| Initiative |
| Bahai Angst posted the essay below on a members only list. It seemed to strike a chord with some people and it is now also on Beliefnet. Feel free to comment on the essay. You can send your comments to Baha'i Angst and we'll post them to the site. Again, we do not post people's identities (unless they say it is okay), and we do not give out email addresses. |
| Reform from within by petitioning the current powers and asking for table scraps here and there is a proven failure. Even the simplest of reforms such as term limits on Assembly membership or staggering terms, or increasing the number of members on the Assembly are out of reach. In the meantime the AO consumes the time, money, and energy of the Baha'is through its ridiculous spending projects, it's teaching fetish, and it's demands that Baha'is get involved in "institutes", and in the U.S., the two year study program that is about half-way through at this point. When it's over there will be something else. Add to this the fact that there is some Baha'i event that the communities have to commemorate about every 15 minutes, and you end up with most people dropping out of the race, a few haggard souls still plodding along, and a bunch of apparatchiks who get off on this sort of thing leading the way and making everyone else feel guilty. Baha'is in the United States need to stop going to committee meetings and stop contributing to the Baha'i funds, and especially must stop providing any funds that go to National or the UHJ. The time and money saved should be spent trying to do some real good in the cities and towns in which they live. I cannot stress this too much and I will stress it more below. Baha'is in major metropolitan areas especially, in places where there are enough Baha'is that significant groups can come together, should meet together and discuss what they would like to do as individuals and as groups to demonstrate how their faith has motivated them to help their fellow men. They should also try to establish real worship services, outside of anything sponsored by their assemblies, where they come together and for prayer and worship in the spirit outlined in the Writings, and point- blank referred to by Shoghi Effendi, and draw upon that spiritual power as their most unfailing support for their efforts to do something truly meaningful in their lives. When you and your like minded Baha'i friends get together for your mashriq meetings, include the provisional translations of the Writings in your study and devotions. Many have been done now, and they've been done by academics from all ends of the spectrum, from the far right to the far left. You can benefit from all of them. Sure, no translation is perfect, so what? Read the Tablet of Ayub or the Tablet of the Maiden or any one of the many translations that are there for all to see on the web. See if these offer you any new insights. If you have questions, contact the translators themselves, no doubt most would be thrilled to hear from you. Most can easily be reached on the web. Get "I Beheld a Maiden" by Terry Culhane from Kalimat Press (http://www.kalimat.com/). All you need is one copy for your group. Read even one chapter and discuss it together. See if it affects what you want to do. I'm sure Mr. Culhane can also be reached through Kalimat and would be delilghted to receive inquiries about his work from you. All this does not mean that you should not continue to go to Feast. Go to Feast, be friendly and gracious, not contentious. But if you are so moved, tell the treasurer during the business portion that you think funds are better spent elsewhere, give examples, tell them you are putting your money in other directions. Be nice about it. But no more money for Baha'i funds. And no more teaching committee meetings, holy day committees, or ayyam-i ha party committees. No more assembly meetings. Cut out all that stuff and suddenly you will have time to apply Baha'u'llah's teachings out in the real world, where they were meant to be applied. Start out slowly, do small things. One church I know asks people to prepare simple foods, sometimes just sandwiches, and then hands them to homeless people walking the street. Invite two or three like minded people over, make a bunch of sandwiches, and deliver them to homeless people, or at least take food to a place which distributes it. Work in a soup kitchen, work as a volunteer in a hospital. Very simple, practical things. You'll feel better about yourself for doing so. When people ask you why you are doing it, tell them. Again, it's probably good for your own morale to have at least one Baha'i with you when you do these things. There are so many needs. Shelters for battered woman and children, crisis hotline centers, elderly people who need rides to the store, health clinics that need volunteers, and so much more. It doesn't matter where you start. Think about what you want to do, say a Remover of Difficulties, and then start doing it. If you find you have more than two or three Baha'is in your community who are interested in these sorts of things, and in major metropolitan areas that shouldn't be a problem, get yourselves a bank account and put the money you'd give to the fund in that account instead. Get incorporated, think about also getting non-profit status. Use that money for mutually agreed upon good works. Again, do this outside of the realm of the LSA. You don't even have to name your group with some sort of Baha'i name. The LSA does not control you. Announce what you are doing on line. It wouldn't take much to get what you are doing posted to dozens of Baha'i related websites and mailing lists. Use the net to network with other like minded people, learn from them, and give them your lessons learned. Don't over plan. Get the ball rolling and let things develop on their own. Take your time. The Tablet of Ayub mentioned above is also called the Sura of Patience. Be patient, get moving. Again, no more Baha'i committee meetings, no more money to Baha'i funds. No doubt you'll want to think of exceptions, and maybe once in a while there will be one that is a legitimate exception, but forget it for now. Put your time and resources into doing something good, something that meets people's real needs. Network with non-Baha'i groups, get involved with them. Many religious and civic groups are deeply involved in community affairs and do a tremendous amount of good work. But the need is so so great in so many areas, that they are thrilled to get volunteers in any one of a number of fields. Join with them, even in, or especially in, projects that these groups are running. Do not try to get them to help you out with disguised Baha'i proclamation events like Race Unity Day. In fact, you can learn a great deal about how to do your own projects this way, through working with other groups who know what they are doing, and you can establish valuable contacts. But do not forget, you are doing these things not to get converts, you are doing these things to serve your fellow human beings. In the process, you will grow as well, and you will derive great satisfaction from that fact. If your interests are international, great. There are many fine religious and secular organizations that do great work on international issues that should interest Baha'is. In fact, the Baha'i Faith ought to be down right embarrassed by its silence on so many issues of crucial importance and its mealy mouthed rhetoric on the very limited number of issues that the AO does address. Go to the the Baha'i human rights page (http://www.us.bahai.org/extaffairs/extaffairs_index.html) and compare it with the pages of the American Friends Service Committee (http://www.afsc.org/), Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty-usa.org/), or Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/). Baha'is ought to be disgusted by the disparities. But this is what happens in a religion that is completely top down, where even "individual initiative" comes down as if it were an order from God himself. By the way, you can work with Amnesty International, you just can't become a member. Fine, go to an Amnesty meeting, learn what they are about, and pay them membership dues, but don't join. Call it a contribution. And then get to work. Amnesty is a serious organization and it needs volunteers who do more than sit around tables dreaming about world peace and eating ho ho's. The same is true for the AFSC and HRW, visit those pages. And don't let the AO take control of the international human rights scene as far as Baha'is are concerned. About the only outfit less qualified for such a role is the Taleban. Again, no money for the funds, for the Arc or whatever the hell the next project will be called, no money for the kingdum fund. They'll just squander it on crap like the Baha'i human rights page mentioned above – and that's if you are lucky. A word on the Faith's teaching fetish. Virtually anything that the AO demands of the rank and file is dressed in the garment of teaching. "Teach You Bastards" will probably some day be the title of a book by the UHJ. I believe it is because so much Baha'i physical, mental, and fiscal energy is poured into finding ways to get converts, virtually no project is done without the hidden goal of getting people to sign cards, that we find that the Faith isn't growing, certainly not in the U.S. The AO's obsession with teaching reminds me of the movie "Play Misty for Me" where this nut case woman becomes more and more obsessed with getting her man, finally to the point where she tries to kill him and ends up instead getting killed herself. The teaching obsession is one of the real killers of this faith. Please pick up the Iqan now and read the introductory paragraph – no not the one by Shoghi Effendi, the one by Baha'u'llah. Thank you. It's only through detachment that the Faith will grow. And that detachment is best exemplified in the "spirit of disinterested service" Shoghi Effendi talked about. Teaching for teaching's sake, and that's all the community does, is not disinterested service. It leads to many conflicts of interest, not the least of which is all the mystery surrounding Baha'i statistics. Expect some hassles from your local community and the AO. Take these as a sign that you must be doing something right. Do not put up with any inquisitions from ABM's. I recommend not meeting with them at all. Others recommend that you tell the ABM's or their assistants, or whomever, that you will tape the conversations for future reference. Most will stop once you say that. Still, you may get other hassles, be prepared for it, but don't worry about it. If you are hassled there are now avenues for support and advice on the internet. Also, in the real world, even in organizations doing great things, you will come across a good deal of unethical behavior, lying, stealing, and so forth. Welcome to the human race. Do not let it get you down. I once read an article about a professional human rights worker who has worked for years in camps in countries where there has been famine or civil war or both. He has clearly seen just about everything. He was quoted as saying "People are shit." But he was still out there trying to save lives. And I think that is the hardest part, to get over idealizing human beings and still do what we know we in our hearts we should do. "Noble I created thee . . ." So these are the things, said so unwell, that I think the Baha'is must do, not just to save their religion, in fact that is a most secondary consideration, but in order to live something even approximating a Baha'i life, a life of one who believes in Mirza Husayn Ali. In so doing, the religion might be salvageable too, though that remains uncertain. I doubt the members of the Baha'i community in this country are up to the task, ensconced as they are in the trappings of their religion, and in consideration of the difficulties of leaving the comfort zone of Baha'i meetings. The world is such a mess, the AO is an irrelevancy, and the faith is probably shrinking. Doing what I've outlined above is no doubt virtually impossible. But there is only one to find out. And there may be some hope. Baha'u'llah says, in a tablet of his that I believe has not yet been officially translated, "Grieve not over any thing. Rely upon God, for He will aid in the service of His Cause whomever he willeth." May you be among those he wills to aid. Baha'i Angst |