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

“really, though,” I thought to myself while jotting down notes about blog action day’s chosen topic of poverty, “what am i doing sitting here, sipping on a milkshake, when the three dollars I paid for it could have paid for a meal for a hungry child?” I still don’t have an answer. But it did get me thinking—thinking hard enough to put together a few thoughts on a topic I admittedly don’t think much about. thinking about wealth, family, and social position, and how I tend to take them for granted, just because that’s the way things are. thinking about what poverty means in Canada, one of the more affluent nations of the world—where, according to my own employer, the Conference Board of Canada, and to OECD statistics, one out of every seven children lives in poverty. thinking, and wondering what in the world one person could do to stem the tide of what has been and continues to be a global epidemic that afflicts billions of people.

In 2001, the United Nations set eight overarching goals for development, the “Millennium Development Goals” (side note: I’ve gotten real tired of things being named “Millennium”. they named a bus stop near my old high school “Millennium” for pete’s sake). The first of these goals—which also touched on topics such as education, gender equality, and the environment—concerned the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. Specific targets? halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day; achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people; and halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. That’s no small task, I pondered to myself as I looked for a way to tackle this issue from my own perspective. How in the world are they supposed to do that, especially given the repeated failures of aid programs through corruption, misappropriation of funds, the creation of dependency in the receiving nations that elicits cries of “neocolonialist pigs!” in the radical West? Sure, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, there’s enough food in the world to feed everybody, but aren’t there still 780 million people who are still chronically hungry? What are they going to do, air-drop hamburgers?

Thankfully, through the agency of some good-natured spirit, I happened to find out about a study session on the Baha’i International Community’s recent statement, Eradicating Poverty: Moving Forward as One that happened tonight. After attending and taking a bunch of notes, I put together a few highlights in typical dan-jones style that I’d like to share with you.

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on my semiweekly trips to the gym, I phase out for fifteen to twenty minutes or so watching the closed-captioned news on the TVs as I dutifully jog my heart out on a treadmill. last month it was olympics, olympics, olympics, which I enjoy for sure, but this month it’s all elections, elections, elections. bleah. and this year, we may very well have federal elections in Canada AND the United States at about the same time, which (as far as I can remember) doesn’t happen very often. Canadian elections I’ve always watched somewhat in the spirit of a deranged game; they’re short, vicious, and get your adrenaline going. American elections I watch more in the spirit of a slow-motion train wreck. Why anyone would want to spend over a year going through so many motions, procedures and ceremony to elect their leadership invariably elicits a reaction of horror and awe from me. In reality, though, either system has such glaring flaws that I find it genuinely difficult to participate — and impossible to involve myself — in election mania in any meaningful form.

First off, I don’t think I’ll ever understand the partisan political system really, or how anyone could claim that a “party” can ever truly represent them. God gave to humanity the gift of a diversity of views — how do they suppose that aligning oneself with or subscribing to the ideals of a “party” will advance the process of exchanging such views? Instead, all it does is obscure the truth and make every problem more difficult to solve, because people are too busy watching their backs, toeing party lines instead of being open, honest and frank. Second off, why are we to vote only for the rich and lucky ones who can pony up the most cash to pay for a glitzy campaign? Why can’t we vote for those people who, in our hearts, we truly believe deserve the station of servitude to their country, who show forth actual merit, virtue, character and solid worth? Why narrow the field to only a select few? Third, if our goal is to promote a unified nation, what is the point of such an adversarial system, both in the process of electioneering and campaigning, and within government itself? Why do we have to listen to week after week of pundits on Side A slam the pundits on side B, or the candidates on side B denigrate those on Side A? It’s not pleasant, for Pete’s sake. Why do we have to argue over whose kids are alcoholics, whose are pregnant and who forgot Poland? Unified societies are built upon cooperation and consensus. Why not try those out for a year and leave the bickering behind? If we find that we prefer the bickering afterwards, well, we can always go back.

In short, my impression of the prevailing partisan electoral systems in Canada and the US is that they don’t seem to support human dignity or its unity. To me, all they seem to do is to make problems harder to solve, because those who are elected to serve are too busy dealing with matters of the human ego. And I’m afraid that’s enough rambling for now; it’s getting late. Got more TV to watch at the gym tomorrow. As usual, I’d love to hear your comments.

There are a number of things about myself that I don’t quite understand. Perhaps chief amongst these right now is perfectionism—being unsatisfied with anything but perfection, especially when it comes to the things I try to accomplish. Truth be told, my own tendency towards perfectionism been getting me down lately. It manifests itself as a sort of negative, intolerant attitude that minimizes the things I do. I suppose that may also describe “low self-esteem”, to refer to the pop psychological concept that seems to plague all or most of Western society.

I’ve been told by many different people, Baha’is and otherwise, that I’m too hard on myself, that I beat myself up about things rather than being kind, gentle and firm with myself, accepting gradual improvement rather than immediate perfection. I’m still having trouble understanding the whole issue. Part of me wants to be gentler with myself, but another part wants to challenge myself to improve. I tend to be a bit rough while “challenging” myself, I suppose—throwing myself into uncomfortable situations and trying to force myself to use my intuition to adapt to the circumstances. Sometimes it works, but often I end up freaking out and messing up, or at least things don’t go the way I wanted them to go—which is that I would learn how to do something that previously made me very uncomfortable and all would be well and good. In fact, this has happened before, but more often than not, the feeling of accomplishment would be overwhelmed by thoughts like: “It was a fluke”, “Look how exhausted you are, you’ll never be able to do it more than once”. And the dark feelings of anxiety and despair come back.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this really, but this is a burning issue in my life that I expect that I’ll revisit sometime soon, so I wanted to post this and leave it open for comments from all of you.

The Laws of God are not imposition of will, or of power, or pleasure, but the resolutions of truth, reason and justice.

Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 154

I was so glad when I first ‘got’ the Baha’i concept of laws. I’ve always said that I’m a Baha’i because the Baha’i Faith just makes so much intuitive sense, and for me this was further confirmation. Basically, people get all down about laws sometimes because they think THE MAN is laying it down on them, tying them up with his RULES AND REGULATIONS and not allowing them their FREEDOM!!!! Except that laws (or at least the Laws of God) are actually nothing like that. They’re more like statements of the principles underlying all reality. Like, for example, the law of prayer. Baha’is must pray every day; it’s one of Baha’u'llah’s Laws. But that doesn’t mean there is (or indeed should be) a PRAYER POLICE that busts down your door and messes you up good if you don’t say your prayers every day. Prayer is a conversation between oneself and God. Baha’u'llah teaches us that we need to converse with God every day in order to further our own spiritual growth—to allow our souls to grow and be healthy. So, just as going a long time without food will make our bodies weak, going a long time without praying will make our souls weak. That’s a reality of our existence, and it’s enshrined in a Law for our own good. Human beings have free choice, so we can choose to observe or disregard that Law. That doesn’t change the facts, of course; the law will still apply. And so we continue to pray every day—it allows us to remain in harmony with the natural rhythms of the universe, otherwise known as following God’s Will.

Personal effort is indeed a vital prerequisite to the recognition and acceptance of the Cause of God. No matter how strong the measure of Divine grace, unless supplemented by personal, sustained and intelligent effort it cannot become fully effective and be of any real and abiding advantage.

From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, Feb. 27, 1938

This struck me when I read it tonight, because of what it’s saying—personal effort will make at least two things happen: 1. Recognition and acceptance of the Cause of God, and 2. Divine grace will become fully effective. Interesting, because my own understanding of those concepts—those of recognition and acceptance of the Baha’i Faith, and that of Divine grace—never really included a lot of thought about the effort needed to make them happen. I guess #1 could be somewhat understandable for someone who was brought up in a Baha’i family; to me, the Baha’i Faith made sense as a matter of familiarity before it ever became a conscious spiritual decision. As in, “of course I accept the Baha’i Faith, I’m so familiar with it.” (There’s more to acceptance than that, of course, but I won’t get into that right now.) My reaction to #2 probably shows that I don’t understand the concept of grace—and, perhaps, the concept of God Himself and of His relation to the individual—well enough. It’s as if I always figured God’s grace would pop up and fix things as long as I prayed enough, without me having to make a whole lot of effort. You know, like nine doves would suddenly settle onto my balcony, each bearing an olive branch. Heh. We sometimes end up believing strange things if we don’t bring ourselves to account properly each day…

the Baha’i month of fasting began on Sunday; from March 2nd to March 20th inclusive, Baha’is refrain from eating or drinking from sunup to sundown. This physical Fast is symbolic of a spiritual Fast—just as fasting helps cleanse our bodies from physical impurities, the Baha’i Fast is a time to cleanse the spirit of selfishness, earthly desires and vain imaginations. I’ll give an example of what I’ve been doing—maybe not the perfect schedule; I’m open to suggestions! I’ve set my alarm for 5:00 AM to give me enough time to wake up and prepare myself for sunrise, which is happening at around 6:30 AM right now (you can follow the 2008 sunrise times in the calendar on the upper right hand corner of this blog’s home page). I’ll plod downstairs somewhat groggily and get some food into me: usually a combination of granola or oatmeal with soy milk, fruits and fruit juice, vitamins, and some form of protein such as eggs or a breakfast burrito. Oh, and lots of water - usually the equivalent of 4 to 6 cups of it before sunrise. The remaining time before sunrise is dedicated to reading from the Sacred Writings of the Baha’i Faith, particularly those of the Báb and Bahá’u'lláh. I’ve also been reading from the book The Path Toward Spirituality: Sacred Duties and Practices of the Bahá’í Life, published by Palabra Publications (publishers of the Ruhi Institute course materials). It’s a simple, straightforward book that offers a clear outline of all the facets of Bahá’í life; its contents roughly mirror the requisites to spiritual growth outlined by the Universal House of Justice.

I have to confess something (ok, well not really “confess”—just mentioning it for the sake of context): I tend to get distracted easily. Big time. In my everyday tasks, at work, during prayer, while reading, while writing, while enjoying myself—all the time. So, as long-time readers of this blog will attest to, consistency in my own daily spiritual practice is often a challenge for me. When I blogged about my Baha’i pilgrimage to Haifa and ‘Akká, I drew a lot of inspiration from the long obligatory prayer—partly because of the impact of visiting the qiblih, but also as a way of reminding myself of how vital, how refreshing and how fundamentally life-giving the long obligatory prayer is. The truth is, I struggle with the obligatory prayers sometimes, and with all the basic building blocks of spirituality, like daily readings and study, meditation, teaching the Cause, service to humanity, and so on. I think the root of the struggle, for me at least, is attachment to material comfort. Sometimes I feel it’s just easier, or more comfortable, for me to give in to the distraction and go to bed without thinking of anything—turn off my brain, as it were—instead of taking the time every evening to remember God and bring myself into a peaceful, centered state, renewing my connection with a Power greater than myself. Of course, without hitting that “centered” state, I just start the next day feeling unbalanced, off base. And so it continues until I finally snap out of it and say to myself, “Enough is enough, I’m going to say the long obligatory prayer even if it keeps me up past midnight!”

Instead of making the generalization “I’m not following Bahá’í teachings, I must be a bad Bahá’í”, and becoming discouraged or (God forbid!) estranged from the Bahá’í community, we can remember that we are commanded to strive to observe Bahá’í teachings. We’re always striving—that is, until we give up. Apart from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who was known as the Perfect Exemplar of Bahá’u'lláh’s teachings, and who reminded us to take our struggles “kam kam, ruz bih ruz” (little by little, day by day), nobody can claim to be perfect. As long as we keep trying day by day to bring our behaviour more in accordance with the teachings of Bahá’u'lláh—whether it means writing a note for ourselves so that we don’t forget that day’s obligatory prayer, or leaving a book of daily readings on our pillow so we’ll remember to read them before going to bed—we are not “bad Bahá’ís”, just normal human beings trying to transform ourselves from beings of earth and water into beings of spirit and light.

(i wrote this last night)

yo ho ho. so what’s up? well, the study circle in Ruhi Book 2 I was supposed to tutor in Drummondville on saturday got cancelled due to widespread sickness and scheduling conflicts, but I ended up coming to Drummondville anyway to have dinner and (unbeknownst to me) get trampled by rowdy kids. That was fun. I love kids, especially uppity kids. And it seems as if they love me, because practically every time I leave after hanging around with kids, they beg me to stay. That’s the kind of thing that makes you feel good about yourself. :)

I was thinking something really cool recently. Maybe it was because of hanging around with the kids. I was thinking back to the words of Bahá’u'lláh, where He says “Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value”. Imagine how beautiful and harmonious the world would be if everybody treated everybody else as if they were a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. They’d never criticize them or get angry at them or squelch them, they’d just search and be patient, waiting for that gem to shine out from around all the rocks. Now, one of the ways we can look at that quote is in terms of children’s education (which we do in Book 3 of the Ruhi series). But something suddenly got into my head as I was driving one day, and I thought, hey, this applies to one’s relationship to oneself as well. If you’ve read this blog thoroughly, you know that I have an unfortunate perfectionist streak a mile wide. It’s one of those “vain imaginings” that everybody talks about and everybody wants to get free of. What’s the vain imagining? That I, being human (and by nature imperfect), could feel like I was a judge of perfection. My name is Hebrew for “God is my judge”. What right have I to judge myself? Or anyone, for that matter? That right rests with God alone. Anyway, I digress. When I let the judgements drop and just interact with myself in a detached, spiritual, and positive way, I find gems. I find beautiful parts of myself that I can work to improve. There’s not just faults and imperfections in me, you know. There’s a lot of strengths, gifts, and talents, too. People aren’t just rocks to be tossed around, that’s the lesson. Look a little below the surface, be patient and positive, and you’ll find some amazing things.

the 3cj had a pretty nice (albeit small) meeting on sunday morning. For a small meeting, it was still pretty good, and I felt it was productive. I don’t know why I find these meetings to be so much fun. I think it’s just been a long time since I’ve had any interaction with Bahá’í youth my age. For the past year I’ve been serving alongside great people and I’ve learned incredible things about service, but, I don’t know, there’s something special about youth. It’s a different feeling, a different dynamic. I understand youth. I relate to youth. It’s so different being around people who are going through the same things in life as you are — learning how to live, how to integrate into society, how to balance work, school, leisure, and service; thinking about getting a good job, about dating and marriage, about searching for apartments, about, well, about creating an identity for oneself I guess. That’s what’s so wonderful about youth. We’re in the process of creating this identity for ourselves and no one really knows where it will go. And we have the honour of choosing to include service to God and to humanity into this identity. One of the things that will undoubtedly be part of my identity all my life is pioneering. It comes from having parents who were pioneers, I guess. My mom and dad moved from place to place in the seventies, helping teach the Bahá’í Faith and establish Bahá’í communities all over Quebec. Identity. This is who I am, a pioneer. Someone who gets up and goes and trusts in God. Not that I’ve got trust in God down pat, but I’m definitely getting there. Anyway, I digress again. I missed being with youth. And of course there’s the social aspect as well. It’s fun to hang around people my age.

Anyway, back to the meeting. I got to take a detour through Montréal-Nord on my way home to drop someone off. That was cool. There’s a pretty, um, imposing mountain of dirty snow there. I was impressed.

And after all that, I came back home to Victoriaville and started singing with the gospel choir. It was the day-long practice run today. I ran out of breath after a while. I think I was singing almost nonstop for over five hours there :P Either that or I need to do some breath work to develop my lungs.

I think I need to talk more with my friends about the Bahá’í Faith. I’m too quiet.

I think I need to talk more in general. I tend to clam up a lot.

I think I need to be more open to other people, too. People say some amazing things sometimes, and all too often I just let those amazing things slip by without jumping on them and confirming them in some way. It’s all about the art of conversation. And you don’t learn the art of conversation if you don’t have conversations!

hey you out there, talk to me! and don’t let up until I talk back!

Man. Where am I going with all this? Well, when I left I was pretty tired from singing. There won’t be another practice for a while, due to general business, and that means that the next time I come to a practice, it’ll involve driving down from Drummondville.

Anyway, Monday was a quiet day at work. Today, on the other hand, was a pretty active day — I was preparing for a meeting tomorrow afternoon, which I’ll be animating. Yay! That’ll be fun. About fifteen people or so are scheduled to come from around the area. It’ll be a little like a reflection meeting; we’ll talk about what we’ve done so far, where we’re going, and what we intend to do to get there.

I spent my lunch break talking about food instead of having lunch, since I’m still fasting. That wasn’t my doing, though. We were making jokes about how everyone always seems to talk about food during lunch. And then we kept on talking about food, which drew more laughs. But then somehow the conversation swerved and turned to penis size and circumcisions. Which drew even more laughs, and some cringing. Is that normal lunchtime conversation for groups of married women? Well, I guess it’s a subject just like any other. And it’s probably better than bellybutton lint. Well… enh, forget it.

And finally, tomorrow morning I’ll be moseying on down to Drummondville to sign a lease for the apartment I saw last Thursday. Whereupon I’ll have a place to stay. That’ll be great! I guess I jumped on this apartment pretty quick, but hey, it’s nice. I keep on wondering whether there’s a catch, you know, whether there’s still a chance that someone else might edge me out of it. Well, we’ll see. Everything is in God’s hands. Even the benjamins.

On that note, peace.