the Atmosphere of Joy

Words of 'Abdu'l-Baha

You are all exceedingly welcome. Do you realize how much you should thank God for His blessings? If you should thank Him a thousand times with each breath, it would not be sufficient because God has created and trained you. He has protected you from every affliction and prepared every gift and bestowal. Consider what a kind Father He is. He bestows His gift before you ask. We were not in the world of existence, but as soon as we were born, we found everything prepared for our needs and comfort without question on our part. He has given us a kind father and compassionate mother, provided for us two springs of salubrious milk, pure atmosphere, refreshing water, gentle breezes and the sun shining above our heads. In brief, He has supplied all the necessities of life although we did not ask for any of these great gifts. With pure mercy and bounty He has prepared this great table. It is a mercy which precedes asking.

Learning in Action is a Process of Forgiveness

In the past decade enormous changes have swept through the Baha'i community. A curriculum and a systematic process for its study have changed the way Baha'is relate to the Baha'i writings, to each other, and the world at large. Activities for the spiritual education of children and the empowerment of early adolescents are playing a more central role in Baha'i life. Furthermore, these activities take place less and less in Baha'i centers and more and more in neighborhoods dispersed throughout a community. In the past most Baha'i activities were primarily for Baha'is. But now the center of gravity has shifted as members of the broader community participate in greater numbers and take on greater responsibility. The changes have been as dramatic as they have been swift. Baha'is have done a relatively good job at maintaining unity throughout this process. But we have inflicted our share of wounds upon each other. Many complain that patterns of community life are changing to quickly; others that they are changing too slowly. Many wonder whether such changes are even desirable or what was such a problem with existing ways of doing things. Others have pursued change at the expense of tact and mutual respect. Throughout all of this, we have learned what it means to forgive.

It seems to me that forgiveness is not just an individual spiritual act that is essential to Baha'i life. In addition, it is inscribed into the structure of the framework for action the Baha'i world has been building since 1996. It is at the heart of what is meant by the expression learning in action.

Some Thoughts on how Baha'is Approach Moral and Social Questions

The Baha'i approach to moral and social questions is distinctive inasmuch as it combines obedience to laws purportedly revealed by God with the cultivation of independent thinking. It is common for these two aspects to be considered mutually exclusive. Extreme examples privileging one side would be the English Puritans or the Taliban. While extreme examples priviliging the other would be the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche or Jean-Paul Sartre. But I don't think the Baha'i faith is taking a "moderate" course, mixing together two things as different as oil and water. Rather, I think, in the Baha'i approach obedience and independence are mutually reinforcing. Each is the key to the other. For many this seems contradictory. And certainly, such a position does not match the shared sense of things in our society. But as I think through this matter's difficulties I find it more and more persuasive all the time.

The Manifest Evil of Homophobia

 The Economist magazine has an article about the violent and oppressive repercussions of homophobia, especially in developing countries. Here are a few excerpts:

Some 80 countries criminalise consensual homosexual sex. Over half rely on “sodomy” laws left over from British colonialism. But many are trying to make their laws even more repressive. Last year, Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, signed a law criminalising consensual gay sex, despite the Senate’s overwhelming rejection of the bill. A draconian bill proposed in Uganda would dole out jail sentences for failing to report gay people to the police and could impose the death penalty for gay sex if one of the participants is HIV-positive. In March Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, who once described gay people as worse than dogs or pigs, ruled out constitutional changes outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Mourning of an Intellectual

My grandmother passed away last week. Since then, I have been home to pay my last respects and to support my family. Being with friends and family has helped me appreciate the interdependency of our world. Every life is caught up in another. Living is sharing; Living is sharing joys and sorrows, meals, possessions, conversations, a community. All are interconnected. And when one life ends those who remain must reconfigure themselves and their world in light of that absence. The challenge of another's death is to summon up one's own creative power for life; to renew oneself and renew one's world in light of changed conditions.

Disjoint

Mindful of the loneliness, Everything I love is so fleeting.


Who are you? So you are happy huh, sitting there in grave confidence, creating the stage for which people laugh in giddy relief? And you, always smiling, always playing the shallow yet lovable narcissist? You are excused, for now. And I, never making much of an impression, always distant (I am painfully aware), holding onto the moment with a white knuckle, too often sinking into a third reflection, cycling loneliness, love, contempt, respect, and despair.

The only language I speak in is salvation and tears. That is, when I am awake!

Too easy to shrivel up and release the form always being projected. Every comforting morsel is a mockery, an illusory attempt. Even writing these horrible words...A despicable mockery!


How can words capture a human being? Why do we feel that we are the only ones who are bewildered by the sheer enormity. All I want is to wipe away all defenses and be taken, with everyone.

Most aspiration is smitten with form, a resource for the spirit and a hologram otherwise.

Positive Playlist: Sharpening Spiritual Perception

As I was looking through the playlist of positive songs Kat posted, it occured to me just how much stronger the junior youth empowerment program is for including a media awareness component. There are many songs with messages that can raise the consciousness of young people. And they can play a powerful role in one's personal development. However, as Jason pointed out with the example of Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, and Pink Floyd, some of that music also promotes unhealthy attitudes and lifestyles. This could be an obstacle. But once a group has reached a certain stage in its progress, such ambiguity can easily be changed into opportunities for critical thinking and in-depth consultation.

of Power and Policy

Here's a post to check out. It's written from the perspective of a committed supporter of the Democratic Party, but it contains some ideas that can be translated into the terminology used in the Baha'i writings and by the Universal House of Justice. You should read it for yourself, of course. But here's my translation.

When we think of governance as as the pursuit of personal power, we fall into a false dichotomy between personal and collective interest, or into a Hobbesian view of the struggle of all against all. But if we think of governance as the pursuit of good policies that benefit society, these oppositions melt away, and cooperation arises naturally.

It seems to me that for the latter approach to prevail over the former requires a spiritual transformation. Individuals can't continue approaching positions of authority as a means  for serving the promptings of self and passion. Rather, they should be filled with a desire to promote the interests of the broader society. This is something that can only happen in the heart. No technical prescription or cleverness at statecraft can bring about this change. It requires going person to person and assisting them to see the folly of the first and the benefits of the second.

Physical Resurrection: Linchpin of Christianity?

Andrew Sullivan, well know blogger and Catholic, reflects upon his faith.

Christianity is in crisis - and in a deeper crisis, in my view, than many Christians are allowing themselves to believe. I start from a simple premise. There can be no conflict between faith and truth. If what we believe in is not true, it is worth nothing. The idea that one should insincerely support religious faith because it is good for others or for society is, for me, a profound blasphemy if you do not share the faith yourself. I respect atheists and agnostics who reject faith; I find it harder to respect fundamentalists - of total papal or Biblical authority - because of the blindness of their sincerity; but I have no respect for those who cynically praise religion for its social uses, while believing in none of it themselves. Sadly, a critical faction of the Straussian right has been engaged in exactly that kind of cynicism for a while now.

But if religion and truth cannot be in conflict, Christians who believe in a God of logos have an obligation to make sense of those moments when modern learning disproves certain religious preconceptions. No modern Christian, it seems to me, can claim the literal inerrancy of the Bible without abandoning logos.

Positive Playlist: enlisting our culture in spiritual empowerment

The third unit of Ruhi Book 7 is called "Promoting the Arts at the Grassroots." On the subject of music, two major themes for consultation arise. One is the effectiveness of music in addressing the spiritual needs of the community. 'Abdu'l-Baha's reassurance that "... in this new age the Manifest Light hath, in His holy Tablets, specifically proclaimed that music, sung or played, is spiritual food for the soul and heart" lets us know that music does indeed have a place, leaving us to focus on details such as form and venue.

Choosing One's Choices

One of the most potent forms of social control is to conceal from an individual her own power of choice. This is not to say that she ceases to choose. But rather, that she has a strong tendency to make choices in conformity with the expectations of her peers simply by assuming there are no alternatives. A stranger attacks a young man's family. He feels he has no choice but to seek revenge. An employer insists that an employee perform a task that is neither legal nor ethical. The employee performs the task and consoles himself in thinking that the decision wasn't his to make. A woman is on her deathbed. She can't imagine feeling anything but despair. All are expressions of one condition: the concealment of the individual's inherent freedom.

I Don't Wanna Talk Anymore: An Analysis of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" Video

link to telephone video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ95z6ywcBY


Lady Gaga has said that the Telephone video is about America. The Director of the video explained that the video is a continuation of the Paparazzi video. In the Paparazzi video Lady Gaga is thrown off her balcony by her boyfriend and is temporarily crippled. She is famous and even in her crippled state she clings to glamour and fame. At the end of the video, after she has recovered from her injury, she poisons her lover and is arrested for murder. The video ends with her mug shots. Interestingly, the lyrics of Paparazzi are the polar opposite of Telephone’s. We move from fervent adoration to cold apathy. “I’m your biggest fan I’ll follow you until you love me” to “Stop calling stop calling I don’t wanna talk anymore.” Together, the songs form a sort of Act One and Act Two of the popularized, modern day romance. It’s not about love or hate, but rather, a life-sucking worship of another person.

At the beginning of Telephone, Gaga is being brought into a women’s prison. Female inmates are behaving in an overtly sexual and violent manner.

The Role of Science in a Baha'i Development Context

As someone who aspires to work in the field of international development, I am excited by the increasing reliance of empirical and experimental approaches to discerning the most effective poverty interventions. One of the most trenchant criticisms of international development efforts has been that they are effete at best and often counterproductive. Often good intentions in the form of aid money are wasted away or embezzled by the governments that are supposed to utilize them.

Esther Duflo, co-founder of the Poverty Action Lab, argues in her recent TED talk...

...that we can utilize randomized controlled trials, which have revolutionized the field of medicine, to quantify which policy interventions are most effective in targeting poverty.

Drawing Closer and Setting Apart

I was just having a conversation with a friend about the progress of the Baha'i world right now. It got us thinking that there are two dynamics of the emerging pattern of Baha'i life that can easily contradict each other. One is the desire to reach out to new contacts, share Baha'u'llah's teachings with others, and work with them to improve the life of our communities. The other is the desire to exemplify a lifestyle of devotion to God, detachment from instant gratification, and consecrated service to the plans set out by the Universal House of Justice. Baha'is are called to engage the broader society, while living lifestyles that are very different, often incomprehensible at first, to individuals unfamiliar with the Baha'i Faith.

It seems to me that this twin dynamic is set up by breaking down certain barriers with the broader society, while at the same time, throwing up others. By no means, do I think this is a self-defeating process, quite the opposite. But my friend and I certainly noticed that this change of culture is not something we can learn overnight.

What are your thoughts on this?

Questions for Neighborhoods

Who are our neighbors?
What do we believe?
What do we desire?
What do we dream of?
What do we need?

What are our capacities?
What are our strengths?

In what ways and to what degree are our needs being met and our dreams realized by using our capacities and strengths, today?

In what ways and to what degree could our needs be met and our dreams realized by using our capacities and strengths, today?

In what ways and to what degree are our capacities and strengths unable to meet our needs and realize our dreams?

What do we need to close this gap?

Do we need more …

knowledge?
skills?
encouragement?
organization?
communication?
reflection?
faith?

What tried-and-true processes are ready and waiting for us to take advantage of them in order to address these issues?

And why haven’t we already begun?

Homosexuality

Homosexuality has become the most prominent social issue of my generation, and I continually have conversations about it. To some the issue is equivalent to the civil rights movement, fighting against discrimination, injustice, and religious fanaticism. To others, the issue is a classic battle of values against an increasingly immoral civilization.

The differing opinions revolve around a few key issues that are difficult to talk about. Without good communication, people unwittingly fall into categories of pro- or anti-gay. Below are some of my thoughts on how to navigate the conversation. As you may know, the Baha'i teachings don't fall into either the pro or anti category.

"Our church is in our hearts. We take it wherever we go."

When I was first introduced to the Baha'i Faith, the Baha'is I knew conducted a devotional gathering at a nearby home. The first time I gathered with the Baha'is to pray I was struck by the simplicity and focus of their approach to communal prayer. There were no rituals. Socialization waited until after prayers were done. Participants would recite prayers individually as they felt inspired. They would sing songs even if nobody else knew the words to sing them. The devotional portion of the gathering focused entirely on prayer and meditation. And because it didn't follow a pre-established program, individuals would participate to the extent that they felt inspired. As a Catholic re-engaging with my faith tradition I found that approach to worship deeply moving. I didn't feel in any way pressured. I didn't feel like a sheep lost in my own flock. Instead, I felt united with those around me in the common purpose of worshipping our creator.

Social Action and the Love of God: 'Abdu'l-Baha at Hull House

One of the exciting features of the recorded utterances from 'Abdu'l-Baha's travels in North America and Europe is that many of the individuals and organizations he spoke before have their own distinguished history. Abdu'l-Baha met with such luminaries as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Theodore Roosevelt, and Bertha von Suttner, a leading peace activist who influenced Alfred Nobel in establishing the peace prize. They were engaged in vigorous conversations that continues to this day on topics of humanity's social and spiritual prosperity. But since 1921 'Abdu'l-Baha's physical voice has fallen silent. So, if Baha'is want his wisdom to be taken into account today they'll have to speak up on his behalf.

Love of Others: The Light and the Lamp

More often than I think is justified, love is held up as the panacea for all the worlds problems. If only we showed more love for foreigners, we wouldn't have so many wars, if only we loved those less fortunate than us, we wouldn't have so much poverty. If only there was more love, people would feel less need for material goods. One famous artist has affirmed, "All you need is love." Perhaps, but only if we have a clear vision of what we mean by love. It seems to me, not nearly enough attention goes to fundamental questions about love and its place in society. Love is taken as something self-evident, already understood, and only in need of being spread further. I want to focus on the question of where our love should be directed, of what is most worthy of our love. And I think a very useful starting point can be found in passages from the Baha'i Writings discussing love shown towards the founders of the world's religions. I think they provide concepts with which we can rethink our approach to personal relationships, and beyond that, to the life of society.

Free Speech Worth Engaging

Essential to any prosperous society in this day is freedom to discuss matters of public interest in an atmosphere of tolerance and non-coercion. When this occurs, unreflective power gives way to thought as the impelling force driving the evolution of a society. This is common sense now, apparently. But, it seems to me that the common vision of "freedom of speech" is inadequate to the concept it invokes; Its means cannot bring about its ends. Here in the United States this dilemna can be seen in the river of nonsense that the First Amendment is always protecting. We can all agree on freedom of speech. But how to make sure that that speech is worth our time and energy engaging is something that I think eludes the American body politic.

The Forgotten Schools

The urgency of investigating Baha'i contributions to modern Iranian education can, perhaps, be encapsulated in two facts. First, that Reza Shah, the most powerful man in Iran, a country where the people of his time couldn't bring themselves to utter the word "Baha'i", sent his own children to Baha'i schools, the Tarbiyat Schools of Tehran. This means that Muhammad Reza Shah, who ruled Iran from 1941 until 1979, was for a time educated in a Baha'i school. Second, that the same Reza Shah, seeing that Baha'i educators gave their loyalty first to Shoghi Effendi and only secondly to him, ordered their closure across Iran, forcing him to send his children elsewhere.

"The Forgotten Schools: the Baha'is and Modern Education in Iran, 1899-1934" tells the story of how the Baha'i community went from being among the foremost advocates for the modernization of education in Iran in the late 19th century, to being its foremost practitioner in the early 20th, and to finally being shut out from the operation of schools after 1934. Many historians have noted the impact Europeans, Christians, and reform-minded Muslims have had on the rapid transformation of Iranian education in the opening decades of the twentieth centuries. But no one, not even Baha'is, have taken note that the most successful and most popular endeavors of this time were led by Iran's most hated minority.

**As a side note, I'm realizing how hard it is to review a book I haven't had immediate access to in over two months.

There are of course a number of things that could be said about this book. I would like to picque people's interest in reading it for themselves, but in order to do so I can't give everything away. I'll limit myself to two observations from the author, Soli Shahvar, and some commentary of my own on its relevance for Baha'is of today.

The first observation is that at the turn of the twentieth century a handful of reformist thinkers were vigorously theorizing about schools that taught modern sciences, reading and writing, hygiene, music, athletics, and a range of non-theological fields. And in every community there were plenty of individuals practicing the same narrow theological education, in squalid conditions, relying mostly on rote memorization. But very few people besides Baha'is were taking steps to practice modern education. One consequence is that Baha'is were often pioneers in practices that now seem commonplace. Girls' schools, maps, chalkboards, physical activities, and kindergarten were all either first introduced to Iran or first popularized by Baha'i schools. The magnitude of such contributions is grossly out of proportion with the relatively tiny number of Baha'is in Iran. Baha'is let deeds not words be their adorning. And at least one historian is now taking note.

The second observation of the author is that the strong vision of education embodied in the Baha'i writings, the broad support of the entire Baha'i community for such endeavors, the assistance of experienced Western Baha'i educators, and the spirit of sacrificial service among participants combined to earn Baha'i schools a reputation for offering the highest standard of education wherever they were established. This of course, was happening under very difficult circumstances. Faced with the oppression Baha'is endured, most parents would be afraid to let their children out of the house to attend one of these schools, let alone be at the forefront of establishing them, and teaching in them. Presently, Baha'is around the world are engaged in offering spiritual education to young people in their communities. Almost none of them face opposition anything like what the Baha'is of that time endured. If Baha'is could earn a reputation for offering the highest standard of education, while at the same time being hated by the broad majority of the population, then certainly today in much more favorable circumstances, Baha'is can win even greater victories if they draw on the power of the Baha'i Writings and arise sacrificially to put their teachings into practice.

Baha'i History: The View from Outside

Two books I've read this year have changed the way I think about Babi/Baha'i history. In the past I approached the topic in a basically inward looking fashion. I would read books by Baha'is, for Baha'is, and about Baha'is and sometimes about those individuals who persecute them. Now I'm beginning to approach Baha'i history in a more outward looking way with the help of two Iranian scholars "looking inward" to the Baha'i community from outside. The first of these is Soli Shahvar, who teaches at the University of Haifa and whose work "The Forgotten Schools: The Baha'is and Modern Education in Iran 1899-1934 was just published this past October. The other is Negar Mottahedeh, who teaches at Duke University, whose work "Representing the Unpresentable: Historical Images of National Reform from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic of Iran" has been out since 2007. I finished "the Forgotten Schools" a couple of months ago. And at the moment I'm about halfway through "Representing the Unpresentable." I'd like to do a brief review of both. But Mottahedeh's book should probably wait until I actually finish it.

Shahvar and Mottahedeh are very different types of scholars. Shahvar's work is dry, detached, and thorough. He sees that Iranian studies has almost entirely neglected the contributions of Baha'is to the modernization of Iran, and has gathered together a treasure trove of facts and anecdotes for scholars looking into their contributions to the field of education. Mottahedeh's work is adventurous, iconoclastic, and occasionally lurid. Drawing on psychoanalysis, post-modern social theory, and Walter Benjamin's ideas on historical memory and dramatic performance, Mottahedeh demonstrates that "Babis" are the abject and repressed Other, that veils nothing and introduces foreign influence, against which Modern Iranian identity constructed itself over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, both scholars share a common conviction: that Babis and Baha'is have played an enormous role in the development of modern Iran, and Iranian studies must get past its taboos and anxieties in discussing the nation's repressed Other.

One of the most helpful aspects of these books is that they locate Baha'i activity within a much broader social context. They show the complex interactions between Babis, Baha'is and the society around them, thereby demonstrating what about them was/is unique and is worthy of further investigation. They present a way of thinking about Baha'i history that blends well with today's renewed focus on reaching out to society, listening to its needs, and taking action to address them. At this juncture, over half of the animators in the Junior Youth program are "non-Baha'is." In many places, coordinators in the same program are beginning to think on the scale of how they can raise the capacity of the generality of young people in their communities and not just a few individuals and groups here and there. Perhaps then, it should come as no surprise that scholarship looking into a similar process from a different generation is being spearheaded by non-Baha'is.

Shahvar and Mottahedeh do not draw attention to Baha'i history because they are promoting own religion. After all, it's not their religion. Rather, they draw attention to it because it is a reality they are convinced the world must face. Listening to their insights can help galvanize Baha'is and clarify their vision in their efforts to make this a reality in every other nation, a reality that future scholars one day might also feel compelled to face.

Rational Motivation

I found this discussion and critique of Jurgan Habermas's philosophical evolution to be thought provoking. Here are a few of the excerpts:

In his earlier work, Habermas believed, as many did, that the ambition of religion to provide a foundation of social cohesion and normative guidance could now, in the Modern Age, be fulfilled by the full development of human rational capacities harnessed to a “discourse ethics” that admitted into the conversation only propositions vying for the status of “better reasons,” with “better” being determined by a free and open process rather than by presupposed ideological or religious commitments: “…the authority of the holy,” he once declared, “is gradually replaced by the authority of an achieved consensus.

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.”

Monkey Brains

The University of Liverpool did a simple study with profound consequences. They looked at monkey brains.

You see, monkeys hang out in groups. First is the social group, which is the tribe size where you work collectively for resources, ask for monkey favors, and defend each other when attacked. Then there is the social clique, which is the posse of monkeys who let you eat bugs out of their hair.

Researchers observed several kinds of monkeys and the size of their social groups. They also looked at the size of the neocortex in the brain and found a correlation to group size. The largest chimpanzee social group is about 50, with a small group size of 3. Then comes the important part, they looked at the human brain and asked the question, "What is the group size of this animal?" The result: a social group of about 150, and a small group of about 12.

Fasting Reflections

*I wrote this a couple of years ago while fasting.

Baha'i's fast for 19 days out of the year, which for us means that we don't take in food or drink from sunrise to sunset. We consider it one of the pillars of our faith, a time of reflection, detachment, and rejuvenation.

Fasting is always an interesting time for me. My whole world is turned around.

There are the day to day practical changes. I stop exercising. during the day I need to maintain some hydration, while at night, after I have eaten and digested, it is already too late and I am tired. I am less social; there is less available energy to engage people in certain conversations that I am ambivalent about. I avoid going to lunch or coffee with friends, which is usually the most social part of the day. There is also more time to work because I am not excusing myself for coffee and snacks, yet I probably get less work done. My attention span gets shot starting at about 2pm.

Then there are the spiritual things. We are told that every hour of this time is imbued with a special spiritual potency and potential, which is why the time I waste and misdirect feels so tragic. There are less things to distract me from my core being, and more things to remind me of it. The day is not broken up in the same manageable chunks before and after meals; instead it is a long and drawn out marathon all day, and then all day again, for 19 days. I lose the strength to manage and marginalize in my mind the personal and moral issues that I am facing. Food is no longer a viable way to forget and distract.

In other words, it is a direct confrontation and struggle. There are only two ways for me to respond to this. Either prayer is used to accept, engage, and transcend these issues, or I get resentful and crabby. There have been many times during the Fast where I have eaten just to comfort a whiny heart, and to spite any injunction that it not be pampered. There is no middle ground. Most of the time I live my life in this middle ground, a comfortable place that neither rejects nor fully accepts spiritual consciousness. Pink Floyd coined it as being "comfortably numb".

While fasting, there is potential to grow and evolve, or to sink into the dark depths of ourselves. It is really the only choice we have at anytime, it just becomes especially salient during these 19 days...and probably when we die.