Cycle 6, Part 1

I missed the last expansion phase so when I first arrived in the Baha'i Center holding five hours of sleep and a large coffee-extra shot in hand, it still had not occured to me that in a few hours I would be standing in a doorway on my third sentence still not calm enough to take a breath. She listened carefully and then politely answered "no" to my question, "Do you see the light of God in these words". After about an hour of "I'm busy", or "I'm not home even though the music is on" (Which is a strategy I must admit I have use many times to avoid proselytizers), a young lady answered the door. "These quotes are beautiful", she said after about the 3rd page of Anna's Presentation. A few minutes later she acknowledged what her soul had surely recognized from the start, that Baha'u'llah is the manifestation God for this age. A conversation started about her family, how her and her husband were looking for a church, and how much she missed her three kids who had been taken away. At this point she couldn't keep the composure that is afforded to those who can take their loved ones for granted. Francis, one of my teaching partners, immediately found her gaze and with hands locked recited a healing prayer:

"They Name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. They mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come, Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise." -Baha'u'llah

In tears she took a prayer book, which we would find out two days later from her husband had been used fervantly in prayer. He was getting ready to be re-deployed. With courteous manners and hard eyes, he was not yet ready to recieve God in his heart again. He did see her however, and her eyes were open.

Expansion

The Albuquerque Baha'i community has just started its sixth expansion phase. Last cycle we welcomed over 50 new souls into the community, an occurrence I was not able to participate in due to a crazy work schedule. I have been itching to get out into the teaching field again, and today was a wonderful day.

I have been thinking a lot lately on the unlimited potential of this day. Sometimes it is hard to realize the transformation of the world when you are in the thick of it. It is easy to get complacent and forget that our lives our fleeting while the opportunities are so great. What we are doing as Baha'is, this process of expansion and consolidation, is more than just teaching the Faith, it is showing people a way through all of the false dichotomies, all the cruel and banal constructs we have nested in. Most of all, by teaching and engaging in the lives of others, we are realizing for ourselves the Word of God; we are finding ourselves as we find others.

Over the course of this cycle I hope to keep a running log of my experiences and reflections from the field. So many emotions pass through, and I want to remember them

Exciting New Project

I am excited about a new project Brenden and I are starting. The eventual goal is to write an essay loosely on the relationship being spiritual being, pedagogical empowerment, and community development. To do this we are reading both Baha'i and non-Baha'i books together on these themes. So far we have decided to read Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time", Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", various readings from Shoghi Effendi, various readings on the Baha'i institute process, and plenty of the writings of Baha'u'llah along the way.


Hopefully the process by which we write the essay will evolve as we learn and develop new ideas. We want the final essay to be both rational and poetic, objective and subjective, deductive and inductive, etc. The idea is that the structure of the essay will reflect the subject matter we are writing about, that being intentional evolution on both personal and collective scales.

The process of reading, writing, and reflecting will be documented Here.

"Making Social Science Matter"

I am in the process of reading an insightful book called "Making Social Science Matter" by Bent Flyvbjerg. The social sciences, he argues, will always fail to gain the comprehensive theoretical structure of the "hard sciences" because it studies subjects as opposed to objects, who are inherantly more dynamic and unpredictable and change their behavior depending on the context. He suggests that the social sciences pursue a more context-dependent, action/reflection oriented, practical approach, which will empower communities to generate knowledge based upon their own experience and not through some abstract theory.

Even if he overlooks the spiritual dimension of community development, his prescription contains many useful parallels to the Baha'i institute process.

I won't describe the book in any more detail because Ryan has already given an excellent review.

Sapling

The Word of God may be likened unto a sapling, whose roots have been implanted in the hearts of men. It is incumbent upon you to foster its growth through the living waters of wisdom, of sanctified and hold words, so that is root may become firmly fixed and its branches may spread out as high as the heavens and beyond.

-Baha'u'llah



Taking root, satiated no longer, the rotten stump has finally released its burden and we realize the ontological bankruptcy. There is no more power that can be willed without a heavy dose of nausea. But here we are, every moment is a potential foundation for something.



The world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous system-the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.

-Baha'u'llah



Something is happening in the world right now that is being overlooked by the news media and its obsession with the snarky politics born of a lower nature. It is being missed because it is taking root in the hearts and minds of the most vulnerable, receptive, and pure hearted among us, slowly maneuvering through the forgotten soil of forgotten potential, gaining strength in a process which is a reflection of the original divine impulse. It cannot be, will not be belittled, will not be disregarded as we disregard our corrupted leaders. Of what would be perceived as a threat to the decomposing heroes of world order, it is just beneath the surface.



A new life is, in this age, stirring within all the peoples of the earth; and yet none hath discovered its cause or perceived its motive...O friends! Be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed, neither be neglectful of your high destiny. Suffer not your labors to be wasted through the vain imaginations which certain hearts have devised. Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth as at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life of all men, the letters inscribed upon His sacred scroll. With the utmost unity, and in a spirit of perfect fellowship, exert yourselves, that ye may be enabled to achieve that which beseemth this Day of God. Verily I say, strife and dissension, and whatsoever the mind of man abhorreth are entirely unworthy of his station. Center your energies in the propagation of the Faith of God. Whoso is worthy of so high a calling, let him arise and promote it. Whoso is unable, it is his duty to appoint him who will, in his stead, proclaim this Revelation, whose power hath cased the foundations of the mightiest structures to quake, every mountain to be crushed in to dust, and every soul to be dumbfounded. Should the greatness of this Day be revealed in its fullness, every man would forsake a myriad of lives in his longing to partake, though it be for one moment, of its great glory-how much more this world and its corruptible treasures!

-Baha'u'llah



There are no news cameras in the room where hearts are met, where intentions among enclaves are woven with the divine spirit into collective action. There are no cameras in the world that will capture the groundswell until it is sudden and shocking. The trust of God is in our hands, and as we build so shall we become the trust of God.

I fear that we will forget and lose our sight...

The sun is setting and we chase the Kingdom's shadow.

Universal Life

Bryan has just posted an interesting essay in the collaborative blog Bahai Coherence called "Genesis, Evolution, and Aliens". Do check it out!