doberman pizza. a baha'i (bahai, bahá'í) blog.

In its short lifespan (operating since January 2006), the brilliant baha’i blog Baha’i Views has acted like a window on the Baha’i world, bringing its readers daily glimpses of the global Baha’i community through quoted blog posts written by individual Baha’is, official press releases, and mentions in the mainstream media. The latest post – and perhaps the last for a while? – ends on an optimistic note, quoting christine and brian’s blog as they present an article translated from a local Israeli newspaper that describes life at the Baha’i World Centre in Haifa.

At the Bahá’í Shrine, the routine is maintained

Even when the sirens don’t quit, the calm of the Bahá’í Shrine in Haifa is not effected [sic]. Even the lights are not turned off until midnight. “This is our way of uplifting the morale”, says a representative of the place, “perhaps the future is scary, but in the end the peace will come.”

“The Bahá’ís understand that the world is going through a tough time. There will be tough problems or wars, until people realize the message of peace”, added Smith, “so we need to stay here, to continue as usual and to promote the idea of peace. From our standpoint, this message is more important then everything else. We are not naïve and we know this involves a lot of work, but in the end the Peace will come. Perhaps the near future is hard and scary, but the distant future is bright, and that is what the lights of the Shrine symbolize.”

From the Baha’i World News Service (BWNS):

Iran confiscates Baha’is’ properties, says UN

Baha’is in Iran face discriminatory housing policies, including “the abusive use of property confiscation,” said a United Nations report released at a news conference last week.

At the news conference, Mr. Kothari said he continues to receive reports about Baha’is who have had their land confiscated.

Read the whole story.

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podcasting is like blogging, but it’s spoken out loud rather than written. check out my podcast! also feel free to leave comments to let me know how you liked it, ways it could be improved, and so on. (comments about the um’s and ah’s and random noises are already spent, so try something else)

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. (Ben Hecht)

(Hint: try One Common Faith instead)

look what I found laying around in the grass! it’s a new camera, a Canon PowerShot A430. I got tired of wallowing around not having a camera to take snapshots with, so I took my life into my own hands. it’s not a real fancy camera; it lacks many of the A610’s advanced features, but it seems to be an inexpensive camera that’s good for your run-of-the-mill snapshots. Expect to see more photos here in the weeks to come!

It’s Birthday month! Both my brother Gabriel and sister Catherine were born in the month of July, and we had some great festivities to celebrate both occasions. Apart from them, Kamran, Afshun, Delara, Sahba, and Sarah were among those who had birthdays recently. Happy birthday to everyone!

Bonne fête à Jessika, qui fête demain ses 22 ans à Winnipeg – plus de 1,900 kilomètres du patelin de sa jeunesse!

So this weekend has been partly quiet and partly active – on Saturday afternoon, a whole bunch of friends gathered at Morrison Quarry in Wakefield, Quebec to celebrate Sarah’s birthday ; it was a lot of fun hanging around by the clear, blue-green water of the lake, playing backgammon, socializing, goofing off, and watching people bungee-jump across the lake. Sarah’s Barbie cake was pretty cool, too (and packed full of yummy sugar!!!!!!!!!!!11) Today, Rama and I went to see the Ottawa Lynx pummel the visiting team at the Lynx Stadium, which was a convenient 5-minute walk away for me. It was my first legit baseball game (i.e., the first game in a real stadium, and the first I actually had to pay to see), raising the number of sports-related milestones in my life to four this year (first time going to see an NHL hockey game, first NHL playoff party, first time following the World Cup all the way through). We got rained on for part of the game, but it was worth it. All in all, it was fun – hopefully I’ll be able to catch a few more games!

You might also find it interesting to note that I’ll be on vacation soon, starting in the second week of August. Among other things, I’ll be visiting relatives on my mom’s side of the family; they’re having a family reunion, and hopefully I should be able to meet some of my long-lost relatives for the very first time. Yay!

Here’s an AFP story posted on Yahoo News about the reaction of Baha’is in Haifa to the shelling of the city and the current conflict in the area.

Bahai faithful unshaken by rockets in Israel

British couple Gillian and Anthony Henderson have come on pilgrimage from their home in Vancouver, Canada.

“Our holy places are currently in the middle of the world in every sense. This is the eye of the storm,” says the 59-year-old. “There’s no doubt. The future is promising.”

Read the whole story.

From the CBC website: Hezbollah attacks Haifa

People on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border remained on high alert Sunday as Hezbollah and Israeli forces exchanged rocket fire and heavy artillery for a fifth day.

Israel police said the dead were part of a repair crew at a rail station that took a direct hit. One rocket tore a huge hole in the roof of the station. Others landed in the street nearby, where people ran from their cars to escape, according to Israel Radio.

Prayers needed for the people of Haifa, Israel and Lebanon…

Read the whole story.

Update (Aug. 20, 2006): Read the latest news about Haifa in my August 20th blog post.

Update: The Globe and Mail ran a new story about life in Haifa that mentions the Baha’i Shrine and Gardens.

A comment left by grover173 in LiveJournal’s ljbahai community:

Educating one’s self to knowing how the laws help us, learning to follow them–even some of the ones you don’t agree with–is definitely a long learning experience and a path towards spiritual maturity. It is not fair to expect Baha’is to keep every law every day. The only perfect Baha’i, after all, was ‘Abdu’l-Baha. The rest of us will fall short no matter how hard we try; it’s not the falling short that we should avoid, it’s the not striving to understand why we sometimes fall.

And here’s a related quote from Mary Pickford:

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.

Lastly, here’s a quote from the Writings of Baha’u'llah on the subject of striving:

O My servants! My holy, My divinely ordained Revelation may be likened unto an ocean in whose depths are concealed innumerable pearls of great price, of surpassing luster. It is the duty of every seeker to bestir himself and strive to attain the shores of this ocean, so that he may, in proportion to the eagerness of his search and the efforts he hath exerted, partake of such benefits as have been pre-ordained in God’s irrevocable and hidden Tablets. (Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 326)

The Universal House of Justice tells us that there are seven essential requisites to spiritual growth. Six of them are summarized in a letter circa 1984 to the Baha’is of Europe; the seventh, the requirement of repeating the Greatest Name of God (”Allah-u-abha”) ninety-five times a day, can be found in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and is one of those laws that was only recently made binding upon Western Baha’is.

The seven requisites are: (1) reciting one of the obligatory prayers each day; (2) reading from the Sacred Scriptures at least each morning and evening; (3) prayerful meditation on the Baha’i teachings; (4) striving each day to bring our behaviour into accordance with the Baha’i teachings; (5) teaching the Cause of God; (6) selfless service in the work of the Cause and in the carrying on of our trade or profession; (7) repeating the Greatest Name of God (”Allah-u-abha”) ninety-five times a day.

I’ve been making an effort to work on (2) lately – making sure I take time in the day to read from the writings of Bahá’u'lláh. I’ve been using the Bahá’í Quotes Syndication Service when possible, but the quotes presented there aren’t exclusively from Bahá’u'lláh. To help me out (and as a service to readers), I’ve added a random Hidden Word (c/o the Bahá’í Faith Index) to the bottom of my blog’s front page. Now you can scroll down and view a random hidden word as part of your daily spiritual growth programme.

First of all, most of you will read this for the first time on the 4th, so Happy 4th of July to all of the American visitors out there. This past Saturday was Canada Day, and there was no shortage of things to do in the Nation’s Capital. While Vafa and friends held a Canada Day barbecue out in Kanata (hand-making their own kebab), I had the pleasure to hang out with Catherine and Andréanne, Baha’i youth from Sherbrooke and good friends of mine. We strolled about downtown Ottawa on Saturday afternoon, taking in the Byward Market, the Canal, Parliament Hill, and Sparks Street—among other things. Many adventures were had, faces were painted, gelato and sausages were eaten (not together), t-shirts and flags were bought. Not necessarily in that order. It was kind of fun—it’s not every day that I get to play the tourist in my own home town, one of Canada’s major tourist hotspots.

After all the strolling, we made our way over the Alexandria bridge to Gatineau, to stake our claim on a plot of lawn outside the Canadian Museum of Civilization to watch the evening’s fireworks display. More friends gathered around to watch and wait, and just after ten o’clock, we were finally treated to an impressive display of fireworks. All in all, a good day. Nobody got mugged, nobody lost anything, nobody broke any bones—at least, not that I’m aware of. Check out the Canada Day photos on my flickr site.

Sunday was a decent day as well. Fears of thunderstorms proved to be unfounded, as the weather defied meteorologists and gave us a beautiful blue sky dotted with clouds and lots of wind. several people ended up going to Lac Philippe and having a great time; meanwhile, I hung out at the barbecue at Bagha’s place with about 9 or 10 other people. We stuffed ourselves with burgers, played Cranium and soccer (football), and so on. I’ve started putting barbecue photos up on flickr—check them out when you get a chance.

I knew it! NEDM.
And happy Canada Day.

[Update: check out the acapella version of the NEDM theme: loop and extended versions.]

[Update #2: ok, ok, I might as well explain what NEDM is. Here’s the definition from UrbanDictionary. There’s also a very well done investigation on ytmnd.