The observance of WRD began in 1950 when a few weeks earlier in December 1949, the NSA of the Baha’is of the United States issued a simple proclamation:

The National Spritiual Assembly has instituted an annual World Religion Day to be observed publicly by the Baha’i communities whenever possible throughout the United States.

So look for events in your local community.

But the Egyptians honored the spirit of World Religion Day a bit early this year.

The Coptic Orthodox Christian church and believers in Egypt have always had a very uneasy and difficult time in Egypt. They have suffered major discrimination and even violence on a regular basis. Last week on New Year’s Eve, they suffered an especially painful attack when a suicide bomber detonated at Saints Church in Alexandria and killed 21 people.

The Muslim community of Egypt responded to a call by prominent liberal minded Egyptian muslims such as Mohamed El-Sawy to rally in support of the beleaguered minority and hold candle light vigils around Coptic churches this Friday during their mass.

In this way, the Muslims proclaimed their solidarity with their Christian brethren and faced terrorism head on, declaring that the attack was not just against the Copts but on Egypt itself. For more, see this article from ahram online.

Of course, as with all extremists, there is more than enough discrimination and violence to go around. The Baha’i community in Egypt has also been battling a very difficult problem for many years. The Baha’is are not only faced with the same discrimination but an even thornier issue.

This being that the Egyptian government would not issue proper government documents to Baha’is because it did not recognize the Baha’i Faith as a religion. This lead to a host of complications for Egyptian Baha’is. There has been some slight shifts in the policy but it is far from resolved. For more details and to keep up with back story and developments, visit the Baha’i Faith in Egypt blog.

To give you an example of the type of froward attitudes faced by Baha’is in Egypt, here is a sample of several clips from Egyptian TV with English subtitles:

The first few minutes of the video features Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sheik, the former president of Al-Azhar. Yes, that Al-Azhar…

Well, sort of.

Walt Disney Company’s investment arm Shamrock Holdings in partnership with the local privately owned firm, New Lineo Cinemas, will build a massive 30,000-square meter Disney amusement park as well as a 25 screen theatre complex and shopping plazas. The project is still in development stages but it is estimated to cost $170 million (600 million shekels) and to be completed by 2013.

The Disney amusement park will be located at a 20 acre empty plot of land adjoining other existing cinemas, but rather far from the Baha’i gardens and shrines (denoted by ‘A’ on the map):

Click to see larger image

The transition of Haifa from an industrial port city with heavy industries, factories and corrosively bad air quality is gaining pace with this project. Haifa is already famous within Israel for its diverse community of people who live in peaceful coexistence. Hopefully, the transformation will continue and the city will come to reflect economic diversity as well with less pollution causing service businesses like this.

One news report had this amusing quote:

If things go as planned, Haifa’s landmark sites such as the Bahai Temple or the Carmelite cable car could soon be replaced by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and friends.

Perhaps this might be a good time to remind my dear fellow Baha’is that the point of pilgrimage is not and never has been to Haifa or the surrounding areas. So where is it then?

That, I’m happy to tell you, is “a little known fact”.

The fire moved up to Haifa University and was so close to the Denya district that many there were evacuated. But the fire then moved west and is now hopefully contained in the Carmel Hai-Bar Nature preserve (the green area to the left of Haifa University):

As you can see from the map, before the fire can even approach the Baha’i World Centre on Mount Carmel, the fire would have to hypothetically go through several major residential neighbourhoods. There is very little risk of that and with international help, Israel will hopefully be able to contain the fire and put it out by the weekend. Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, France, UK, Croatia, Russia, Spain, and Romania have sent firefighting airplanes to Israel to combat the fire.

Here is a map showing the fire areas in red and the evacuation areas in blue (thanks to Steve at Bahaisonline.net):

You can keep up to date with the dynamic version of this map.

Update:
You can see some stunning pictures of the Haifa fire here.

APPLESAUCE

I tire, Eve, of innocence,
Let’s kiss and grow contented.
Suppose we touched, where I protrude
And you’re cunningly indented?

Oh Adam, what a sweet pastime!
I’m glad that I consented.
Tell me, dear, what shall we call
This game that we’ve invented?

With half my heart I’d call it love
And not have it repented;
The other half would name it sin
And urge it be prevented.

Had I not led you to the fruit
Guilt would be circumvented.
My punishment’s to have my crime
Eternally resented.

Spake the snake:

All Adam’s sons are cursed to woo
A maid and gently take her;
But after they’ve made applesauce
They’ll like as not forsake her.
And down the centuries men proclaim:
We’ll take the pleasure, she the blame.
Let posterity lament
That mother Eve gave her assent;
In slithering wisdom I rejoice
That she gave birth to slippery choice.

Adam & Eve by Titian (Prado Museum)

Roger White believed committed artists would be a vital force in preventing inflexibility in the Bahá’í community. “They will,” he predicted, addressing a group of Bahá’í youth in Haifa in 1990, “be a source of rejuvenation. They will serve as a bulwark against fundamentalism, stagnation and administrative sterility…To the degree the Bahá’í community views its artists as a gift rather than a problem will it witness the spread of the faith ‘like wildfire’ as promised by Shoghi Effendi, through their talents being harnessed to the dissemination of the spirit of the Cause.” To this end, White encouraged hundreds of budding writers and artists around the world, and called upon Bahá’í communities to assist the artists to find their place.

Obituary

Letter from William Hatcher to Dean Liston Pope
Yale University, Divinity School – May 21st, 1957

I am writing to inform you that, contrary to my previously expressed intentions, I will be unable to attend Yale Divinity School next fall. I do this with a feeling of grateful appreciation for your acceptance of my application and for your offer of a Grant-in-Aid of $400.00 which I accepted from you in my letter dated May 17, 1957. The reason for my decision not to enter Yale is wholly irrelevant to monetary considerations, and I would like to explain this to you.

Since accepting the Grant-in-Aid to Yale, I have become firmly convinced of the unanswerable truth of the Baha’i World Faith. During my four years as a student at Vanderbilt, I have been privileged to know and talk with some of the greatest leaders of Christianity in the United States and, to some extent, in the world. I have been in proximity, for the entire four year period, to Nels Ferre who, as you know, is one of the most creative theologians in Christianity today. The summer between my freshman and sophomore years I was fortunate enough to attend the full seventeen-day meeting to the Wold Council of Churches in Evanston, Illinois. There I was able to talk personally with some of the most dynamic spirits and the most creative thinkers the Christian world offers.

Not only have I been privileged to meet great thinkers and church leaders, but I have had the opportunity to engage in study adn thought on my own. I have become familiar with the history of Western thought, with the history of the Christian Church and contemporary thought, reading such philosophers as Soren Kierkegaard, Kal Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre, Richard Niebuhr, Nels Ferre, and Paul Tillich. Nor has my activity been solely intellectual. Last summer I served as part of “A Christian Ministry in the National Parks” at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. I have done work in campus religious organizations and in the Church.

In all of my activity, I have found nothing which is in any way comparable to the Baha’i Revelation either in the dynamic qualities of the Spirit or in the satisfaction of the intellect. When one finds such deep and lasting satisfaction in an age so fraught with error and anxiety, he can do nothing else but follow it. Indeed, he would be a fool to do otherwise! I pray that I may be able to say, as other Baha’is have said, “and if something else comes along which is more satisfying than this, then I will follow it.” This is indeed the spirit of truth.

The people of this age are asleep. They have been unable to discern the signs of the time. The greatest minds and the most sensitive spirits are those who testify the strongest of despair, for it is they who most keenly realize how close we are to the very brink of disaster. The only thing capable of saving man is God, God as He reveals Himself and His will for this age. God has indeed done this through Baha’u'llah (The Glory of God). Baha’u'llah proclaimed Himself in 1863 to be the Promised One so long awaited by men of all faiths and foretold in unmistakable terms by Jesus in the 24th chapter of Matthew. It is this very issue, the Second Coming of Christ, which has long been ignored by the whole of liberal Protestant Christendom and which was the cause of disunity and disagreement at the Evanston meeting.

I met Baha’is for the first time as a freshman in college. During these four years of search I, like almost every other Christian, refused to consider seriously the claims of Baha’u'llah as the Promised One. The truly frightening thing is that Christian leaders simply refuse even to consider the claims of Baha’i. They are willing to study for years the detailed aspects of the Bible, historical and contemporary theological literature, and the history of the Christian church; yet they refuse to consider even the possibility that the claims of Baha’u'llah might be true.

You most probably encountered an article in the April 10th issue of “The Christian Century” by Marcus Bach entitled, “Baha’i: A Second Look.” “Christ and Baha’u'llah” and “The Promise of All Ages,” both by Canon George Townshend, are excellent works on the subject.

The world is on the brink of disaster greater than it has ever known. Christians must wake up before it is too late. Each day which passes without this awakening will surely sink the Christian world deeper in despair and confusion. The words of Paul echo through the centuries to this, the time of the Kingdom promised in Christ’s own prayer; “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”

It is possible that in sharing my experience and my reason for deciding not to enter Yale some glint of interest in Baha’i will arise. It is with this very hope that I write.

The following is a prayer revealed by Baha’u'llah:

O my God! O my God! Unite the hearts of Thy servants, and reveal to them Thy great purpose. May they follow Thy commandments and abide in Thy law. Help them, O God in their endeavour, and grant them strength to serve Thee. O God, leave them not to themselves, but guide their steps by the light of knowledge, and cheer their hearts by Thy love. Verily, Thou art their Helper and their Lord.

William S. Hatcher
1935 – 2005

In the last 5 years or so property prices particularly in the US started going up; this was stimulated by clever people creating new types of financial institutes that got around government rules about financial institutes needing a certain reserve ratio (amount to be kept in cash). This happened in various countries but more so in the U.S. because there the regulations were less stringent. Since the economy was flourishing, and even though experts in the field could see where this would lead, in such a climate no government would want to insist on tighter regulations – this would be very unpopular.

So we have this bubble of buying and selling – even ordinary people, re-mortgaging their houses for that extra cash to spend on something. It makes sense. You see an opportunity and you take it.

What makes this unstable is when what is borrowed is close to what is the value of a property, because property prices always fluctuate. At some point, sooner or later, experts involved in this buying and selling are going to realise that this bubble will break and so they stop buying and selling. When they do, other experts recognize what is coming and do the same. Now the time for a property to sell takes longer and so there is less cash in movement. It hits institutions (banks / financial institutions) first because they can’t move their money to repay loans.

There was also a stock market bubble, stimulated by interest rates being low. Governments kept interest rates low because this stimulates economic rate. This is a good thing but usually inflation starts to happen (a chain reaction of wages going up, things costing more to buy and so money having less buying power) and this is a warning governments usually see in time and then solve, by raising interest rates. This time inflation was well under control (so interests rates remained low); perhaps the efficiency of new technologies and globalisation (imported cheap products) masked or compensated for the inflation that usually goes with strong growth, but this is a guess.

What is of interest is how governments have responded to this.

The U.S. response was to give credit and to buy mortgages, instead of buying bank shares. Buying mortgages involves more administration and doesn’t punish the shareholders who are mainly to blame for the problem in the financial institutions to start with. Shareholders control how financial institutions work. Where the government buys newly issued bank shares, it means that shareholders lose part of their stake (influence on how the company works and the profits). The U.S. response, -buying mortgages- means that there is no future restriction nor punishment for the irresponsible fat cats (the majority shareholders). They have no interest in being prudent since they didn’t suffer, and are likely to repeat this in the future. Government-owned shares promote more prudent actions, but, yes, in terms of politicking, this is called socialism and that’s most likely the reason that the U.S. didn’t take the approach the U.K. government took. Today on the BBC radio (October 14th) it was announced that the U.S. is considering buying shares in the nine largest banks, whether they need it or not. If this goes through now shareholders of banks who were responsible will be punished along with the irresponsible ones.

A friend posed these questions:

“What would be a “Baha’i” solution to the problem, and here I mean more than the very general ideal of the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty and more to the point of how is this ideal to be accomplished?

Is a form of “world socialism” the answer?

Does free market capitalism as we know it have to be fundamentally changed, and if so, will the wealthy of the world ever agree to such?

To my way of thinking the failure of Marxist ideology was more than just the misuse of its ideals by tyrants such as Stalin and Mao. It was also the fact that individuals are more concerned with their own well-being (family and close relatives etc.) than with the well-being of the people they do not know or have contact with. How much are people willing to sacrifice individually for the good of the group, especially when the group is the size of humanity?”

What do you think?

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
Jimmi Hendrix

The way I see it, power is all about control. Love is all about losing control.

God’s love for us is the primary force behind Creation and the fountain of mankind’s nobility is free will. Which in a funny sort of way means that God gave up “control” and in a sense, put it in our own hands. We are not brute animals, controlled, lashed or beaten by God throughout our lives but instead are guided lovingly by His manifestations, through intermittent divine revelations. And yet, whether we realize it or not, we always have the freedom to choose our reactions, behavior, speech… our very lives.

You and I may not be covetous of power in the meaning that we want to rule a country or take over the world. But in our own way we each choose, moment to moment, to either let go and love; or grab on to gain and maintain control and therefore, power. Lord knows I could sure use less of the latter and a heaping spoonful of the former.

Here’s the curious thing, when your power to love overcomes your love of power, something magical happens. People are drawn to you. You become a beacon, attracting others as if magnetized. They may not even know why but they sense something in you that others lack. Look at the example in the life and person of Abdu’l-Baha. Even as desiring no rank nor station beyond that of servitude, Abdu’l-Baha was so loved, revered and respected by all people.

Sounds good. Now how do we do that?

The Baha’i Faith certainly has answers – which take a lifetime to glean. These two ladies also have some ideas: Karen Armstrong + Jill Bolte Taylor

Just a little something to ponder over the weekend. Hope you all have a wonderful and restful time. It wouldn’t hurt to crank up some of Jimi’s music and dance like no one’s watching.

Baha’u'llah lived in Baghdad off and on for ten years, which is probably why He designated it as one of two sites for Baha’i pilgrimage. But the authorities became wary of Baha’u'llah’s growing influence so they once again banished Him. This time to modern day Istanbul, Turkey (Constantinople).

As the belongings of the household were being prepared for the move, Baha’u'llah retreated to a small island within the bank the Tigris River [see below for correction]. There, He and a small group of Babis who were devoted to Baha’u'llah camped out in tents for 12 days.

On the 9th day the rest of the Holy family came to join them. The hours passed with Baha’u'llah chanting and revealing verses among the trees and greenery of that garden which was renamed “Ridvan” or Paradise. Some time during those days, we don’t know exactly when, Baha’u'llah explicitly told them that He was the One foretold by the Bab.

Baha’is all over the world celebrate these days with special attention to the first, ninth and last as Baha’i Holy Days.

Could this be the location of the original Ridvan?
Curiosity got the better of me, so with the help of Google Maps, I searched along the section of the Tigris River that runs through Baghdad. There were quite a few ‘small islands’ which could qualify. I chose one of them to show you in the picture on the left.

Want to search for the Garden of Ridvan yourself?

Use the + – to zoom in and zoom out, you can also grab the map and push it around.

Here you go:

UPDATE:
Thanks to Don & Steve (see comments below) the site of the Garden of Ridvan is found!

I was wrong to assume it was an island. It was actually situated on the banks of the Tigris River.

It is on the banks of the Tigris River just in front of the present site of the Medical City hospital complex (labels A and B) in the map above. Right now many Iraqis are rushed there for emergency treatment as a result of the violence. Please keep the people of Iraq and the soldiers stationed there in your thoughts and prayers during this Festival of Ridvan.

Right now Baha’is are advised to not travel to Iraq for Baha’i pilgrimage because it is simply too dangerous. But I don’t have any doubts that within our lifetime this will change. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to go and say a few prayers on that spot?