I have  downloaded the Lisa Janti interview on A Baha’i Perspective of 04.04.2009, and will enjoy listening to this podcast on my iPod. When I was just a 20 year old youth and spending the summer of 1968 in Tucson, Arizona, where my parents had retired, I had opportunity to meet Lisa. She came over to dinner at my parent’s home. Other than family, she was probably the only Baha’i ever to sit at their table.

That summer I was a brand new Baha’i, having been enrolled on February 12th, just a few months earlier.  I know the exact date because, while going through files stored in the garage a month ago, I came across the welcome card from the National Spiritual Assembly signed by David Ruhe, secretary at that time, who later become a member of the Universal House of Justice. It’s now sitting on my desk, awaiting framing.

What an an amazing time the 60′s were to be a Baha’i. It was the presence of interracial and international marriages within the Faith that so impressed me,  and the activities of Baha’is teaching the Faith in Vietnam, despite the war going on. I had marched on the Pentagon in the fall of 1967, declared my belief in Baha’u'llah in December, and, as was the standard back then, studied the Covenant prior to being enrolled. I believe the person I met with for that study was Garetta Busey, in whose home the Friday night firesides of the University of Illinois Baha’i Group were held and the one who wrote the introduction to the edition of Gleanings current at the time.

Aw, memories. -gw

Thumbnail: L.A. Mayor, Tom Bradley, at his City Hall Office, meeting with Universal House of Justice member, Charles Wolcott, his wife, Harriette, and daughter, Sheila Banani and Lisa, in a picture obviously taken in the 70′s. http://www.lisajanti.com/photobahai.html

Photo: Me, sitting on my parent’s couch in Tucson, the summer of 1969.

Tonight our Thursday devotional meeting turned into a Baha’i fireside. A dearly loved chronically mentally ill member of our community brought a friend tonight whom she first met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. A fascinating woman, this friend works as a caregiver in a dementia facility now, but worked as a deck hand on fishing vessels in Alaska for 18 years. During those long Alaskan winters she read a lot, especially history. She was fascinated to hear a  bit of the history of the Faith, and immediately recognized the historical context, Baha’u'llah living during the time of the Ottoman Empire. Although she had never heard any details about the Faith before, she has loved the Baha’i prayers that have been shared with her and especially loved the fact that Baha’is recognize the truth in all world religions.  

With the help of the handy Anna’s Presentation, we gave this friend the message AND said a round of prayers, interspersed with music selections from the iPod. After telling a little bit about the story of the Bab and Anis who was martyred along with Him in Tabriz, I played this song. -gw

Tara Ellis – Anis from The Long Pilgrimage on Vimeo.

Andrew, you’re going to be missed. Your blog posts over the years have greatly enriched the Baha’i Blogosphere.

Andrew is going to pull the plug on Andropolis.org next week, he posted yesterday. He marshalls all the reasons, citing the Wired post from last fall. He thanks Lacey, mother Baha’i blogger to him and a lot of others.

He’s right, of course. There are so many other ways to be online. And as I’ve said many times before on this blog, Twitter is it.

My wife posted on her blog for the first time in a month yesterday. She has told me on a regular basis that she is done blogging, although she’s the one in the family who started blogging back in 2005. I suspect she will continue to write about her current interests. First it was chronicling our canoeing outings and family gatherings. Then it became cooking. Now it’s thrift and making do, in keeping with the economic climate, although nothing has changed for us financially. For her, it’s become fun to see how cheap she can buy the groceries. So that’s what she’s posting on, if she posts at all.

I started blogging in January of 2006. Here I am, Lord, in 2009. I’m not done blogging. For me blogging still fits, perhaps because I’m … on the backstretch of my career, if not the final turn. Life is simple. Teach the Faith, eat, sleep, work, maybe canoe, and blog.

My blog is not that personal, but I do use my full name. What I have posted on is not going to make it more difficult to get another job, because I don’t plan to get another job. I like where I’m working now and plan to retire from it, if they’ll let me.

Blogging gives me an excuse to live my life and explore the Internet in a way that seems systematic, posting about the discoveries. I am so inspired by what other people are doing for the Faith in the world, and inspired, too, by how the multitudes are finding the Faith.

The rage right now among Baha’is in Cluster 19 who are not college-aged is to get on Facebook, not blogging. I can’t tell you exactly how many have become my Facebook friends in the past month or two, but it seems like a lot. It’s the mature, and even the over-ripe (just a joke, there) who are becoming wired. Yup.

There is one brand new blogger in our cluster as of the past several months, Arlene of Weaner Pigs, and she’s a natural. There is still blog content out there that is personal and reflects some aspect of Baha’i life that is worthy of exposure. I continue to be interested in finding what I consider to be gems of blog expression and excerpting from them.  And throwing in whatever else I feel like that seems somehow Baha’i-related.

For me, it’s impacting Google word-searches that continues to have me blogging most days and for hours a day. Take a word to google, any word, and add “Baha’i” to the search and see what comes up for results. If Baha’i Views comes up and folks click over, I hope that when they leave they will have had their understanding of the Faith expanded a little bit. It’s all about links.  

Hey, I just googled “Baha’i” and”search” and Baha’i Views came up as the 9th result. 9th! Hey, that’s an omen. I’m going to keep blogging. Blogging, I love you. -gw

There I’ve Said It Again

I love you, there’s nothing to hide,
It’s better than burning inside,
I love you, no use to pretend
There I’ve said it again

I’ve said it, what more can I say,
Believe me, there’s no other way,
I love you, I will to the end,
There I’ve said it again.

Here are my top five Baha’i songs ever, songs that pass the test of time, that still give me goosebumps. OK, ask me again tomorrow, I’ll give you five more. -gw

1. Capable of Love, Tara Ellis & Jamey Heath, on the Amazing Grace/BMG album
2. Honey of Reunion, Mana, on Arising to Serve album
3. Amame, Leonor Dely, on the Amame album
4. Queen of Carmel, Susan Lewis Wright, on the Bird album
5. Paradise of the Placeless, Red Grammer, on the Fruits of the Spirit album

Our Baha’i devotional meetings on Thursday evenings celebrate art. Walter Palmore brings his exquisite paintings, such as the one above. We say prayers and have conversations of spiritual significance. New Baha’i Peggy comes. Another Baha’i artist, Nuri, has started to come. Polin comes. Ed comes and shares poetry. I slip in the tunes. Bonita takes pictures and serves up the tea, rooibos tea from Africa this past Thursday.

One of the songs I have played that has been a devotional meeting hit is this one. -gw

Mi’Ma’amakim (Out Of The Depths) (5:49)

The Idan Raichel Project burst onto the Israeli music scene in 2002, changing the face of Israeli popular music and offering a message of love and tolerance that resonated strongly in a region of the world where the headlines are too often dominated by conflict. With an enchanting blend of Ethiopian and Middle Eastern flavors coupled with sophisticated production techniques and a spectacular live show, the Idan Raichel Project has become one of the most unexpected success stories in Israeli music today.

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Idan+Raichel+Project/

I whisper, ask in your ears:
Who is it that calls to you tonight – listen
who sings aloud to you under your window
who stakes his soul just for you to be happy
who will lend his hand to build you a home
who lay his life down underneath you
who like the earth at your feet shall live on
who will love you better than all your lovers
who will save you from all evil spirits
from the depths.

http://othejoys.blogspot.com/2008/06/mimaamakim.html

I gave my children names that are unusual only because of where we live in the world. There weren’t any Ruhullahs, Ruhiyyihs, Tarazullahs, and Rahmatullahs attending Downing Elementary School in Tacoma, Washington, besides my own children, I can assure you.  I gave them the names I did because I wanted them to be tough, like in the Johnny Cash song, “A Boy Named Sue” — “My name is Sue, how do you do!” I wanted them to reflect other Baha’i attributes, too, after their various namesakes. These children with unusual names are all grown up now.

For some odd reason, I just googled their names, first-name only. What I discovered is that three of my four children come up as page 1 results.

My daughter Ruhiyyih’s blog comes up as the 2nd result. The Wikipedia article for Ruhiyyih Khanum, who is my daughter’s namesake, comes up first. Her picture is to the right.

My son Tarazullah’s various sites come up as the 4th, 5th, and 6th and 10th entries. His namesake, Tarazullah Samandari,  here at the left, comes up in the 9th result.

My son Rahmatullah’s Myspace comes up as the 3rd result. Google “Rahmatullah Baha’i” and his site is the first result. A Baha’i news story mentioning Dr. Rahmatullah Muhajir, pictured to the right here, is listed 2nd.

My son Ruhullah, my oldest, is the newest on the Internet, having just gotten on Facebook. He’s not showing up yet if you Google his name. He is named after a martyr of the Baha’i Faith, Ruhullah Taymuri, who was killed on the front steps of his home while pioneering in Indonesia, if I recall, back around the time my son was born. I don’t have a picture of Ruhullah Taymuri.

It has always been my hope that my children will try to live up to their namesakes.

Below is the whole family, including my dear step-daughter Laurel, in a shot taken in 1984. -gw

Photos: Ruhiyyih Khanum, Baha’i Biblio. Mr Samandari, Baha’i Media Bank. Dr. Muhajir, Wikipedia.

This morning I read from Baha’i Pilgrimage by Allen and Taherzadeh, among a stack of books loaned to Bonita and me by Deb as we continue to prepare for our pilgrimage. I read of the period of 1901 to 1909 when “due to the machinations of His enemies ['Abdu'l-Baha] was again a prisoner within the city walls” of Akka. -gw

One of the most touching rooms in the house is the room of ‘Abdu’l-Baha Himself. … ‘Abdu’l-Baha worked untiringly here under very difficult circumstances.

“Eye-witnesses have testified that, during that agitated and perilous period of His life, they had known Him to pen, with His own Hand, no less than ninety Tablets in a single day, and to pass many a night, from dusk to dawn alone in His bed-chamber engaged in a correspondence which the pressure of His manifold responsibilities had prevented Him from attending to in the day-time.” 

Baha’i Pilgrimage by Allen and Taherzadeh, p. 102.

Photo: “The House of Abdullah Pasha from the Prison Cell,” uploaded on October 11, 2006 by Franco & Patria on flickr

“A life becomes meaningful when one sees himself or herself as an actor within the context of a story — be it a cultural tale, a religious narrative, a family saga.”

George Howard, Professor
Department of Psychology

University of Notre Dame

At the moment I can’t put my finger on the article from which this quote is drawn, but it resonates with my experience of being a Baha’i. Below are more quotes from the same source, as I recall. (Found this going through file drawers out in the garage last weekend.) -gw

“The set of stories (whether religious, scientific, political, family-based, etc.) that you choose to see as foundational in your life will profoundly shape the reality of your life.”

“Beware of the stories you tell yourself — for you surely will be lived by them.”

These are out of a compilation of quotations I put together back in the 90′s I called:

Postmodern News & Constructionist Views: The Psychology of Spirituality & the Faith of Baha’u'llah. -gw

Photo: Homer Term, uploaded on March 5, 2007 by andrew wilson smith on flickr

My children. Our humble abode. 1988 or 1989. Summertime. Tacoma. -gw