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

now here’s a rather eye-popping addition to your Favourites bar: Baha’i Explorer is a Baha’i content aggregator—a clean, concise website that offers an overview of the latest Baha’i-related content to appear on the Internet, including listings from prominent Baha’i blogs, news headlines, Youtube videos, music, flash presentations and more. It’s an individual initiative, and is by all appearances 100% legit. Seriously, you need to bookmark it now, and maybe spread it on Digg and del.icio.us and Facebook and all those other sites. Do it. Go already!

Baha’i artist Devon Gundry (who I met at Bosch Baha’i School, and whose music I’ve featured here in the past), comes out with a brilliantly moving, profoundly touching new music video for a song based on one of my favourite passages from the Baha’i Writings. See the video below, or in full force on Vimeo thanks to Director Justin Baldoni. Thanks to Praveen for the link!

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.

From a prayer by Bahá’u'lláh

hindsight is 20/20, right? the past few months of the Five Year Plan in Ottawa have brought a lot of powerful insight, beginning with the reflection meeting at the beginning of October, through a two-week expansion phase, and into a phase of consolidation where contacts, who have most probably been taught about the Baha’i Faith through direct methods such as Anna’s presentation, are nurtured through participation in Institute courses (aka study circles) that not only impart knowledge, but also - if properly facilitated - confer the vital spiritual skills required for a Baha’i to carry out those spiritual duties that make up his or her part in the Eternal Covenant of God. at the start of the reflection meeting, our local cluster institutions took us through a retrospective of past efforts, giving us a brief overview of how far we had come since beginning our intensive program of growth several years ago. the interesting twist on the current cycle’s goals was that, after several cycles of focusing on different elements - musical firesides, Anna’s presentation, neighbourhood teaching, and so on - the focus came back to teaching teams and their individual plans, much the same way as we had started many cycles ago. the reasoning? since we’ve had the time to experiment with all the different elements of an intensive program of growth - see how musical firesides work, how they use Anna’s presentation, and how Anna’s presentation in its turn gives seekers all they need to know to begin the sequence of institute courses. I’m enjoying watching this change in culture of the Baha’i community from the inside out. Stay tuned for more reports from the community!

up bright and early today. there’s a huge swath of snow covering the city, so, just to be on the safe side, i got up early and called a taxi to bring me to my dentist’s appointment this morning. turns out it wasn’t needed, and I ended up arriving 45 minutes early for my appointment. so I did what any sane, God-fearing individual would do in this situation: I went to have breakfast. I’m blogging from Cora’s right now - apparently they offer free wireless internet (that, or they just haven’t secured their router). just thought I’d post a little something while I was here. work is pretty crazy right now; there’s a massive deadline coming this weekend that I’ll have to come in to work for. that, and there are children’s classes to plan (although the stress is a little lower now that I have help lined up) and a number of other web-related projects coming due.

on that note, I’m off to have my teeth cleaned.

The recent Canadian election season offered me time to ponder and reflect about the Baha’i attitude regarding politics. I find it quite difficult to place myself within the Canadian political system, given Baha’u'llah’s command to refrain from involving oneself in partisan politics. (And living in Ottawa, you tend to hear a lot about politics no matter what time of year it is.) I’ve heard different things from many Baha’is about what forms of political involvement and expression are appropriate. The following quote from a letter on behalf of Shoghi Effendi pretty much sums up my take on the matter:

The Guardian wishes me to draw the attention of the friends through you that they should be very careful in their public utterances not to mention any political figures-either side with them or denounce them. This is the first fact to bear in mind. Otherwise they will involve the friends in political matters, which is infinitely dangerous for the Cause.

From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, January 12, 1933: Bahá’í News, No. 72, April 1933, p. 3 Lights of Guidance, p. 441

That’s why, for example, I leave my “Political Views” line blank on Facebook. It’s also why I never blog about political figures, either to compliment or criticise them, either to express. When I get emails from people criticizing this or that politician—yes, even unpopular ones (who shall remain nameless)—I kind of bristle, just like I would when hearing someone backbiting about a friend.

What do you think? Is it appropriate for Baha’is to openly express their hopes that one or the other candidate in a partisan election will win? Is the opposite appropriate? Why or why not? Oh, and here are a few links as fodder for discussion: Bahá’í Involvement in Politics (from bahai.org), The Spiritual Character of Baha’i Elections (from the Compilation of Compilations), a short Compilation on Criticism. (on that, since my lunch break is over, I’m out!)

“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.

read more… »

A lot more than two weeks later (x_X), here’s another track from the prayercast; this time, instead of being an improvised melody, the melody is a well-known one accompanying this sweet and beautiful prayer of blessing revealed by Bahá’u'lláh.

Blessed is the spot, and the house, and the place, and the city, and the heart, and the mountain, and the refuge, and the cave, and the valley, and the land, and the sea, and the island, and the meadow, where mention of God hath been made, and His praise glorified.

Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’í Prayers, p.1

want to hear more of these? leave me a comment on this post or via email, and subscribe to the prayercast in iTunes or your favourite podcast player.

I was curious about some of the web stats I’ve had over the past year. In decreasing order of hits, these are the top 20 countries sending visitors to doberman pizza, a baha’i blog: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, India, Germany, Philippines, Malaysia, Israel, the Netherlands, Ireland, Romania, Portugal, China, New Zealand, Iran, Italy, Spain, and Vietnam.

How about the top 10 content? Apart from the home page, the most popular page on the site is the photos page. after that comes the about page (understandable). next comes Raelee Pierce’s article on Baha’i marriage culture (aha!). further down, there’s the yearly list of Baha’i fasting times, then the videos page. after that comes the always-hilarious Ottawa Baha’i youth slang glossary, and then the list of interesting search terms that people have used to find the site. afterwards comes the “quotes” blog category—people searching for Baha’i quotes—and, finally, one of my photo albums comes in at #10, a small album capturing a refresher on Anna’s presentation.

This quote popped up recently one evening during my reading, and I thought it was quite apropos to the current global economic situation.

By God! In earthly riches fear is hidden and peril is concealed. […] Fleeting are the riches of the world; all that perisheth and changeth is not, and hath never been, worthy of attention, except to a recognized measure.

Not sure what else to say about this one, other than stating how obvious this becomes, especially at a time like this when the foundations of world economy are being shaken to their core.

hahaha i love my new macbook pro. not only can I do just about anything with it super easily—like manage photos, create songs, remix video, run IM and IRC clients—I can also carry it around wherever I go and jot down things when they pop into my head. suddenly i feel like my life is a lot more organized. i’m sure this is something of a honeymoon period, but it’s a nice one %)

things are going well. work is set to be busy this month, with a rather challenging deadline at the end of October, but that’s nothing I haven’t seen and dealt with before. I’ve been going to the gym fairly regularly for the past two months or so and I seem to be losing some weight now; several people have commented already about that. I love getting the exercise, it keeps my mood on the up-and-up too. children’s classes have started up and are having a rather rough start, probably because I’ve been dividing my attention between preparing the lessons and working out logistics—calling the parents, trying to find a new co-teacher, etc. such is service sometimes. also, i am hard at work hatching some dastardly plans, but those are still under wraps. you’ll just have to sit and wait for now. other than that, the past few days have been pretty good. went to Louis’ Pizza with Nathan (new Baha’i in our neighbourhood) last night and then mosied over to starbucks for a little while; we also got to have a brief visit (and introductions) with Jay & Diana, who are our long-standing Baha’i neighbours. on Sunday, I went to visit my parents; my dad was busy digging up the front lawn, so I joined him with that and we ended up busting the pipe for their sump pump (whoops). after that, I helped dig up potatoes from my mom’s garden, and we all enjoyed a dinner of turkey pot pie and apple crumble. yum! looking forward to thanksgiving next weekend. it should be a wonderful family affair. ok, it’s getting late and I need to go to work. more soon!

shame on me for not posting about this earlier! the Baha’i community of Vietnam, after many years of patience, elected its National Spiritual Assembly this year for the first time since the mid-1970s. the procedures for recognition were set in motion several years ago, coming to a head at Naw-Ruz of 2007, when the Vietnamese government issued a certificate to the Baha’i community authorizing their operations in the country. The final certificate, granting full recognition as a religious community, was presented to the community this July. From the Baha’i World News Service:

A certificate was presented to representatives of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Vietnam at a ceremony on 25 July.

It was the final act in a series of steps that included the election four months ago of the Baha’i Assembly – itself a landmark event in that it was the first time in many years that elections for the governing council were held. Government representatives were on hand to observe the balloting.

[…] The official government news agency reported the event and referred to comments by the chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is, Mr. Nguyen Thuc: “(He) said the Government’s recognition of the Baha’i religion ‘charts a new course of development for the entire Baha’i community’ and motivates followers to make more contributions to social and humanitarian activities and to drive to preserve traditional spiritual values.”

Accolades and congratulations have followed steadily from government, institutions and sister Baha’i communities throughout the world, with one of the latest expressions of praise coming from Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister, Truong Vinh Trong, who “expressed his appreciation of the Baha’i Faith’s philosophy and its active contributions to the community”.

more kidney stone craziness. i ended up in the emergency room lately with nasty kidney stone pain, which of course, has often been described as the worst pain imaginable, second only to childbirth (a minority of women report that kidney stones are worse). after getting nice and morphined up, the doctors had me zapped with x-rays, ultrasound and the kitchen sink to find out that the 1cm stone that came out of my kidney last year had shrunk to 8mm (yay -_-) and had moved down to just above the bladder (O_O). zounds. does that mean this whole episode might soon be over? my next step is to call up my urologist and book an appointment, hopefully to blast the living daylights out of the stone before I get even more attacks. so yeah. exciting health news. kidney stones are bad craziness. my dad was particularly worried about me, especially after hearing about the tens of thousands of children in China who got kidney stones after drinking melamine-tainted milk and/or milk products. apparently the levels aren’t as dangerous for adults, but damn is that ever messed up. you’ve got to be a pretty callous monster to put an industrial chemical like melamine into milk. apparently it’s a huge crisis in China though, with estimates saying up to 20% of Chinese dairy companies sell melamine-tainted products. yikes. I guess I’ll wait a little while before buying more yakult. o_O