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

You saw it here first: Here’s the unofficial Cultivating The Roots commemorative video. Tell your friends!

Update: Check it out – a podcast of the talks at the conference!

we gathered together just after three o’clock in the morning, local time, at the Ottawa Baha’i Centre. all was quiet and the sky was dark, though streetlamps and the glowing blue and white “Baha’i Centre” sign lit the way for those who arrived for the commemoration of the Ascension of Bahá’u'lláh, one of the main holy days in the Bahá’í calendar.

as I walked in, wonderfully unearthly music wafted from the main hall; a violin and piano duet by two of our Baha’i youth, Marie-Claire and Mathieu Saindon. It infused the building with a mood of rarefied spirituality and expectation—glowing, echoing chords suggesting candles at a vigil, evoking “the fire of Thy love which drove sleep from the eyes of Thy chosen ones” in the early hours of May 29th, 1892, as Bahá’u'lláh, the Blessed Beauty, drew His last breaths upon this earthly plane and ascended into His other Realms. Baha’i pilgrims might recall the image of the oil lamp owned by Bahá’u'lláh which still burns in the night in His room in the Mansion of Bahji.

The program was short but touching; a combination of readings, chanted prayers and music took us through to the reading of the Tablet of Visitation just after 4 AM (daylight savings time)—after which we slowly returned from those spiritual realms into the present moment, and shared greetings and refreshments together.

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Betcha didn’t even know Bruce Lee was a Baha’i. Or that he spoke with a Spanish accent. lol. Thanks to NaimFT on YouTube.

Disclaimer: No, Bruce Lee wasn’t actually a Baha’i ;)

OK I know I posted a little tiny less-than-noticeable link to an interview with Rainn Wilson of The Office fame in a previous article, but I figured since the Baha’i World News Service picked up the story, I might feature it a little more prominently. Rainn Wilson, who plays (and blogs as) Dwight Schrute on NBC’s The Office, is a Baha’i and loving it. He’s no stranger to getting press—I first found out about him when bahaiblog.net posted part of an interview with the Seattle Times about his role—but it’s his recent role in The Last Mimzy that’s causing folks to sit up and take notice. Someone at the U.S. Baha’i News Service had the capital idea to sit down for a chat with him as well—and below is an excerpt, as reprinted by the Baha’i World News Service (BWNS). His story is inspiring, not only for those connected with the performing arts, but for anyone who’s ever gone on a spiritual search.

Rainn Wilson talks about Hollywood, his family and the Baha’i Faith

LOS ANGELES, United States, 24 May 2007 (BWNS) — Actor Rainn Wilson is used to talking to the media – he is part of the award-winning cast of the U.S. television series “The Office,” and his recent role in the movie “The Last Mimzy” brought a flurry of new interviews. Time magazine, TV talk-show hosts and others came calling.

A member of the Baha’i Faith, he seems just as comfortable discussing his spiritual beliefs as he does shooting the breeze about Dwight Schrute, the pompous assistant manager he plays on “The Office,” the American version of a popular British TV show of the same name. [...]

Q: Rainn, what was it like to grow up in the Baha’i Faith?

A: When you grow up with a spiritual foundation that asks you to be conscious of the fact that all races are created equal, that men and women are equal and that all religions worship the same (God), it helps you see the world as one family and not get lost in the traps of political, social, and economic belief systems that can lead you astray. I always think of myself as a world citizen. It’s a powerful thing.

Q: You stepped away from the Baha’i Faith in your 20s and returned to it 10 years later. What happened in that decade?

A: I was in New York City, going to acting school, and I was going through a rebellious phase. I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do. I was disenchanted with things that were organized. It was a spiritual journey I was on. And this is reflected in and supported by one of the central tenets of the Baha’i Faith, which obliges every spiritual seeker to undertake an individual investigation of truth.

I started at ground zero. I decided I didn’t know if there was even a God. I read religious books of the world. I asked myself, “If there is a God, how do we know what He wants us to do and what He wants for us? Do we read books? Do we buy crystals? Do we follow certain gurus? Do we sit under a tree? Because surely this omniscient creator has some kind of plan in store for mankind.”

Q: And that line of thinking led you back to the Baha’i Faith?

A: Yes, it brought me back to the Baha’i way of viewing things. I came to realize I did believe in God. I couldn’t conceive of a universe without someone overseeing it in a compassionate way. It just made the most sense to me that God gradually is unfolding a plan for humankind. That there is progressive revelation — the Baha’i belief that God sends Messengers for each day and age. I re-read books about the Baha’i Faith. And I came back to believing that Baha’u'llah was the Promised One and Messenger for this day and age. My quest took me from age 21 to 31. I’m 41 now. [...]

Read the BWNS article, or the original US Baha’i News interview. Also, check out his appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, where he mentions (albeit briefly) the Baha’i Faith!

ahh what a beautiful day today—that made up for the rest of the weekend, which was cloudy and drab and rainy. I rode my new bike (yay!) down to the river and up to New Edinburgh, then back home, stopping at an asian grocery to get soup ingredients along the way. Praised be God for endowing human beings with the smarts to come up with bicycles. I love bikes to pieces. City bus and bike are an ideal combination for me; especially in a place like Ottawa that’s friendly to both cyclists and public transit users, it’s a winning combination. I honestly don’t see why anyone needs a car—besides convenience, impatience or needing to go somewhere crazy like Greely or Barrhaven. Pedestrian-friendly urban development for life. I think I’m going to end up being one of those crazy granola guys who lives in a solar-panelled adobe house in Arizona with five acres of organic permaculture out back.

Hmmmm my house and my life were both badly in need of spring cleaning. My apartment is a little bit cleaner now, and my fridge is a little bit fuller. I’m also on my own (i.e. no flatmate) for the first time in a couple of years, and it’s going better than I had expected—long-time readers of this blog will remember where I ended up last time.

OK random link time. Someone (Kam) posted up the slideshow from the Unravel the Mysteries conference back in 2005 (see my photosets); nice memories… check it out on Youtube, or below. There are several other videos I’ve laid eyes on lately that are worth sharing here, but let’s pace ourselves shall we? In addition, do keep your eyes peeled in the next week or so for a glorious retrospective video from the Cultivating the Roots conference will be posted here soon.

Egypt, a country with a long and glorious history dating back to the beginnings of civilization, has been in a very poor state of late, especially with respect to the treatment of its own citizens. Remember last December, when the Egyptian Supreme Court denied Egyptian Baha’is their fundamental citizenship rights by refusing to allow them official ID cards with the mandatory “Religion” field correctly filled out? Well, things just went downhill from there. Hard-hitting Baha’i blog Baha’i Faith in Egypt reports on an Egyptian newspaper interview with Dr. Basma Moussa, an Egyptian Baha’i, who, among other things, discussed the fact that Egyptian Baha’is must pay taxes like any other Egyptian citizen—but are nevertheless deprived of the civil rights granted to other tax-paying citizens. From the blog post:

There must be separation between citizenship and belief—they cannot be interconnected. Each Egyptian citizen must be entitled to ALL citizenship rights. Presently, all Egyptian Bahá’ís are deprived of their citizenship rights simply because of their belief. They are denied government-issued ID cards which are a necessity in order to continue to live in Egypt as a human being. Nothing in normal daily living can be accomplished without these ID cards. [...]

In Egypt, it appears to be perfectly acceptable for the government to force the Bahá’ís to pay taxes like all other citizens, but seems to have no hesitation in depriving them of all their civil rights and all services due to them. The authorities cannot demand taxation from Bahá’ís with nothing in return. Is there any justice in this? This fact alone raises a very big question! One would expect that ID cards (and the national ID number) must be used in order to pay taxes!

This atrocious (not to mention ridiculous) treatment of Egypt’s own law-abiding citizens is all the more poignant in light of the news that appeared today about Egypt’s election to the United Nations Human Rights Council. From the Toronto Star:

Despite abuse, Egypt joins rights council: History of torture in African nation makes a mockery of UN, critics say
Olivia Ward, Foreign Affairs Writer

In Egypt, Canadian bank teller Mohamed el-Attar is facing 15 years in jail on spy charges he says he confessed to under torture. Human rights groups say prisoner abuse is routine in the North African country.

In New York yesterday, Egypt won an uncontested seat on the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council, which is meant to defend the rights of the vulnerable worldwide.

What part of this equation doesn’t compute?

“Things like this leave one worried that all the fine things said last year when the council was created aren’t being played out in practice,” says Alex Neve, who heads Amnesty International’s Canadian office.

More than a dozen human rights groups asked the 192-country General Assembly not to vote for Egypt in yesterday’s election to fill 14 seats on the Geneva-based council, charging that the country’s record “is full of serious human rights violations that have been practised widely for long years.”

They named torture, arbitrary detention, election rigging and the use of military courts for trying civilians as reasons not to back Cairo’s bid.

Critics cite Egypt’s win—along with Qatar and Angola, with similarly dubious human rights records—as a sign that the council, created last year to replace the politically charged UN Human Rights Commission which had become known as “the abuser’s club,” is already irrelevant.

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walking slowly down dusty streets
his eyes are lost in thoughts that wash over
like forty waves and swallow him up

how blessed the dust of ‘Akka
how Blessed the Beauty whose feet trod upon it
he says with a tear;
his soul cries out in its separation

like a temple-flower
his prayer falls from his lips, and a wind stirs
and scatters the words he intones;
praise God who hearkens and is ready to answer

would that these stones could speak
and recount the tales of his Beloved;
would that he could hear the voices
of the Concourse on High, singing His praise

lost in thoughts of remembrance
he steps as though scaling those hallowed steps
he walks as though treading the rocky path that leads
to that Point of Adoration, that Holy of Holies

the flutter of a breeze sweeps away the dust
and scatters the flowers falling softly at his feet
and he listens for the voice of the Promised One

One of the popular cutesy phrases these days—and it also happens to describe a philosophy of life—is “random acts of kindness“. Practice random kindness during your day. Hold the door for someone. Be nice to someone who’s in a grumpy mood. Pay for someone’s drink when you’re in line for your morning coffee. Kindness is all well and good—in fact, it’s marvelous—but does it have to be random? Do random acts have the potential to increase one’s own spiritual capacity?

“Capacity-building” has been a watchword within the Baha’i community for the past decade or so. Faced with the inevitable prospect of their Faith’s emergence from obscurity and its large-scale expansion, members of the worldwide Baha’i community have embraced a grass-roots model of capacity-building allowing them to raise up from among themselves and those close to them trusted servants capable of not only teaching others about the Cause of Bahá’u'lláh, but also training them how to offer valuable acts of service ranging from children’s classes and junior youth groups to home visits with those needing comfort, solace or fellowship. “The days when idle worship was deemed sufficient are ended,” said the Báb. Nowadays, the Baha’is have come to realize, everyone has to pitch in and do their part to raise up a new civilization—one based on enduring, divine principles, and one that will rise up out of the ashes of the old world and stand the test of time. To avoid going crazy, we do it systematically.

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His Highness Susuga Malietoa Tanumafili II, reigning monarch of the island nation of Samoa for 68 years, passed away on the evening of May 11th, in a hospital in Apia. He was one of the longest reigning monarchs in the world.

“As an 11 year old school pupil, I marched with my school in Samoa’s annual independence day parade,” recalls John Bryden of Vox Cosmicos, a Baha’i from New Zealand. “Malietoa stood at attention on a reviewing stand in front of the Parliament Building, in the tropical sun, acknowledging troop after troop of marchers who passed by. I think of this when I read the media obituaries praising his record as a pivot of unity for his country, through wisdom and humility.”

In a message to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Samoa, the Universal House of Justice lauded his service to the people of Samoa, a service “distinguished by the high principles, genuine compassion and personal humility that characterized the constancy of his concern for the welfare of all.”

“As the first reigning sovereign to accept the Message of Baha’u'llah,” the House of Justice continued, “he set a record that will forever illumine the annals of our Faith, one that future generations will increasingly extol. His great interest for well-nigh four decades in the Faith’s progress was reflected in the enthusiastic affirmation of his belief whenever the opportunity presented itself and in the abiding joy with which he regarded the construction in 1984 of the Mother Temple of the Pacific Islands in Samoa…”

In your prayers tonight, remember His Highness.

Read the Baha’i World News Service story.

many of you reading this post may know who Devon Gundry is, so the following won’t come as news to you—I’m just shocked that I didn’t discover his music earlier! We ended up crossing paths at the Cultivating the Roots conference at Bosch Baha’i school last weekend, where he performed for a “music night” on the Saturday evening—giving me a chance to witness his talent first-hand. His sound is energetic, clean, and insistent, with “a sense of urgency, as there indeed should be in conveying the message of Bahá’u'lláh to an ailing mankind” (as observed in a comment on the YouTube video included below). He performed two songs that evening: “Loving Eyes” (listen to my video) and “A Healing Prayer”, which you can watch below. That’s just a sample, of course; you really need to listen to some more of his music and discover his talent for yourself. He’s on Myspace (aka Facespace?), and his CD is for sale on his website—devongundry.com. If you like it, you can also come and share the love on his Fan club on Facebook!

A little late, but here’s the Canadian Baha’i News Service reporting on the election of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Canada.

Bahá’ís elect governing body at National Convention

TORONTO, ON, 01 May 2007 (CBNS) — Over 150 delegates from across Canada gathered at the Toronto Bahá’í Centre this past weekend, 27 to 29 April 2007, to elect the national governing body of the Bahá’ís of Canada, the National Spiritual Assembly.

The elections were part of the annual National Convention during which locally elected delegates consulted with the National Spiritual Assembly about issues of importance to Bahá’ís, particularly community activities centred on the moral and spiritual development of children and youth.

Elected to the National Spiritual Assembly for a term of one year were Judy Filson, Karen McKye, Gordon Naylor, Borna Nourredin, Enayat Rawhani, Fariborz Sahba, David Smith, Susanne Tamas, and Mark Wedge.

The election, like all elections of Bahá’í institutions, was conducted by secret ballot, with no campaigning or even discussion of individual personalities. Instead, delegates based their individual choices on criteria laid out by the central figures of the Bahá’í Faith.

Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the religion from 1921 to 1957, specifically emphasized the qualities of “unquestioned loyalty, of selfless devotion, of a well-trained mind, of recognized ability and mature experience.”

A day of preparation for the delegates took place on the Thursday prior to the Convention, in which participants explored their role as delegates and the purpose of the convention. Part of the consultation revolved around a recent letter from the international governing body of the Bahá’í community that emphasizes the spiritual nature of Bahá’í elections and recommends, in addition to the qualities cited by Shoghi Effendi, such criteria as age distribution, diversity, and gender when voting.

Louis Brunet (elbi.smugmug.com) took the photo featured above: he’s posted photos of the national convention [set 1, set 2] on his photoblog.

Read up more about Baha’i elections:

• rebuilding trust
• baha’i elections revisited

now here’s a golden video from back in the day, and an insanely underrated one at that. here’s the Chicago Baha’i Youth Workshop performing a rap act back in 1995 at the Greenlake Wisconsin Baha’i Conference. Check it out on youtube.

Update: For an encore, check out peace is in the house!

Howdy. I’m currently reporting from the Cultivating the Roots conference at Bosch Baha’i School in Santa Cruz, California. So far, the sharing has been awesome. Everyone has has amazing insights and ideas for different types of projects and collaboration tools—all to help Baha’is develop better ways of interacting, collaborating, and channeling their energy into systematic action. I’m currently posting up a bunch of photos from the conference; check them out on flickr. Big ups to prema for letting me use her laptop.

It’s fascinating to ponder the holes out there in the Baha’i community that could be filled by judiciously chosen and developed IT initiatives. Throughout the day today, we’ve been talking about the needs out there—from tools to benefit Baha’i Institutions (for example, accounting software that operates according to the 19-month Baha’i calendar, or geomatics software to aid in planning various types of community campaigns) to software to sift through the Sacred Writings of the Baha’i Faith, to collaboration software to help Baha’i institutions, communities, and individuals to work together more effectively… there are so many ways that computers and the Internet can help us do our work better, yet there’s so little time to accomplish them all. A few projects that were put forth in one of the last workshops this afternoon: a functional Baha’i events database (similar to bahailocations.com) that can be used by Baha’i communities throughout the world to track their core activities, holy days, and various gatherings; an online presentation platform (similar to webconferencing) for holding formal or informal talks and “fireside chats”; and a process for providing technical and material support for Baha’i communities throughout the world who wish to develop their first websites.

So yeah, some really intense consultation here. The workshops have been the best—that’s why I really came to this conference. This morning, I attended a workshop on blogging by the authors of bahainine.com, the growing online portal to Baha’i blogs everywhere. That was awesome, just to be there and to be able to talk shop with them about blogging software, search engine optimization, content management systems, and miscellaneous Web 2.0 hobbledyhoy. The whole project is really interesting—creating an online portal to basically aggregate all the Baha’i-related content on the Internet, giving the “Baha’i blogosphere” a friendly face. The current site just contains a map and a searchable index of Baha’i blogs, but there’s a lot more in the works—photos, videos, full tagging capability, and so on. Speaking with the team that’s working on this mammoth task is immensely uplifting and exciting, and the possibilities are endless. I’ll be sure to post more later; remember to check back—apart from photos, there’ll also be videos (and/or mashups) for your enjoyment and upliftment.

Arash Abizadeh is a well-known name in the field of Baha’i studies—not the least in Ottawa, since he teaches Political Science at nearby McGill University in Montreal—and perhaps better known than ever since his work was featured by the U.S. Baha’i News Service in an article about Baha’i elections.

The work in question is How Baha’i Voters Should Vote, an article in progress examining the criteria Baha’is should use in electing the members of their governing bodies. This article, along with a previous one on the nature of Baha’i elections, provides a welcome and timely glimpse into the unique Baha’i electoral process, and offers particular insight into the recent March 25, 2007 letter of the Universal House of Justice on Baha’i elections.

Baha’i elections—commonplace during the Baha’i festival of Ridván—are democratic in nature, but preclude nominations, campaigning, or any other form of electioneering—making it instead the spiritual prerogative of every elector to vote only for those people whom, after prayerful reflection, he is convinced are qualified for membership on the governing body in question. This unique process puts far greater responsibility on the individual elector than has ever been witnessed in any form of governance—and naturally, some find themselves at a loss as to how to proceed.

How Baha’i Voters Should Vote draws from the same material referenced by the Universal House of Justice—mainly, letters from Shoghi Effendi to various Spiritual Assemblies throughout the world—and makes the point that Shoghi Effendi’s instructions to the Baha’is, far from discouraging any discussion amongst electors prior to an election, encourages them to “get thoroughly acquainted with one another, to exchange views, to mix freely and discuss among themselves the requirements and qualifications for such a membership without reference or application, however indirect, to particular individuals.” It’s a fine line, but the essential element—the total lack of reference to personalities—is what makes Baha’i elections special. Arash identifies four general criteria that Baha’i voters should consider:

1. Qualifications of individual Assembly members. Voters should consider individuals that possess the qualities of “unquestioned loyalty, of selfless devotion, of a well-trained mind, of recognized ability and mature experience.”
2. The collective makeup of the Assembly as a whole. Voters should consider qualities that reflect the makeup of the Assembly as a whole, such as the diversity of its membership. For instance, they should keep in mind advice from the Universal House of Justice to consider age distribution and ethnic and gender diversity in the Assembly.
3. Changes in the individual makeup of the Assembly. No matter how excellent selections from a prior year may have been, it is always important for the voters to be on the lookout for making improvements to the Spiritual Assembly. Shoghi Effendi reminds voters who notice shortcomings in members of the Assembly that the annual election gives “the community a good opportunity to remedy any defect or imperfection from which the Assembly may suffer as a result of the actions of its members.”
4. Changes in the collective makeup of the Assembly over time. Shoghi Effendi also suggested that the collective quality of the Assembly should change and improve over time. Thus, beyond specific improvements in the individual makeup of the Assembly, there should be some turnover as well.