess. One is for the world to unite behind a federal system that can enforceably regulate worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, among other things. The other is for a technology that serves as a silver bullet. Fusion is the only known technology that might serve that purpose, but the potential solutions are unimaginably vast on our planet. Among the unused and unsuspected resources lies a secret that will supply abundant power without destroying the environment. The only apparent thing the government can do to encourage its search is to make pollution expensive. Hopefully the market in the USA is big enough to absorb some of the initial shock, and innovate our way out of the hole we're in.

Homosexuality again, thanks to Obama

I don't want to look like all I blog about is homosexuality, or that it is the most important thing to discuss. But, Obama making comments on gay marriage has generated a media storm and a corresponding social discourse, so I have some thoughts.

Over the years, wading through all the talk about homosexuality, I've come up with an analogous trait for comparison on issues. Because society is so polarized on gay marriage, it's hard to avoid being labeled as backwards if you do anything short of promoting homosexuality. So when issues come up I compare homosexuality with obesity. That's right, I said it. You see, being overweight isn't a politicized issue, so it allows for reasonable thoughts and conclusions. It is similar in several respects: both can appear from a predisposition, both are influenced by social conditioning, both are socially stigmatized, and both are undesirable. If you're offended by the comparison, you'll have to wait until the end, but for now just bear with me and assume that homosexuality is an undesirable trait of comparable value. I'll show you how this works by comparing all the major controversial issues going on.

Let's look at workplace rights. Would I support firing people because they're they're too fat? No. Hiring and firing should be based on the merits of the person and their ability to fill the job description. The job description might be to be attractive (think modeling), but very few jobs are defined by physical characteristics and most workplaces make accommodations for people who can perform. So discrimination based on sexual orientation is a no-no. I support several pieces of legislation adding sexual orientation to anti-discrimination laws, and I support repealing the ban on gays in the military.

Let's look at bullying. Would I support the bullying of young people for being fat? No. It makes me want to go beat up the little bulliers, actually. Or maybe spend some time with them and be a role model. Whatever. The point is that nobody would go around supporting young kids picking on each other. So I don't support the harassing and bullying of young kids for being gay. Duh.

Let's look at social acceptance. Would I support intolerance and disdain for fat people? No. Everyone needs to be treated with respect and valued for their spiritual qualities. I know and love a lot of overweight people, and it makes no sense to base friendships on of such a superficial characteristic. So I would never support a general intolerance toward gay people. I know and love a lot of gay people as well. Society currently has a severe and unhealthy bias in this regard, and it will take a generation or two to get rid of it. 

Let's look at sex. Would I try to prohibit two fat people from having sex? No. Our society has decided that we don't prohibit sex between consenting adults. Why would obese people be restrained from that expression more than anyone else? So I don't support the enforcement of sodomy laws that single out homosexuality. In our society that would be unfair and hypocritical. The Supreme Court already struck those down.

Let's look at marriage. Would I support prohibiting two fat people from getting married. No. Everyone can decide for themselves who to share their time and bank account with. It doesn't really matter whether it's called a union or marriage. So I don't really care about whether secular governments issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

Let's talk advice. Would I give unsolicited suggestions to a fat person that they eat healthy and workout to shed some pounds? No. That would be rude. But if they mention that they're struggling to overcome a compulsion that lowers their quality of life, then I would be sympathetic and supportive. I would help in whatever small ways I can while they fight an uphill battle to lose weight. So I would not give unwelcome advice to any gay person that they should try to suppress their feelings, but if someone recognized it as a detriment and burden that they need to struggle through, and asked for advice, I would be sympathetic and supportive. 

Let's talk values. Would I teach my children that being overweight is no big deal? No. I would do my best to encourage ideals that promote a healthy and happy life. Even if they are one of the handful with a genetic predisposition to obesity, I would then search out medical solutions to the problem. So I would never raise kids with the idea that homosexual desires should be encouraged or developed. On a related note, I would also never raise kids with the idea that heterosexual expression should be encouraged. Rather, it should be suppressed outside of marriage. (Again, I'll get back to why it's an undesirable trait) 

Let's look at adoption. Now it gets tricky. You see, when you go through adoption agencies, they screen people to find the best home environment. Even in the most ideal circumstances, adopted children will struggle with psychological and physical issues. By something as simple as the lack of breastfeeding, they are already vulnerable to chronic health problems like food allergies and asthma from a weakened immune system. By the nature of having to give a baby up for adoption, an increased prenatal stress will cause developmental delays in the baby, and a higher incidence of risky behavior such as smoking and drinking during pregnancy will leave adopted children with behavioural problems, shorter attention span, depression, and weaker adaptation and social abilities. Orphaned children even experience genetic changes that leave them more vulnerable than children raised by biological parents. The more time from birth to adoption, the worse all these risks become.

It is also known that children of overweight parents are themselves more likely to be overweight due to the home environment. Children whose parents are of a healthy weight are are three times more likely to be of a healthy weight themselves. If you combine the vulnerability of foster and adopted children with the increased chance of the undesirable trait of being overweight, then I think it would be appropriate to discriminate against obese people adopting. Not that overweight people should be banned, but it is one of many considerations in potential parents. In fact, that's pretty much how it works right now for most countries adopting. Agencies consider weight, age, income, existing children, mental capacity, and marital stability (previous divorces, years married). Many countries do not allow adoption by single parents, and Indonesia requires a belief in God before adopting a child. These requirements make sense to ensure the most stable and healthy environment for an already vulnerable child.

So when it comes to adoption by gay couples, it makes sense to place restrictions and barriers to their adopting. This, of course, is assuming my original premise is correct that homosexuality is an undesirable trait comparable to being overweight. Addressing that issue is surprisingly simple. Gay men and women have a higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, substance abuse, violence, mental illness, prostitution, eating disorders, depression, homelessness and suicide. Gay individuals will have many times more partners in their life and their relationships are much less stable. This article, for example, highlights some of the physical health risks in homosexuality. By the nature of the relationships, they can't produce their own children, and parents experience greater happiness and meaning in life than non-parents, so a homosexual predisposition is a detriment to human happiness. These are all well known facts, but the psychological deficiencies are all currently assumed to be the result of an unaccepting society, not the result of anything fundamentally unhealthy about homosexuality. The physical health risks are dismissed as something to be aware of by health care providers. These topics are taboo because according to most people, and especially in the media, any negative association with homosexuality will only further the social intolerance that leads to discrimination and bullying. The taboo even extends into medical research into the underlying causes of homosexuality.

Certainly, there is unfair bias, discrimination, and intolerance about homosexuality in the world, and that discrimination does contribute to the psychological problems, but there are underlying problems with homosexual relationships that also contribute. For example, gay relationships will never be as stable as heterosexual ones because their potential mates are about 1% of the population (roughly 1% of females, and 3% of males have a natural attraction to the same sex), whereas a heterosexual person has 49% of the population to sift through for a good match.

Let me put it another way. Depression is more frequent and severe in homosexual, obese, and black populations in America versus, heterosexual, in-shape, and white populations. All three comparisons are struggling with social intolerance by others. If the social intolerance was completely removed from the equation, I believe everybody can recognize that there is nothing inherent about being black that should cause a higher incidence of depression. I also believe everybody can recognize that there is, in fact, something inherent in obesity that contributes to depression because it negatively affects the quality of life. The question is, which category does homosexuality belong in? To me, this is the most important question. Clearly a great deal of people believe that homosexuality falls into the category of race, not weight, where real symmetry exists. I believe it falls into the category of weight and negatively affects the quality of life. To many people the most important question is whether or not there is an unconscious predisposition to homosexuality. In fact, this is almost completely irrelevant. We recognize alcoholism as having a genetic predisposition, but at the same time we consider it morally reprehensible and self-destructive.

There is a fine balance to walk on sexuality, obesity, alcoholism, gambling, and other social issues where one acknowledges the negative while not being over-critical or intolerant of others. The social acceptance will only go so far to resolve the currently-observed problems associated with homosexuality. In countries like the Netherlands where gay relationships have been openly accepted for decades, the same psychiatric disorders appear at higher rates in gay people.

I think with time the current unstoppable wave of social energy pushing for absolute acceptance will wash over western society. In its wake will be the broken body of an old world that passively accepted injustice towards gays. The wave will also further rot out the pillars of sexual morality and accelerate an inevitable showdown between an increasingly atheist society and the religious institutions that hold the line on gay marriage. The next two decades will see a kind of bottoming out from the decay in moral standards and collapsing families. This will then lead toward a general searching for stability, which will be found only in fostering chastity, restraint, and focusing on marriage between a man and woman as the only healthy, socially-conscious, and responsible form of sexual expression.

Forgotten People in Debates over Homosexuality

I'm copying below a post from Jim that he asked to share here. ~Bryan

Jim Habegger

geotalk@yahoo.com

Here are some concerns I might share with some people, on both sides of the homosexuality debates.
1. Concerns about people who are struggling with homosexuality being misused by others, with harmful consequences to them, turning them away from their own hearts, or turning them away from God.
2. Concerns about the teachings of the Faith being compromised and/or misrepresented to others, about God and his laws, or about fellowship and diversity.
3. Concerns about prejudice against gays in the Baha'i Community, and its consequences.

Those are all anxious concerns of mine, which I have been actively addressing for more than ten years, and I would love to exchange ideas and experiences with anyone who is trying to do anything about them besides debating about them.

However, my most pressing concern now, in relation to homosexuality, is possible harmful effects of debates about homosexuality, on Baha'is who see themselves as homosexual or possibly homosexual, and who take very seriously everything that Shoghi Effendi and the House of Justice have said about homosexuality. I think it might mean a lot to them, to see more Baha'is on line who do not depreciate same-sex love, or the House of Justice, either one; and who are not maligning or scolding anyone. I'm hoping that there are a lot more of those people out there than I have ever seen or heard of.

I can see very good reasons for them not to come out on line. They might have much better things to do off line. They might not see any potential on line to do anyone any good. They might be afraid of failing to resist temptations to engage in acrimonious debate, or to reflect on the character of others. They might be afraid of the arrows that will come flying from all directions. They might, in humility or uncertainty, hesitate to put themselves on display.

I think that being seen as people who do not depreciate same-sex love, who do not depreciate the House of Justice, and who are not maligning or scolding anyone, does not require any certainty or arrogance about our own views, or even to debate about them at all. It might not even require discussing our own views. It might not require a lot of time on line, either. Just a post here and there, that allows people to see that we don't depreciate same-sex love, that we don't depreciate the House of Justice, and that if ever we malign or scold anyone, we recognize it as wrong and take immediate and decisive steps to rectify it and keep it from happening again.

I don't know what to say about the possible futility of such efforts, or the arrows flying at us from all directions, other than to weigh those against the possibility of offering some hope and cheer to someone who thinks that God despises her, possibly without ever knowing that you have done so.

Neutrino

Truly monumental leaps in technology have dotted the pages of history. On 24 May 1844, Samuel Morse sent the words, "What hath God wrought" in electrical pulses over 61 kilometers of copper wire. On 10 Mar 1876, Alexander Graham Bell carried his own voice over the first telephone and said to his assistant, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." And he did. On 13 May 1897, Guglielmo Marconi transmitted electromagnetic pulses across the Bristol Channel to send the message, "Are you ready?" By 1970, a series of technology breakthroughs allowed Corning Glass Works to run high-speed data over a glass fiber. The optical transport allowed rates tens of thousands of times faster than any electrical wire, thus allowing the dramatic rise in data communications that accompanied the age of the internet.

Today these remain the primary mediums for communicating information. A network of fiber optics and radio links overlays the entire earth, distributing instant voice and data to billions of people. This month a new type of communication was successfully tested, and it has the potential to be as transformative as anything seen in the last 175 years.

On 14 Mar 2012, Fermilab (an Illinois based research facility) announced that they successfully coded a message into a stream of neutrinos, and it was decoded one kilometer away. The message sent read "NEUTRINO" in a basic binary language consisting of pulses of neutrinos with simple "on" and "off" states representing ones and zeros. They achieved a rate of 0.1 bits per second (two hours to send the NEUTRINO message), whereas current optics can easily carry 1.6 Terrabits per second. They achieved an error rate of 1%, whereas current optics have an error rate a million times smaller. The transmitter and receiver are both huge and expensive pieces of advanced machinery. The receiver weighs 170 tons. Clearly this technology has a long way to go.

What is amazing about the test is that neutrinos are sub-atomic particles with no electrical charge. That means they fly right through atoms without touching them. It's as if a planet were to shoot right through our solar system without being affected by gravity, just passing right on through without hitting anything. That's how neutrinos work with the matter we are familiar with. The Sun is constantly spewing out neutrinos that pass right through the earth and our bodies, so harnessing them means that we could use beams of neutrinos to talk directly from Chicago to Beijing with no interference from the big planet in between the cities. Submarines, notoriously difficult to talk to, would never be out of range. A base on the moon with a neutrino link could talk to any point on earth without satellites. Even better, a neutrino phone could be used to communicate with aliens from another star system. After all, if neutrino communication could be harnessed and perfected, wouldn't that be what aliens are using? Not the awkward electromagnetic spectrum that SETI has been bothering with.

Of course, all this is speculation and depends on improving the method. Massive hurdles still exist, the main one being that neutrinos' ability to pass through anything makes them incredibly difficult to detect. But as a proof of concept, the test was incredibly successful over the short distance. The first telephone call only went about 10 meters and was quickly improved upon. Now, I hold a tiny device in my hand that can call anyone in the world; it has a built-in gyroscope, compass, GPS receiver, two video cameras, several antennas, and enough storage for 48 hours of video. All that would have seemed verging on impossible when I was born. It's easy to imagine a world where neutrino receivers become smaller, faster, cheaper, and better. If the potential in neutrino communication lives up to expectations, maybe "What hath God wrought?" would have been a more fitting message for the test run.

The Future of Alcohol

Alcohol is almost universally acceptable in Western culture, so people investigating the Baha'i Faith are often turned off by the prohibition of alcohol for Baha'is. It also becomes a challenge that young Baha'is have to struggle with as almost all their friends begin social drinking (usually by age 15).

There is a gap in the perceived morality of alcohol, with society believing that moderate drinking is acceptable, healthy, and part of normal life. It should be simple to address the issue of alcohol and determine whether Baha'i teachings are correct to prohibit it. Having a standard that is at variance with society does not discourage Baha'is, because the purpose of religion is to prescribe remedies to the problems that are eating away at society, and the teachings of religion are always at variance with the desires of society (at the time of revelation). If it were otherwise, what good would religion be? It would simply confirm what is commonly understood and not provide any improvement.

If the Baha'i approach is moral, meaning that alcohol is bad for the individual and society, then given enough time there will be a shift away from general acceptance and toward general intolerance. I have an idea about how this will work, and what people can do to move the process forward without being fanatical about it.

First, it is important to review why alcohol is bad (I'll come back to the good).

Demand a UN-Supervised Referendum in Syria

Dear Friends of the effort to build Earth Community,

Please, let us start today to send a message of care and support to the people of Syria.  Let us work through our government, our elected officials, our religious organizations, and through civic groups such as Citizens for Global Solutions, http://www.globalsolutions.org, and the United Nations Association USA, http://www.una-usa.org, to call for a UN-supervised referendum  in Syria so that the people of Syria can determine their own future democratically and non-violently, as is their universal human right. 

What’s at Stake? 

The relative failure up to now of the International Community, through the UN system or otherwise, to come to the effective aid and rescue of the Syrian people in their struggle for democratic methods of self-government is a travesty and a tragedy.  By some estimates, over 7000 pro-democracy protesters have been killed by Syrian governments forces.  At stake is the future of Syria and, more broadly, of the Arab human rights revolution.

Individualism, Ego, and Breaking the Ice

I'm currently training two groups of animators in my cluster. It's an inspiring process, as always. Ruhi Book 5 continually encourages me to look at my surroundings with greater wisdom, compassion, and discernment. Recently I have been reflecting a great deal on society's emphasis on self-esteem, and how it affects me as an animator, teacher, and tutor.

The influence begins on the first day: "Go around the circle and say your name, your age, and your ... favorite vegetable."

This is an icebreaker. It's supposed to help us get to know one another. But is this really a message worth sending? "I want to know about your personality, your individuality, your uniqueness. I want everyone here to know how special you are, and see where they stand in relation to you."

How much can we learn about a creation of God from its career ambitions or favorite school subject? How does this knowledge help the group to serve?

"Today the confirmations of the Kingdom of Abha are with those who renounce themselves, forget their own opinions, cast aside personalities and are thinking of the welfare of others.... Whosoever is occupied with himself is wandering in the desert of heedlessness and regret. The 'Master Key' to self-mastery is self- forgetting. The road to the palace of life is through the path of renunciation."

('Abdu'l-Bahá: star of the West, Vol. XVII, p. 348)

Why not lay this habitual focus on the self aside? Why not:

• What motivates you to walk this path of service?
• What does it mean to be noble in the world today?
• Who is a hero of yours? What are three qualities in this person that you most admire? How can these qualities be used in your path of service?
• If you could transform this into a perfect neighborhood, what would it be like?

I've used these with high school students who are training to be animators. They were difficult questions, even for me. But they provided an atmosphere of spiritual connection, of mutual respect, and critical thought. They gave us insight into one another's values, communication styles, and life experiences, without emphasizing the self. They also alluded to the habit of reflection that must become a regular habit of any path of service.


For children:

• What is something kind you've seen someone else do this week?
• What does it feel like when you pray?
• What is one way the world would be different if everyone were loving?

It takes more time to talk like this. More time to plan, more time to reflect silently, more time to speak, and more time to respond. But like many spiritual processes, it's an investment that could certainly bear fruit.

Thoughts?

Baha'i Writings on Language

Philosophers and lovers of wisdom alike have long reflected on the nature of language. This question is not just pointless intellectualizing but is fundamental to our very attitude to life and 'reality.' Is language just a 'will to power'? Does it have any coherence or is it just to be deconstructed as irrational? Can we communicate as much in silence as in sounds? Here's my own understanding and organization of some salient themes on language in the writings of Baha'u'llah:

The Baha'i Writings do not seem to take a direct stand on the correspondence/representation debates about language. (This is probably because such debates were not in the forefront of philosophical debate in the middle of the 19th century and certainly not in Islamic philosophical debates.) Rather, the Baha'i writings' concern with language centers on the nature of the 'Word of God,' which Baha'is' own speech is enjoined to reflect. Words are considered to be able to be the manifestation, emanation, and the power and meaning conveyance of the one who utters them. They manifest a person's feeling and ideas, yet also have the power to emanate those feelings and ideas to others. Baha'u'llah says, "Every word is endowed with a spirit, therefore the speaker or expounder should carefully deliver his words at the appropriate time and place, for the impression which each word maketh is clearly evident and perceptible." Words do not simply represent that which they signify but can convey unseen spiritual forces as well. Baha'i writings express these spiritual forces in terms analogous to energy waves - streams, waves, billows, shining lights, effulgences, and animating forces. The words of God are represented as ontologically superior as well as cosmologically a priori to our everyday world and universe. One Word created the entirety of the universe, a Word which is "an ocean inexhaustible in riches, comprehending all things. Every thing which can be perceived is but an emanation therefrom." These writings affirm and elaborate upon the Qur'an's expression that all things were made by the command uttered by God "Be!" This word is formed by joining together the two letters kaf and nun into the imperative 'be!' - kun.