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

after a morning devotional and brunch in Blackburn with some of our newfound friends (newfound after this summer’s outreach projects, that is), I called up my Dad to get a ride home to Cumberland village this afternoon, where Mom’s been cooking jars of preserves, pies and even a turkey! it’s nice to go home. I haven’t been in a while because it’s not so convenient to get all the way out to the country all the time, but today just happened to work out quite well. things are quiet here; the air is a little colder—we thought we saw a few snowflakes falling—and it seems a little cleaner. the leaves are covering the lawn right now in a thick, bright carpet of many colours. I spent part of the afternoon cutting up pumpkins for freezing, eventually to go into pies later on in the winter.

I’ve noticed that my life has been lacking artistry lately—beauty surrounds me on all sides and I feel like the natural impulse is to sing in praise of God’s creation, but my voice has been weak—my pen longs to write, but the inkwell seems to have gone dry. I’ve been pushing my own limits in many ways of late, and that uses up a lot of free energy. I guess I’ve been feeling stressed out. Man needs to praise God, not only for his own sanity, but for the simple fact that God must be praised—part of our eternal covenant with God is that we, His creation, must strive to know Him and worship Him; and what higher form of worship is the expression of His name, the Creator? I want to sing, to paint, to write, to draw, to create. create art, create relationships, create beauty in this all-too-ugly world. read this and comment back with your feelings.

On October 24th, 1945, the Charter of the United Nations entered into effect after being signed in San Francisco during the summer of 1945, creating the international organization we know today. The Baha’i International Community has been accredited as an international nongovernmental organization at the UN since 1948, and was granted special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council in 1970. Even now, in this time of reform within the UN, the BIC continues to make positive contributions—perhaps most notable of late was its statement, The Search for Values in an Age of Transition (PDF), on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations in 2005.

This is a lamentably late post—along with all the others I’ve posted recently—but this one makes me so angry I couldn’t bear not to share it. Not content with the relentless (yet increasingly secretive) persecution of living Baha’is, Iranian authorities are sinking to desecrating the graves of those Baha’is who have passed away. Barnabas Quotidianus carries commentary about the bulldozing of Baha’i cemeteries in Iran—an insane, barbaric and callous act of malice. To quote the post’s author, Barney Leith, “[t]he destruction of the Baha’i cemetery in Najafabad is clearly part of a systematic campaign by the Iranian authorities to intimidate, persecute and destroy the Baha’i community in the land of its birth.” With the help of Youtube, we can see the destruction up close.

Update: The following video offers a voice-over and before-and-after video from the Najafabad cemetery, making its destruction all the more chilling.

The Muslim Network on Baha’i Rights also features this video, as well as additional photos of the cemetery’s destruction.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to America was newsworthy enough to make the front page of local, national and international news everywhere. You may have heard about his remarks to the American National Press Corps—in which he completely ignored a question posed to him about Iran’s Baha’is— or his talk at Columbia University and “public skewering” by Columbia president Lee Bollinger. Then, in a galling display of duplicity, Ahmadinejad delivered the following non-answer to a direct question about the persecution of Iran’s Baha’is at a United Nations press conference on September 25:

I doubt Ahmadinejad would ever read this blog, but just for the record:

1. The name of the religion mentioned is the Baha’i Faith.
2. The name of its divine prophet is Baha’u’llah.
3. He first revealed His mission to mankind in 1863.
4. You’re welcome.

Also blogged at Baha’i Faith in Egypt and Barnabas Quotidianus.

…so that’s why youtube was down yesterday. they upgraded! for those of you who are into it, check out the new look youtube (and big boss google) brought out of beta. pretty sweet… along the way, check out this short NBC TV segment on “Faith in America” that offers a quick peek at the Baha’i Faith!

There’s nothing like catching a cold to make you think about moderation. I was feeling great up til about Friday, when I started feeling a little more tired and strung out than usual. Saturday was a long and exhausting day, and Sunday I woke up with this awful taste in my mouth, a scratchy throat and a runny nose. Oh well. I never used to get colds, but now that I’m out of my invincible phase (which lasts from about 18 to 25; at least, that’s what my insurance company told me) I seem to catch a lot more random bugs and malaises. This little (?) body seems a lot more vulnerable than it used to. Anyway, for the time being, I’m hanging around at home eating soup and drinking grapefruit juice instead of milk and cookies.

Anyway, my sick mind managed to draw a parallel between being sick and all this talk about climate change that’s been happening, especially with the IEF conference over the weekend. Bear with me here. I’ve been catching up with the (facinating) video presentations, hearing all sorts of evidence of the effects of human activity upon the world we live in. Briefly, ever since the industrial revolution, Western society has been embracing unbridled and unqualified technological advancement and progress. The more singlemindedly we pursued an ideal of ultimate comfort and ease for ourselves, the quicker these effects accumulated. It’s only in the past few decades that we’ve begun to notice that the choices we’ve made have had, and are having, palpable consequences. Just like it takes a few days to catch a cold before you notice the symptoms, we sailed along merrily pumping more and more greenhouse gases into our Earth’s atmosphere, polluting its rivers and oceans, venting exhaust into its previously clean air. Now comes the big sneeze—or perhaps we could call it the Big Sweat.

If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation.

Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 342

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As blogged here earlier, the 11th Conference of the International Environment Forum (IEF) took place in Ottawa this weekend, and many of my friends within the Baha’i community showed up there. I’ll probably blog a little more about it later, but for now, you might want to check out the conference yourself: presentations and notes of the plenary and workshop sessions are available in PDF, DOC and MP3 formats, along with the conference schedule and official photo gallery; as well, videos of most of the presentations are available on Youtube! Here’s a list of links—share them with whoever may be interested!

• The science of climate change, with a specific focus on the Arctic region
  John Stone – 2 3
• Ethical challenges of climate change
  Arthur Dahl – 2 3
• From the Arctic to the Small Island Developing States: Ethics and Adaptation
  John Crump – 2 3 4
• The spirit of climate change
  Heather Eaton – 2 3
• Faith-based NGOs and the Common Good
  Ted Reeve – 2 3
• Governance of Energy from the Local to the Global – A Necessity for Climate Change Mitigation
  Sylvia Karlsson – 2
• The Bahá’í International Community at the United Nations: Global Focus on Climate Change and Sustainable Development
  Tahirih Naylor – 2 3
• PANEL—Reflections on Value-based Approaches to Environmental Action: Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead
  • Clive Doucet – 2
  • Jessica Lax – 2
  • Peter Adriance – 2 3

yay! Google Maps (and Google Earth) finally added high-res satellite photos of my favourite place in the world: Victoriaville. now you can see the house where I lived, the Victoriaville Loblaws store where I worked, the SADC Arthabaska-Érable (where I also worked), the Tim Horton’s where I stopped after getting lost on my first day in Victoriaville, Mont Arthabaska and other fascinating places. If you add MetalToad’s Flickr KML feed, you can even view some of my flickr photos of Victoriaville in Google Earth.

random update time. I peaced out for the Thanksgiving weekend (yup, Canadian Thanksgiving) and went to Victoriaville to visit Craig and Geneviève, two terribly good friends of mine from back when I went on a year of service there in 2002. it was great to get back together with them. we hung around, took care of their kids, and had some of our good old prayer sessions like back in the day. theirs is a musical family, so there was sweet harmony and soft chanting melody. I spent some of my time on the train ride to Drummondville studying parts of the long obligatory prayer—in an effort to finally memorize the whole thing—and said prayers on the bus from Drummondville to Victoriaville. It was sweet to have all that time to pray. it really took me far outside of the harried and somewhat obsessive-compulsive mental state I’d been cultivating for the past little while back in Ottawa. just quiet and honest reflection. on the train ride back from Drummondville, I got through two more chapters of The Covenant of Bahá’u'lláh by Adib Taherzadeh. Deeply touching and at times heart-rending book to read—reading about the all crushing sorrows inflicted upon Bahá’u'lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by the early Covenant-breakers is almost too much to take in one sitting. And I haven’t even gotten to the part about Shoghi Effendi yet. Anyway, I digress.

the weekend was an oddly productive one. I paid visits to and/or called up several other Baha’is in Victoriaville, and even stopped in to the Marché public to buy two bags of fresh local cranberries—which, in addition to the 2 kg bag of cranberries I ordered at work, should make some fine cranberry jam. I’ll blog the resulting jam session once it happens, with some recipes. hmm, I’m having cranberry flashbacks here.

Man is he who forgets his own interests for the sake of others. His own comfort he forfeits for the well-being of all. Nay, rather, his own life must he be willing to forfeit for the life of mankind. Such a man is the honor of the world of humanity. Such a man is the glory of the world of mankind. Such a man is the one who wins eternal bliss. Such a man is near to the threshold of God. Such a man is the very manifestation of eternal happiness. Otherwise, men are like animals, exhibiting the same proclivities and propensities as the world of animals. What distinction is there? What prerogatives, what perfections? None whatever! Animals are better even — thinking only of themselves and negligent of the needs of others.

Consider how the greatest men in the world — whether among prophets or philosophers — all have forfeited their own comfort, have sacrificed their own pleasure for the well-being of humanity. They have sacrificed their own lives for the body politic. They have sacrificed their own wealth for that of the general welfare. They have forfeited their own honor for the honor of mankind. Therefore it becomes evident that this is the highest attainment for the world of humanity.

We ask God to endow human souls with justice so that they may be fair, and may strive to provide for the comfort of all, that each member of humanity may pass his life in the utmost comfort and welfare. Then this material world will become the very paradise of the Kingdom, this elemental earth will be in a heavenly state and all the servants of God will live in the utmost joy, happiness and gladness. We must all strive and concentrate all our thoughts in order that such happiness may accrue to the world of humanity.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Foundations of World Unity, pp: 42-43

In May 2006, the Universal House of Justice wrote to the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada regarding the goals and plans of the Canadian Baha’i community. The latter had set some ambitious goals for the growth and development of the community, promising to firmly establish intensive programs of growth in no less than 46 areas of the country (Ottawa, of course, being one of them). The Universal House of Justice pointed out in its letter that “[s]uch a bold objective cannot be achieved merely by adopting the outer form of the activities of the Five Year Plan [i.e. the ‘core activities’]”, and that “a true change in culture is required”.

So what’s this whole “intensive growth” thing? Is it freaky or evil? Not really. The Baha’i community, just like any religious community, can either stagnate or grow. A healthy community grows; an unhealthy one stagnates (or worse, God forbid—disunity sets in and it dies out). Bahá’ís naturally want their community to grow, to become more united, and to attract receptive souls who are willing to throw their lot in to build a divine civilization. “Intensive growth” is simply what’s needed at this time because of the lamentable, perilous and frightening state of the world. If the world were in better shape, we might be able to just go along at our regular (slow) pace, getting more and more united as the years went by, gradually learning how better to serve humanity and follow the teachings sent by Baha’u’llah; but because the world around us is losing it so quickly, we have to learn quicker—put some Miracle-Gro on our garden—so that if and when things start spinning out of control—which seems to be real soon now—the Bahá’ís will be able to offer your average Jack and Jill somewhere to turn to for a respite from all the confusion.

That “change in culture” has been happening gradually within the Baha’i community over the past year. Taking on a new way of acting and living our lives is challenging, and like any change, it begins with friction and discomfort. Let me give an example…

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