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

Found this beautiful video montage of photos of the Baha’i Houses of Worship throughout the world, set to Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up” (lyrics). Share it with your friends. Thanks to maz for the video and the original post (see it on Youtube).

hey—you guessed it, we’re back from our trip to the States, none the worse for wear. Check out the new photoset for the trip—mostly photos of family before and after the memorial service so far. i’ll keep posting photos throughout the week; still to come are the visit to Ralph & Fluff’s place in Oxford and the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette. k stay glued 2 ur scrnz plz.

The following phrase, quoted from a prayer written by Bahá’u'lláh, has given me a great deal of solace lately, and helped me to rebuild my confidence when it’s been low:

Armed with the power of Thy name nothing can ever hurt me, and with Thy love in my heart all the world’s afflictions can in no wise alarm me.

I’ve been using it as sort of a mantra, using it whenever I feel anxious, stressed out or otherwise tested, or just whenever the need arises. What are your favourite phrases to help you deal with difficult times?

I’ve spent the past little while gallivanting about the United States of America in my parents’ mini-van (mainly listening to music and reading The Advent of Divine Justice by Shoghi Effendi), on the way to visit relatives throughout the country. We just arrived in Oxford, Ohio at my uncle Ralph’s place, after having visited my aunt Marilyn in Carlisle, PA for a few days. There was a commemoration in a nice UU church there for another one of my uncles, Marilyn’s husband, who died recently. We’ll be on the road for most of the rest of the week, with a stop in Wilmette, IL on Wednesday afternoon and overnight to visit the Baha’i House of Worship there, and Sault Ste. Marie, ON later in the week (not really sure why…what’s in Sault Ste. Marie anyway?) We’re expecting to be back for the weekend. I’ll try to check messages on email and on Facebook throughout the week, just to stay connected.

For those of us who were unable to attend the first ever choral festival at the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, the American Baha’i National Centre offers a video highlight of the experience.

Speaking of Baha’i choral music—a Baha’i-inspired choir from Winnipeg, the Abha Voices (see a RealPlayer clip care of the CBC), will be performing during the official Canada Day festivities in Ottawa this year. For those who don’t know, Ottawa’s Canada Day celebrations are annually beamed via national television across the country. That’s therefore a big thing!

Choir dedicated to Bahá’í music to perform on Parliament Hill

WINNIPEG, MB, 13 June 2007 (CBNS) — A choir from Winnipeg, Manitoba, that draws its lyrics from the writings of the Bahá’í Faith has been selected to perform in the official Canada Day program on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

The Abha Voices choir, made up of residents of Winnipeg, will travel to Ottawa on Canada Day weekend, along with one choir from each of the other provinces and territories, to participate in the festivities. […]

The Abha Voices, along with the other choirs that have been invited to Ottawa, will perform at selected venues during the weekend. Dates include June 29th at noon in the rotunda in the centre block on Parliament Hill; 8:00 pm the same day at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church; and June 30th at noon at the National Arts Centre. Admission to all performances is free.

Read the full story on the Canadian Baha’i News Service.

Read more about Canada Day in the Capital.

oyez, oyez! flickr, le site archi-superlatif et merveilleux d’échange de photos, est maintenant disponible en version française. c’est un site très utile, vu qu’on peut facilement mettre en ligne les photos, les organiser, y ajouter des notes et même les placer sur des cartes géographiques! Alors, qu’attendez-vous? Joignez-vous!

Saw this quote on a listserv… it neatly sums up my feelings about the perception some people have of religion these days. Religion is not the same thing as imitation or superstition.

Imitation destroys the foundation of religion, extinguishes the spirituality of the human world, transforms heavenly illumination into darkness and deprives man of the knowledge of God. It is the cause of the victory of materialism and infidelity over religion; it is the denial of Divinity and the law of revelation; it refuses Prophethood and rejects the Kingdom of God. When materialists subject imitations to the intellectual analysis of reason, they find them to be mere superstitions; therefore, they deny religion.

‘Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 161

my life has begun to change noticeably since I took that time management self management course. I find myself being more able to grasp the concept of to-do lists, for one. I used to spend most of my time decorating my to-do lists with fancy headings, borders and doodles. I’m guess I’m not really a list-maker by nature, so it definitely helped to have someone show me how to draw up a good to-do list—especially figuring out what goes on one! Here are some clues I picked up:

• Sort tasks by priority levels A, B, C—A tasks must be done today or tomorrow, B tasks within the next five business days (i.e., within the week), C tasks have later due dates. this was the key concept for me—high priority means “it gets done sooner”.
• Further sort the tasks within each level, so you have an A1, A2, A3… and B1, B2, B3… No two tasks can share the same priority level.
• Some tasks can be broken up into sub-tasks, which may have different priorities. For example, if someone calls you about an upcoming meeting, the call-back should have high priority (A: reply within the day), but you might not need to do anything about the meeting until next week or later (B or C).

So far, this system has been working well. I’ve actually split my tasks into several different to-do lists: one for personal items, one for Baha’i service and core activities (i.e., children’s classes and so forth), one for work projects, and one for long-term items in case I get really bored (this last one also helps me remember things that I want to make sure I do eventually, even if I put them off repeatedly). I must say that Google’s personalized homepages are helping me out big time with this; I’m using the heck out of the To-Do List widget and Google Calendar. It feels like I’m learning how to plan—groovy huh?

lors de mon pélérinage baha’i à Haïfa, en Israël, j’ai pu faire la rencontre d’une famille baha’ie super sympa et dotée de talents musicaux massifs et entièrement hors norme! La famille Martino vient du pays des Alpes et des noix de Grenoble, et nous avions tous eu la grande bonté de faire partie du même mini-groupe de pèlerins (le groupe francophone, bien sûr). C’était un groupe tout plein de chansons; les Martino nous ont appris tout un répertoire de belles chansons chorales baha’ies lors de nos visites aux lieux saints à Haïfa et à ‘Akka. Je me souviens très clairement des prières chantées vers le Point d’Adoration, le Tombeau de la Beauté Benie, Baha’u'llah—cette journée chaude et claire lors de notre deuxième visite à Bahji; de la soirée que nous avions passés ensembles sur les escaliers des terrasses autour du Sanctuaire du Bab, à chanter sous le clair de lune, contre la silhouette de ce Mausolée sacré, partageant notre héritage musical de tous les coins du monde.

C’est donc en me rappelant de ces moments sacrés que je reprends ces mélodies, puisque cette merveilleuse famille a pris le temps de rendre accessible ces chansons au monde entier à travers la Médiathèque Baha’ie: il s’agit de l’album “Une échelle pour vos âmes”. Ci-dessous vous y trouverez quelques exemplaires; je vous encourage à télécharger l’album au complet et commetre ces beaux airs à votre mémoire! Rendez visite aussi au blog de Silène en Inde (elle est à droite dans l’image, avec sa soeur Mélissa et moi-même).

Fais déborder mon coeur d’amour

La Rose martyre

Until a being setteth his foot in the plane of sacrifice, he is bereft of every favour and grace; and this plane of sacrifice is the realm of dying to the self, that the radiance of the living God may then shine forth.

‘Abdu’l-Baha

Let’s take a moment for a philosophical exercise. I took an interesting training course for work today, entitled “Managing Multiple Priorities”, designed to help me—guess what! Manage multiple priorities. Among the many propositions made during the class was that there is, in effect, no such thing as “time management“. Well, how can that be? Don’t we all have to manage our time to fit in our various responsibilities, such as service, family, work, school, and so on? Not so, young grasshopper. How can you “manage” something as abstract as time? Time is something that happens whether you want it to happen or not; we have 86,400 seconds in every day to do with as we wish. When we speak of “time management”, we’re really talking about managing our own self and our own actions, that those 86,400 seconds may be put to their best use. So rather than “managing time”, we’re managing our own selves and striving to choose the actions and reactions that are right for each second of every day. Sound legit?

‘Abdu’l-Baha was the Master of such “self-management”; wholly detached from all trace of self, his only thought was to serve humankind, putting into the practice the Teachings of Baha’u'llah in all their manifold glory; he did so ceaselessly, thoroughly and systematically. A glance into ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s life reveals that the Perfect Exemplar of Bahá’u'lláh’s teachings kept to a rigorous schedule, tending to the poor, the sick and the infirm with clockwork regularity, entertaining rooms full of guests every evening and addressing correspondence to the Bahá’ís throughout the world well into every night, organizing children’s classes to ensure the education of the children in his midst, all the while subsisting on a few hours of sleep and a modest meal each day.

Food for thought. I’ll undoubtedly return to this topic soon, as I strive to bring “self-management” strategies to bear on my own life.

Update: Wikipedia has this to say about self-management:

In business, education, and psychology, self-management refers to methods, skills, and strategies by which individuals can effectively direct their own activities toward the achievement of objectives, and includes goal setting, planning, scheduling, task tracking, self-evaluation, self-intervention, self-development, etc.

So it’s actually a recognized term. Huh. Who knew?