For some people the Baha’i Faith is now solely about a top down organization with massive, laborious, and endless “PLANS” as the central object of the individual believer’s worship and their reason for being. In essence, the organization itself is their God.

But for me it is about God and God alone - the Mystery of the Universe - and no human organization whatsoever will ever be my God.

Thinking daily spiritually and pursuing the independent investigation of truth in all things is my “core activity”. Not inflicting a series of comic book glue stick execises on other people designed by people who went to some dip s**t teacher’s college who now call themselves “educators”.

So after 36 years in the Baha’i Faith serving in many capacities, I will live out my life with my project to assist combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. I will never mention the Baha’i Faith to any of them.

With people like Glenford Mitchell at the top, it would be an insult to what they have been through as souls that have come from God. War is most definitely NOT “God’s work” and anyone who thinks it is is both incredibly thoughtless of other people’s terrible experiences and incredibly insane.

You have a pleasant way. I appreciate the thought of the hug! I wish you well, brother, in all your endeavors on your path. Act from love, as you say, and you will do fine and have an effect in whatever you do.

Peace.

I had this big smile on my face upon reading your comments!!
It reminded me of a comment someone once made that said; “We all mean well”. What I love about all these discussions so far is that we all love our faith soooo dearly that we find it important that it is represented and presented right. And for that my brother I take my hat off. As to the way we go about doing it will most certainly be at variance. But for me to know that you and I both want what is best for the future of humanity and that we will make every effort to dedicate our energies for its advancement brings joy beyond measure. If you were near I would have hugged you but the distance in space keeps us apart. And as you have so rightly put it;
“— ‘please, will you be quiet and let God do His work!’” indeed who am I to decide what He wills as I’m sure upon our leaving this world it shall all be made clear anyways right!??!

Thanking you for your kind assistance and wish you the very best in serving His will.

Your bro always.

You write:

“Today the army we speak of is nothing to do with guns and bullets but the devotion and love of serving humanity with all our hearts.”

WRONG!

That was the OLD BAHA’I FAITH. That was what the Prophets and Holy Manifestations taught. That was what I joined in 1971. That is now completely passee, brother. That is so, well, “1960’s”! THIS is the NEW MODERN 21st Century Baha’i Faith under the NEW lifetime incumbent professional cadre class:

“You’ll recall that the U.S. was ‘dragged’ into WWII with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Our boys were sleeping off Saturday night while the enemy schemed — but America soon woke up. So when you see the U.S. in Cambodia or in Vietnam — or when you see America’s young men in Lebanon, or knocking around in the Balkans — ‘please, will you be quiet and let God do His work!’”

Glenford Mitchell
Member of the Universal House of Justice
Baha’i Faith
10/11/2001

So if you want to spread some love between filling out Ruhi lock step cookie cutter group think spiritual comic books start visiting some of the 25,921 wounded GI’s in VA hospitals who have been sent to “DO GOD’S WORK” so the Baha’is can step over their dead bodies and push aside the grieving families of the 3,680 dead obsessed with going on their selfish pilgrimages in Iraq once the war is “over”.

You can start finding some people to help here:

http://www.iava.org/

http://www.iava.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=14&Itemid=119

I suggest you leave the Baha’i Faith to those who have destroyed it, and take the Teachings of Baha’u'llah and go out into the world and selflessly help someone without any regard toward converting them to be in a pie chart in someone’s Power Point presentation on “THE PLAN”. I spent 36 years in this. I do not keep faith with these sorry idiots any longer. Deeds not words. This is what I am doing. This is my path of service.

I wish you well in your journey to get out of the cult bubble and actually help someone.

How I wish… you have no idea.

And thank you for your comments and the loving attitude with which they are delivered.

It would have been even better to not have ignored the ideas and concepts that we are discussing. But I can understand the dissonance that such practical ideas can create in Baha’is so I don’t blame you too much.

It is much easier to wave them away and quote a Hidden word. Believe me, I can understand.

First of all I love you very much and with every bit of my heart. I’m very happy to hear you ask about what I do as you have great concern for the actions rather than words. Well the vibes that comes out of the comments so far is definitely far from the message of peace so far dwelt on and certainly wouldn’t want anyone to be in that state. Today the army we speak of is nothing to do with guns and bullets but the devotion and love of serving humanity with all our hearts. So whether you find the current guidance sufficient of not it doesn’t negate the need to act according to your beliefs. And to be true to anyone’s self if you don’t believe don’t follow. I have dedicated my heart to the Baha’I cause and if I have to die for it then that shall be an honor. And I’m glad you asked that question because it made me realize how easy it was for me to answer it. But then again it made me sad that I may stir in your hearts feelings of anger which I didn’t intend. That is where I would like to apologies and wish you the very best in your search for truth and service to your Lord. Since I do not hold the truth in my hands I would like to now step back and do what is on my hands, and that is the choice to act in accordance to the Baha’I teachings and a choice that dearly cherish. I wish you joyous a Ridvan and a great year of service.
O FRIEND! In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from the nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold….
(Baha’u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words)
Your brother always.

“And speaking of failed armies and run down businesses, I find it interesting how they both often suffer from the same illnesses, one being the lack of obedience and willingness to sacrifice for ones belief and the other not so rare element of corruption and distrust that exists in today’s society. “

There are American soldiers dying in Iraq every single day now who are “obedient” and “willing to sacrifice” for OTHER PEOPLE’S beliefs (which calls for even more guts than sacrificing for one’s own beliefs) unto death. THEY are NOT the cause of the war being lost so far! It is the thoughtless leadership that sent them into this terible situation where their sacrifice is militarily inconsequential to solving the situation.

What have you, yourself, ever faced in your life at that level of intensity? I have been a Baha’i for 36 years. I gave it everything I had. This religion is going backwards as Baquia says, because it’s rank and file are cowards with easy lives who have never faced anything in life and have thoughtlessly allowed a permanent entrenched lifetime incumbent class to run this religion completely into the ground.

Contact me off-line and I will be very glad to drive you to the nearest U.S. Armed Forces recruiting office where you can face something in life besides speaking platitudes that begin in words and end in words. Let’s send you where you can get shot, blown to pieces, or your head chopped off for your beliefs instead of someone else now currently in your place. Let’s see how your parroted automaton platitudes hold up on the front lines facing violent battlefield death at every turn. Let’s see if you are obediant unto death with exemplary willingness to sacrifice for the U.S. Armed Forces.

You speak in easy words, brother. Let’s put you to the test.

boycotting Kalimat
unenrolling scholars out of the Faith
censoring and controlling Baha’i scholarship
opacity and secrecy
a KGB like ’secret police’ that uses the Covenant like a blunt instrument
etc…

Baha’u'llah did not come to bring pain and suffering for us until some as yet unkown future when the AO will get its act together. He came to bring a message of peace and love for today. Today.

Again, for today. So puh-lease don’t ply these tired cliches of ‘just you wait!’ I have been waiting. For decades. And many others for even more decades.

What we’re seeing is not even a snail pace crawl towards anything better but a bullet train ride backwards towards insular, group think hell.

I always find it hard to brake away from Vision and Practicality!! As the discussion seems to flow it reminds me how I use to get frustrated with the pace of the community when compared to the great future foretold and promised by the Blessed Beauty. It sometimes feels like things just don’t seem to move fast enough. But in time I have learned that time itself is the key. I soon realized that my frustration wasn’t related to the lack of achievements but my expectation that things promised in the distant future should all be accomplished in my lifetime. I believe that as individuals we are able to see from the writings the vision and from it draw hope and build up faith!! But as to the timing of the implementation of the various teachings, that is where I believe the institution of the UHJ breaks it down into chunks according to the capacity of the worldwide community. And speaking of failed armies and run down businesses, I find it interesting how they both often suffer from the same illnesses, one being the lack of obedience and willingness to sacrifice for ones belief and the other not so rare element of corruption and distrust that exists in today’s society. If these could be dispelled in every believer then there could only be great things ahead. How easy it is to forget that this is a dispensation that has not been around for too long and yet has caught the attention of the masses in a way never seen before. All I wanted to say is, it is yet too early to truly measure this revelation with only our minds eye. After all what is 200 years in human history?!?! So what if we are yet to learn from our mistakes, and who said that we are at the end of our mission!?!?!  “as ye have faith so shall your powers and blessings be”
“We must trust to time, and the guidance of God’s Universal House of Justice, to obtain a clearer and fuller understanding of its provisions and implications. But one word of warning must be uttered in this connection. Let us be on our guard lest we measure too strictly the Divine Plan with the standard of men. I am not prepared to state that it agrees in principle or in method with the prevailing notions now uppermost in men’s minds, nor that it should conform with those imperfect, precarious, and expedient measures feverishly resorted to by agitated humanity. Are we to doubt that the ways of God are not necessarily the ways of man? Is not faith but another word for implicit obedience, whole-hearted allegiance, uncompromising adherence to that which we believe is the revealed 63 and express will of God, however perplexing it might first appear, however at variance with the shadowy views, the impotent doctrines, the crude theories, the idle imaginings, the fashionable conceptions of a transient and troublous age? If we are to falter or hesitate, if our love for Him should fail to direct us and keep us within His path, if we desert Divine and emphatic principles, what hope can we any more cherish for healing the ills and sicknesses of this world?” (Shoghi Effendi, Baha’i Administration, p. 62)

Your servant.