anonymous cowgirl » Baha’i

Campaign to drive Baha’is out of Iranian village

lev — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:16:23 +0000

Reprinted with permission of the Bahá’í International Community

The photo above was taken in Ivel, the same village where the following report takes place – from a similar act of violence two years ago. Baha’i World News Service reports:

GENEVA — Homes belonging to some 50 Baha’i families in a remote village in northern Iran have been demolished as part of a long-running campaign to expel them from the region.

The demolitions are the latest development in an ongoing, officially-sanctioned program in the area which has targeted every activity of the Baha’is.

“They’re being forbidden to associate with Muslims, or even offer service to their friends and neighbours,” said Diane Ala’i, representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations in Geneva.

“Even the smallest acts of good will – such as taking flowers to someone who’s sick in hospital or donating gifts to an orphanage – these are being seen as actions against the regime.”

Read the full story: Homes demolished in campaign to drive Baha’is out of Iranian village.

Junior youth empowerment training

lev — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:34:12 +0000

Reprinted with permission of the Bahá’í World Centre

On a 90 degree weekend, we tried to complete Unit 3 of Releasing the Powers of Junior Youth. Building off what we learned about training junior youth animators last week, here is an update on the second weekend:

Not everyone read all of Spirit of Faith during the week, so we split into small groups, each of which studied one section. Than we reconvened to share what we had learned. Participants who had been quiet in the big group ended up sharing wonderful insights in this smaller space. And the whole group developed a deeper appreciation for the material.
At the end of Unit 3, we split into groups with our co-animators to make plans. Each group made some kind of commitment to enter the field of service, and the tutors compiled a calendar of these pledges.
The participants are amazing individuals, all of whom are willing to contribute time and effort for the betterment of society. Adults often underestimate what young people are capable of doing, but it was clear from both weekends that these young people (age 14 to 60!) are amazing. Oh yeah – we had a 14 year old classmate of one of the participants come for the second weekend. She is a rising sophomore in high school, and she contributed a lot to that group’s planning discussion.
Pictures! There’s a small set of photos up on Flickr called Animator Training June 2010.

As we step into the field to visit with the junior youth, these words from the Universal House of Justice come to mind: “There is every indication that the programme engages their expanding consciousness in an exploration of reality that helps them to analyse the constructive and destructive forces operating in society and to recognize the influence these forces exert on their thoughts and actions.”

Things learned at junior youth empowerment training

lev — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:27:32 +0000

Reprinted with permission of the Bahá’í World Centre

This last weekend, we completed two units in Releasing the Power of Junior Youth, a training course for animators of junior youth groups. Here are a few things we learned:

Having a sense of purpose changes the environment of a study circle. When the participants are there because they intend to help adolescents contribute to the betterment of their communities, then everything we talk about – everything we read – everything we do – is in light of that commitment to study and action.
Preparation is super helpful! Tutors should get together beforehand and read through any material to be covered that day. Look for places in the text that may require a different pace, or a different approach to study. What are the major concepts or themes? Is there relevant guidance that might apply to discussions when they arise?
Youth will invite other youth! This has been one of the best parts. When participants are excited, they will invite their friends. Then the conversation is enriched with diverse expression.

Will share more after round 2 this weekend. Have you been in one of these trainings? What did you learn at yours?

One Baha’i perspective on children

lev — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:52:45 +0000

Took one of the youth to Greenacre Baha’i school on Friday. We had a brilliant time, visited with old friends, and definitely discovered some gems on the used books table, including “When We Grow Up,” by Bahiyyih Nakjhavani. The following paragraph, from the introduction of that book, suggests an understanding of childhood that recalls the poetry of A.A. Milne.

We have all been children. Maybe not all of us have been or will be parents, but we have all had the experience of being a child. No matter what race, what class, what culture we come from, we have all felt that peculiar smallness. We have watched the grown-ups come and go. We have tried to measure the meaning of our lives against their erratic and often contradictory motions.

False dichotomy: service and burnout in the Baha’i Faith

lev — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:32:03 +0000

Light My Fire 1 (CC / BY-NC-ND 2.0 by Daniel Y. Go)

Had a wonderful non-lunch with PJ Andrews yesterday. We talked about service, and it was just generally good to see him after a few months of not having done so. Toward the end of our visit, one topic that came up was the idea of burnout, and how you maintain the energy for service. I didn’t have a ready answer, and so we agreed that this was a topic we would continue to explore. I did express, though, a feeling that this notion of “burnout” felt wrong – today I might say it was somehow embedded in a false dichotomy, perhaps between service and relaxation, or altruism and self-interest.

What do you think? How do you feel about the idea of “burnout” with respect to service? Any idea why it doesn’t sit well with me?

Baha’i junior youth service project

lev — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:12:11 +0000

Lowell Mass-19.jpg (CC / BY-NC-ND 2.0 by Anne Ruthmann)

It is so beautiful outside today! Continuing our commitment to post every day throughout the Baha’i Fast, here is the promised report about the junior youth group’s service project.

Based on a visit to one of the homes of the junior youth, we had agreed to offer service with some of the elderly folks at the Community Family day center. It was a wonderful experience. We had prepared the previous week by making cards with the quotation “…let your heart burn with loving-kindness for all who may cross your path.” On the back of each card, the junior youth wrote questions about friendship, such as “What does friendship mean to you,” or “How have you experienced friendship in your life?” These questions tied in nicely with conversations we had been having within the junior youth group.

The staff and the elders at Community Family were happy to have us, and were very kind. We ended up having a productive conversation about friendship, and then the junior youth played some games with the elders.

After the activities, we walked home together and reflected about our experiences. One of the junior youth remarked that he wasn’t sure what the elders at the center really needed, and we talked about his understanding that service should be about the needs of other people – not about your own desires. We agreed that the best way to better understand the needs of the elders at the center would be to continue to get to know them by visiting and spending time with them.

Next week we will find out whether the junior youth want to continue this kind of service project, or focus on something else. But I have no doubt that they’ve demonstrated their capacity to act, reflect, and consult about making a difference in their community.

Utilitarianism: Chapter 3

lev — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:28:11 +0000

Mo Money Mo Problems

Time for a little more John Stuart Mills. The 3rd chapter of Utilitarianism is entitled “Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility.” I understand this to mean, “From where does the utilitarian principle derive its authority?” I admit to not really understanding Mills’ argument in this chapter. His basic point seems to be that any moral framework takes on a sense of authority when we are raised in it, and that the best sign of the authority of the utilitarian principle is that people who have some sense of unity with the whole – of care for the utility of others – deem it to be a worthwhile capacity.

The potential moral faculty

Mills makes an observation that we take the morals we have been raised in as though they were a part of our nature. So whatever moral principles we have been brought up with seem to take on the weight of brute facts – when in fact they are mutable. Mills imagines a future when “the feeling of unity with our fellow creatures shall be…as deeply rooted in our character, and to our own consciousness as completely a part of our nature, as the horror of crime is” to most people.

Having made this observation, he then proposes that the utilitarian principle requires no more or less proof than any other moral principle, and goes on to discuss both external and internal sanction. External sanction being the “hope of favour and the fear of displeasure from our fellow creatures or from the Ruler of the Universe.” As regards internal sanction, Mills discusses duty, and observes that “the ultimate [internal] sanction…of all morality… [is] a subjective feeling in our minds.” The idea that our thoughts about the world lie at the center of our moral principles is compelling. As we generate knowledge, as our consciousness about the world is raised, this changes our morality.

Utilitarianism and the advancement of civilization

Mills does believe that the utilitarian principle has a ‘natural’ basis. He locates this natural sentiment in the “social feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures.” He refers to it as strengthened by and contingent upon the continued advancement of society.

“In an improving state of the human mind, the influences are constantly on the increase, which tend to generate in each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which feeling, if perfect, would make him never think of, or desire, any beneficial condition for himself, in the benefits to which they are not included. If we now suppose this feeling of unity to be taught as a religion, and the whole force of education, of institutions, and of opinion, directed, as it once was in the case of religion, to make every person grow up from infancy surrounded on all sides both by the profession and by the practice of it, I think that no one, who can realize this conception, will feel any misgiving about the sufficiency of the ultimate sanction of the Happiness morality.”

“He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence.”

A note on capacity

In examining from where the utilitarian principle derives its authority, Mills talks about “the moral faculty” in terms of human capacity. We are not born displaying the moral faculty, but we have the capacity to develop a sense of ourselves as part of the whole – a sense of caring about the well-being of others. Mills discusses other “acquired faculties” such as speech, reason, farming and the building of cities. All acquired faculties are “susceptible of being brought by cultivation to a high degree of development. Unhappily it is also susceptible, by a sufficient use of the external sanctions and of the force of early impressions, of being cultivated in almost any direction.”

Reflection

The topic of sanction or the authority of a moral framework is a compelling idea. In the Baha’i Faith, something is true – something derives its binding force – because the Manifestation of God is writing the world anew through His pen. Reality is literally reshaped by the Word of God. So that’s why unity is important, why justice is important within that framework.

It seems, in part, that Mills addressed the sanction of the utilitarian principle precisely because he felt a need to defend the framework against criticism. What does it mean to discuss sanction in today’s work? The very idea of authority is looked at with mistrust in post-modern thought. As our book group continues studying Revelation and Social Reality, that book may offer some useful ways forward.

Weekly Web Round-up: Baha’i Children’s Classes, Swirled Babies, and how to darn a sock

lev — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:07:42 +0000

Let’s see… what do we have for you this week.

Wondering what all these neighborhood children’s classes are about? Look no further than Dan Jones’ Baha’i Children’s Class Ideas. The goal is “to foster learning about neighbourhood children’s classes as a core activity, through a process of action, reflection and consultation.”
Over at Baha’i Thought, Phillipe continues to investigate an increasingly swirled world. In particular, international marriages (and babies) in South Korea.
A good description of how to darn a sock over at Skona Life. Also a more in-depth tutorial on darning socks at craftzine.com.

Junior youth spiritual empowerment: Baha’i social action

lev — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:49:05 +0000

Last Saturday, the junior youth group in Lowell got together. We said a prayer, and then took a walk down by the canal, which had recently been emptied. M. talked about wanting to make the neighborhood better for her younger siblings and for the other children. Over the course of the conversation, we identified two lines of action:

Offering homework help on Fridays to the younger kids
Helping with children’s classes on the weekend

So it looks like M. will start helping us teach children’s classes! When we finally got down to the canal, Negin noticed a purse with its contents strewn about the path. While M. and I talked about the power of expression and how it can be used to transform the world, Negin was quietly sorting through the contents of the purse. When we walked over to her, she explained that the purse could have been stolen, and M. decided that we should try to contact the owner. When that proved difficult, we set out to drop the purse off at the police station and explain what we had found.

We could tell M. was excited and nervous about actively engaging in this endeavor. During the walk over, she practiced explaining what we had found. Watching her gather up the courage to talk to the police officer was very inspiring, and seeing the excitement on her face after following through on her commitment was even better.

We hope that in a small way, M. saw how the power of expression can be used to make our communities better.

Blog Action Day: Climate change, a Baha’i perspective

lev — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:35:59 +0000

Today is Blog Action Day 2009, a day for bloggers all over the world to focus their collective work on a single topic. This year: climate change. Here at Anonymous Cowgirl, we’re continuing an examination of individual and institutional action, the Baha’i Faith, and how it all relates to climate change.

Still mulling over yesterday’s post on the connection between individual and social transformation and a post from almost two years ago, “WorldChanging and the End of Earth Day.” In that older post, we examined WorldChanging’s concept of “the myth of individual responsibility.” The basic argument was that we’ve become so focused on what individuals can do – recycle, drive less, eat less meat, use less water, and so on – that we’ve forgotten the concerted institutional change that drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require. The unrelenting focus on personal responsibility clouded our minds to the structural changes that were needed, according to the good folk at WorldChanging.

Wary as always of dichotomous thinking, we now have to ask whether the way forward on climate change won’t require some synthesis of individual action and institutional change. If reality is one, how do these two spheres of action fit together into a coherent whole?

If the only action I take is to reduce my own greenhouse emissions through eating less meat or driving less, then small island nations like Tuvalu (some Tuvalan residents pictured above) will still be subsumed by rising sea levels. But can our existing social institutions really rise to the challenge of climate change? I suspect a way forward lies in the concept of “walking a path of service.” From the Ruhi Institute:

According to this vision of social change, the Ruhi Institute directs its present efforts to develop human resources within a set of activities that conduce to spiritual and intellectual growth, but are carried out in the context of each individualâ€™s contribution to the establishment of new structures, whether in villages and rural regions or in large urban centers.

At this moment in history, Baha’i social action is largely focused at the neighborhood scale. Visiting neighbors in each others’ homes to share stories, caring for the intellectual and spiritual development of children, empowering young people to contribute to the betterment of the community. But within these efforts are the seeds of new social structures.

I guess my conclusion is that we’re going to see more bad times before it gets better. Drought is real; rising sea levels are real; 7 billion of us are spewing CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Until we develop both the individual discipline and the institutional cooperation needed to address climate change, we won’t see many improvements there. But if we want our social institutions to function better, we need to start walking a path of service today that lays the foundation for new social structures.