Archive for December, 2006

Blogging is cool! I enjoy every minute of it. I’m not going to stop, but I am shifting my priorities around a little bit.

Blogging is a cool medium. I think it was my wife who first enunciated this truth for me, sharing something she’d read. It’s cool, as in “indirect,” cool as in “not warm.” Face-to-face is warm.

Blogging serves a wonderful purpose in the world for Baha’is in advancing the Cause. But blogging for teaching purposes depends on Baha’i “boots on the ground,” so to speak. It is in face-to-face and soul-to-soul communication that the growth of the Faith ultimately depends.

I have the privilege of living in a very special community. WA Cluster 19 is a so-called “A-cluster.” It’s potential for growth is extraordinary. Accordingly, I’m going to be giving greater priority in my discretionary time to participation in the core activities of my community. This blog may remain relatively dormant for a while. But it’s for a good Cause.

Check out from time to time my other blog, Teaching the Baha’i Faith, to see if I am following through on my intentions.

There is a Baha’i saying: “When the most important work is at hand, let go of the important work.”

Thanks to Marco for finding this and getting permission for bloggers to re-post. -gw

Yaakov Kirschen, “Baha’is in Egypt,” The Dry Bones Blog

Here is a Christmas collage of “Baha’i” mentions with a “Yalda Eve” mention thrown in for good measure. -gw

I am not a Baha’i, but I have family and friends who are. This Christmas I received a wonderful gift of a small Baha’i prayer book.

Kelly, “Merry Christmas, everyone,” Jitterbug’s Beat: We’re all God’s children in the dark.

21st of Dec. was the winter solstice…. anyhow, as of 22nd of Dec. the position of the earth with respect to the sun will change and the days start to get longer and longer.

it was a very important eve in the ancient era in Iran and perhaps in other old civilizations. they celebrated it as the “Eve of the Sun” or the “Festive of the Sun” in Iran. they kinda believed that sun is born/reborn at this time. that’s why it was called “Yalda Eve”, Yalda is a Persian word with Arabic roots, which means “birth/rebirth”. the Iranian calendar at the time had 7 months only, and the 22nd of Dec. was the first day of the year.

it is also said that later they celebrated it for 40 days, since they believed on the 40th day the sun would shine better and brightier, and the dark days of the winter are gone…some other historians believe that since Christians didn’t know the exact birthday of the Jesus, they took this great eve as the time Jesus was born, and celebrated it as such.

years passed, “Yalda Eve” still remained as an important day in Iran, but the Iranian calendar got 5 more months added to it gradually. and interestingly enough, they now believed that on the 40th day after 22 of Dec. a savior will be reborn to bring peace and justice into earth. seems they got this back from the christians then!

many years passed until the Iranians changed the new year’s eve to 21st of March, although the Yalda Eve is still celebrated as the longest evening/night of the year! HAPPY YALDA/ THE EVE OF THE SUN TO EVERYONE!

Paradox, “Off and On,” Paradox

Today was Christmas, and I received many lovely, lovely gifts. I adore my new charms, I’m going to have them put on my bracelet on Wednesday. Charms are always my favorite gifts, because they’re so hard to find these days, so when anyone puts the effort in to get the right charm for me, I always am so grateful. I might try to find a little nine-pointed star when I’m at Green Acre on Thursday. Anyway, everything was fantastic. I went to my step fathers house this evening and we did a gift exchange, and my brother convinced to bounce on a trampoline with him. He brings out the little girl in me. I adore my little brother. I saw he had a few bibles in his room. I had no idea! I told him how excited I was to see that as I listened to him play the guitar (he’s making such progress!). I ended up leaving him some Baha’i literature. I didn’t know he was seeking spirituality… I wish him all the best on his spiritual journey. He’s fourteen.

Ashley, “Never Stop. Just Turn The Wheel.” oh, · look · at · how · she · listens.

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I was at the Open Mic at the Chicago Baha’i Center and Emil was hosting. He said that he was going to call on people, and if they didn’t have something to perform they could sing a christmas song…

Somalian Girl, “Concious Transformations,” The Mind, Heart, and Soul of ME

Well Christmas is over, and I have to, once again, swim against the grain and say that I loved it, and I am NOT glad it is over. Sorry folks, but there it is. I was always profoundly delighted by the event, every aspect of it, and I am still childishly gleeful about the whole thing, although I do manage a greater level of restraint than I did as a kid. I am not even a Christian, and it is still amazing fun. I am Baha’i, but was brought up by atheists who did the pagan style christmas, you know trees, lights, presents, food, but no mention of any sort of god or religion.

Orenata, “hats, 2n and a joke,” oreneta aground: Hola, bon dia. Que tal? Ohhhhhh, un amica pregunta……. on es la nostre barca de vela?

christmas cheer

How do Baha’is conceptualize education? Roger Prentice has advanced a SunWALK model. I found it here. But it is also available here, the primary website. Below is an abstract of the dissertation by Roger outlining the model submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Sunderland for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in October 2003. -gw

This autobiographically-derived, and narratively-voiced, thesis is one teacher’s story. From the story a spiritualizing model of education is argued, toward making a paradigm shift. The suggested shift involves placing ‘technical’ learning within the context of being and becoming fully, and positively, human. Teaching then becomes a matter of enabling development of the individual’s Caring, Creative and Critical abilities, developed within the Community (the 4Cs), inspired by the light of higher-order values - the remainder being processes and content. The thesis makes an original contribution to educational knowledge through the educational life-story, and through making explicit a model out of that life-experience. The suggested model of spiritualizing pedagogy, called SunWALK, therefore is grounded in accounts of the writer’s major educational life-events. In particular it presents epiphanous encounters undergone in meeting three ‘discourse-communities’: the Baha’i Faith, the teaching of English, and Philosophy for Children. These are seen as providing the three intrapersonal ‘voices’ of human engagement, Caring, Creativity and Criticality, which correspondingly have three ways of knowing: the ‘social-others-centred’, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ and the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’. A fourth discourse-community, that of holistic education, is the educational sub-domain to situate the thesis. A conceptual framework for the model is outlined, using concepts gleaned from the four discourse-communities. A view of ‘the Whole’, and of heart-knowing, is presented, to counter-balance the conceptual. Heart-knowing, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’, is seen as an innate, intuitive way of knowing, c.f. the methods of the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’. The third form, i.e. social knowing, is seen as deriving from the cultural interpersonal matrix of family and community relationships – internalized as Caring. The conceptual and heart-knowing are brought together, via a ‘conceptual-contemplative-conceptual’ cyclical approach, using a ‘Mandala Diagram’. The idea of ‘Dialectical Spiritualization’ is developed, as that which the four ‘Cs’ have in common. A summary and diagram, and evaluation, conclude the thesis.

Roger Prentice, “Thesis,” Sunwalker’s Vox

{Re-posted with permission}

What’s in your wallet? If you have a Baha’i ID, what’s on the back? -gw

“Cemetary, where many Bahai’s are buried,”uploaded on October 15, 2006 by christine.adgirl on flickr

katya and i were sitting and waiting for the econ finals to be passed out and she started sifting through my wallet.

“what are the baha’i laws for burial?”

she had found my baha’i id, which has a request on the back that i be buried according to the baha’i laws of burial if something were to happen. uuum…. i couldn’t really remember. i knew there was something about how far you can be buried from the site of your death.

“really like that”

and we launched into a discussion about how we perceive death and deal with it in our culture. death… or loss in general. why do we have so much trouble letting go of things when they’re gone? just because something or someone isn’t with us anymore doesn’t mean all that we had is lost. katya described how, her only memory of all her cousins being together in one place at the same time was at a family member’s funeral… so, in addition to being too attached to people lost, how is it that we forget to make the time for each other when we’re still here? and then she said something enlightening…

“sometimes we just too caught up thinking about what could have been, instead of appreciating what was”

then our final started and we stopped talking. that’s not meant to be deep, lol, it just happened.

Dorri, What Was,” Ponderings

{Re-posted with permission}

Blogs are being used in many ways beyond strickly personal journaling. New Legal World Order is a case in point. -gw

Welcome to the New Legal World Order Blog created by the participants of the European Bahai Law Conference in the Netherlands on December 16, 2006.The objective of this blog is to encourage the collaborative efforts, the scholarship and network of lawyers, students, professionals, and academics interested in the advancement of justice, ethics and law.We invite you to contribute to this blog, suggest articles, review books, share experiences and or inspiring quotes, and the overall exchange of ideas.

In telling her story, Genna offers a testimonial about LJBaha’i. -gw

About five or six years ago, now, I decided to become a Baha’i. This was mostly because all of the Baha’is I knew were really nice people and gave me cookies, and because all of their study groups I’d attended were interesting and historical. A few months later I realized that a whole new religion, especially one that intended to encompass all previous religions, was too much for me, and I slipped back into Christianity since, I figured, it’d be easier to find God along a familliar path.

In the meantime, though, I joined lj-bahai, which I still belong to because it’s pretty much the only place I’ve found where, every now and then, there’s sincere, yet polite, religious discussion.

Genna, “This weekend was a good one,” The · World · is · Quiet · Here: The life and times of G, the Minister of Propaganda, who may actually exist

The blog Baha’i Faith in Egypt reports today that the Supreme Court in that country ruled against the Baha’is in their appeal…

“…to reverse the lower court’s ruling of 4 April 2006 that favored the Baha’is right to being identified as such for the purpose of official documents. It also ordered the Bahá’í couple who had initiated the original lawsuit against the Ministry of Interior–demanding to be granted the right to obtain identification documents–to pay all court costs.”

For the full story, read Egyptian-born Bilo’s blog for its current and past postings. As he notes,

“Naturally, the Baha’is are a bit disappointed, but do understand that this crisis will ultimately lead to many victories, many of which can be seen already–a direct result of their suffering.”

Bilo quotes the following passage from the document One Common Faith on his side bar:

Everything in its history has equipped the Bahá’í Cause to address the challenge facing it. Even at this relatively early stage of its development—and relatively limited as its resources presently are—the Bahá’í enterprise is fully deserving of the respect it is winning. An onlooker need not accept its claims to Divine origin in order to appreciate what is being accomplished. Taken simply as this-worldly phenomena, the nature and achievements of the Bahá’í community are their own justification for attention on the part of anyone seriously concerned with the crisis of civilization, because they are evidence that the world’s peoples, in all their diversity, can learn to live and work and find fulfilment as a single race, in a single global homeland.

Ed demonstrates the impact one person can have on the social economic development of a community. Ed is a Baha’i. -gw

I left Winnipeg to experiment with something new, also on a quest for simplicity. I landed in a little place I visited years ago in the Dominican Republic. The people here remembered me from having volunteered there long ago, and welcomed me with open arms. It’s a land of coffee farmers, no electricity, beater cars (my fellow car club members), little supplies, no local super value. I have chickens running through my room, bachata playing loud at the neighbors, much smaller and less various diet but good.

After making repeated excursions from my safe hotel base in San Jose de Ocoa, to this town of LaBocaina one hour north, I was integrated in the Community as a live in guest with a family who ran the local store, which happened to be located in their house. They basically adopted me. I spent time getting to know the local people, the culture and the area as well as learning Spanish.

As a way to get more involved, as well as a way to try to help out, I engaged in growing crops with Julito, the papa, and a coffee farmer. I offered to assist other families put in crops too. They were curious as to why I would leave the land of milk and honey in order to come to the land of rice and beans - everytime I answered the same thing; something different, more quiet pace, nature, an opportunity to try small scale agriculture, the adventure. The dream of so many Dominicans is to make it to New York, and I am dreaming the opposite way, so they have accepted me as insane.I never set out to look for differences but I noticed that one does enter into a world of

‘con Dios’, ‘ gracias a Dios’ or ’si Dios quiere’ - a sincere expression of their richness of faith.

Ed, “The Story,” Life in LaBocaina

{Re-posted with permission}