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A Special Visit to the Baha'i National Center
November 17, 4:55 PM Topeka Bahai Examiner Duane Herrmann

This past weekend four members of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Shawnee County (the governing council of the Baha’i community surrounding Topeka) participated in the “Special Visit” program to the Baha’i National Center. The National Center is in Evanston and Wilmette, IL where the Baha’i House of Worship for North America is located, north of Chicago. This program is sponsored by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States, the national governing coucil.
The purpose of the program is to deepen the knowledge of members of local Spiritual Assemblies about the functioning of various offices of the national center. Local councils and offices of the national center work together to administer the affairs of the local Baha’i community. Communication is usually by letter, phone or email. The Special Visit program provides a comprehensive face-to-face communication.
Presentation were made by various offices about their functions. These were given by the Office of Communications (publications of the National Assembly and news media relations), the Office of Fund Development (long range financial planning), the Office of the Treasurer (current financial operations), the National Teaching Office (regarding efforts to share news of the Baha’i Faith with the public), the House of Worship Activities Office (regarding programs at the House of Worship), the House of Worship Restoration Project (updates on progress, past the half way mark, and construction of a new Visitors Center, to begin next year), the Office of Assembly Development (to assist the functioning of local Spiritual Assemblies), and the Office of Community Administration (dealing with issues of Baha’i law).
After the presentations, participants were encouraged to personally visit those and other offices if they had more questions or concerns. The Shawnee County members took advantage of this to register their new, recently elected Secretary: Mary St. John, and Treasurer: Dr. Mark Herrmann. And another address problem was cleared up.
Those attending the program were given a special tour of the Baha’i House of Worship to see progress in the restoration. The most visible undertaking of the restoration is the replacing of the nineteen monumental stairs that encircle the structure and the plaza or apron at their base. The harsh Chicago winters had caused significant deterioration of the steps and the nearly century-old waterproofing was no longer viable.
To expand usable space in the foundation area the back-fill under the apron was excavated and that area enclosed to become part of the foundation space. That has now become a new foundation encircling the original building and is devoted to the new heating and cooling system as well as the pumps and electrical service for the nine fountains in the nine gardens surrounding the building. Computer monitored wind sensors were installed in the fountains so that high winds will no longer send water drenching those walking in the gardens. Such equipment did not exist when the original fountains were install over half a century ago. Reflection pools at the two main entrances, called for in the original plans, have now been installed, one with a waterfall.
Status of the construction of the next Continental Baha’i House of Worship, near Santiago,Chile was also shared. Clear title to the land has been obtained and foundation work is beginning. Fabrication of components of the structure has begun in Canada where the architect is located. The building will utilize panels of pressed glass and alabaster on steel framework. Sunlight will enter the building from all angles during the day and radiate light at night. It will glow in the dark!
Just as the House of Worship in Wilmette stretched the technological limits of the day (it was the first building to be made of pre-cast concrete panels, among other things), the Santiago House of Worship is pushing the limits of current technology (a building of glass and alabaster in an earthquake zone!)
A special exhibit was arranged for participants by the Baha’i National Archives. This exhibit included an illuminated Tablet written by Baha’u’llah, Prophet-Founder of the Baha’i Faith, several letters written to American Baha’is by ‘Abdu’l-Baha, son of Baha’u’llah and Center of the Baha’i Covenant as well as other items.
This Special Visit program is held only three times a year for members of half a dozen local Spiritual Assemblies. Members of the Shawnee County Assembly felt privileged to participate.


Say: O peoples of the earth! Destroy the abodes of negligence with the hands of power and assurance, and raise up the mansions of true knowledge within your hearts, that the All-Merciful may shed the radiance of His light upon them. Better is this for you than all whereon the sun shineth, and unto this beareth witness He Who holdeth within His grasp the ultimate decree. The Breeze of God hath been wafted over the world at the advent of the Desired One in His great glory, whereupon every stone and clod of earth hath cried out: "The Promised One is come! The Kingdom is God's, the Mighty, the Gracious, the Forgiving."

Baha'u'llah
The Seven Valleys, p. 23

Emily's pedalling for peace
Liina Flynn | 12th November 2009

Emily Alexander from Tuntable Creek is pedalling for peace. She’ll be cycling from Sydney to Melbourne on November 24 with three other teenagers as part of a mission to promote religious and cultural awareness.
“I’m of the Baha’i faith and the others I’ll be riding with are Christian, Jewish and Muslim,” Emily said. “Baha’is believe that everything is one – one planet, one people is what we say.
“This journey is an ideal opportunity for me to put my beliefs into action and turn my words into deeds. By the end of it, I’ll be close friends with the other riders from different religions and we can show the world that we can overcome potential prejudices.
“For me, the entire problem with the world is the lack of togetherness, unity and diversity. I want to raise awareness and enable people to understand that we all have to work together.”
Once they arrive in Melbourne, the group will attend the Parliament of World Religions, which is held once every five years.
“This year it’s being held in Australia and it’s going to be the biggest one yet with 11,000 people attending,” Emily said.
The group will cycle about four hours every day and then stop and conduct educational programs at schools along the way.
“We have two support crew and they are both student filmmakers,” she said. “They’ll drive us to the schools and be filming us all the time. Then they’ll make a movie about the trip which we’ll show at the Parliament of World Religions.”
Each of the riders has to raise $1000 in funds for the trip and Emily is looking for contributions. To make a donation, visit www.everydayhero.com.au
/pedallingforpeace and follow the link to Emily’s name. Alternatively, you can email her at emilyralexander@googlemail.com.
A garage sale will also be held this Saturday, November 14, at 12 Eden St, East Lismore, to raise money for the trip.
“There is an environmental aspect to this trip too,” she said. “The whole trip is carbon neutral and will be offset by a company we’ve paid money to. I’m not a professional bike rider but I’m enthusiastic – there’s more to this trip than just the ride,” she said. “I’ve been training to get into shape for the journey. It’s a big physical challenge for me, but I know there’s a support crew there the whole way.”

Say: O peoples of the earth! Destroy the abodes of negligence with the hands of power and assurance, and raise up the mansions of true knowledge within your hearts, that the All-Merciful may shed the radiance of His light upon them. Better is this for you than all whereon the sun shineth, and unto this beareth witness He Who holdeth within His grasp the ultimate decree. The Breeze of God hath been wafted over the world at the advent of the Desired One in His great glory, whereupon every stone and clod of earth hath cried out: "The Promised One is come! The Kingdom is God's, the Mighty, the Gracious, the Forgiving."

Baha'u'llah
The Seven Valleys, p. 23

FAITH IN ACTION
By Katherine Marshall
Last Friday evening, in the quiet sanctuary of an old Catholic church in Brooklyn, a group gathered to talk about a community that works globally for peace and social justice, the Rome-based Community of Sant'Egidio. To understand this group, you have to explore the interwoven notions that they see as their special mark: prayer, friendship, and community.
Earlier that week, I had a conversation with Homa Sabet Tavangar about the challenges of giving today's children a sense that they belong to a common world community at the same time that they understand and savor diverse cultures. Her new book, "Growing up Global: Raising Children to be at Home in the World," is full of ideas for introducing children to the interconnected world they live in. Homa's vision and strength come in part from being part of the Baha'i community, whose members are scattered to the far corners of the world.
These two concepts of community -- Sant'Egidio and Baha'i -- are robust yet complex. In both instances, the sense of membership is strong but there's no signing on the dotted line. Both communities are grounded in faith but see themselves as profoundly part of the larger world, with responsibilities that call them to act on their beliefs, at both local and global levels.
The Community of Sant'Egidio has grown from a small group of high school students to something akin to a federation of locally grounded groups, in some 70 countries. Friendship is a word they use constantly. What they mean by it is a robust type of friendship that is deeply welcoming but not cloying. It encompasses humor, joy in life, and profound caring. Friendship is what draws the community to people who are lonely and excluded, down to living on the street or fleeing from war. They care, and show their caring by the time they spend and the true bond of knowing and appreciating each individual. The community is clearly religious - daily prayer is a central feature - and proudly Catholic. But they are grounded in the earth's problems and skilled in its very secular politics. One senior cleric said to me: "They are what we would like the Church to be."
The Baha'i community that Homa describes is a diverse group (with only about 5 million members worldwide) that, in whatever far flung corner, welcomes and supports those who are born into or adopt the faith. Baha'is have no clergy and no formal rituals, so much of this welcome takes place in homes. Once again, this personal quality of caring is something that conveys the sense of a community that transcends boundaries. The Baha'i belief in the oneness of mankind, in the common values among faiths, of true equality of men and women, lends the community a palpable sense of belonging and of mission, one that encompasses both the spiritual and the secular. The Baha'i are among the faith traditions who are most active in international settings, bringing always their belief that human rights are an integral part of their faith. At a time when understandings of what gender equality really means for daily life are rather convoluted in various faith traditions, the Baha'i conviction that equality means equality is striking.
Religious communities are extraordinarily diverse, of course, and the question of who belongs and what that suggests about those who do not is never easy to answer. Homa and I agreed that of all dimensions of diversity, differences in belief may be the hardest to address. What people believe is often deeply emotional, and deeply part of how they see their identity, on many dimensions. That challenge, however, makes it doubly important to reflect on how to balance belonging and exclusion, diverse community and common purpose. That's what gives the reflections about community by Sant'Egidio and the Baha'is a special significance.
Community is a common term these days but it's not always easy to pin down exactly what it really means. We are, most of us, part of several or many communities, bound by threads that are loose or strong. The language of community can be at the same time as familiar as the street sounds of Brooklyn and as elusive as the soft mutterings of a forgotten foreign language. Community is, in the first instance, the counter to the alienating anonymity that is so easy today, whether the individual is lost on a busy city street, lacking the identity papers that allow them to study or get a job, or dying in an isolated hut of HIV/AIDS or shamed by fistula.
Community is about friendship and caring. It is also about shared beliefs and sense of purpose. Community is one of the great gifts of religious traditions, offering welcome and comfort, and a sense of belonging. Within that framework, the robust, articulate, and welcoming ideas of community that come from two very different faith traditions and histories - the Community of Sant'Egidio and the Baha'i faith - offer a flash of welcome insight into what the social capital of religion can represent.
Katherine Marshall is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, a Visiting Professor, and a senior adviser for the World Bank.

Today the call of the Kingdom is the magnetic power which draweth to itself the world of mankind, for capacity in men is great. Divine teachings constitute the spirit of this age, nay rather the sun of this age. Every soul must endeavor that the veils that cover men’s eyes may be torn asunder and that instantly the sun may be seen and that heart and sight may be illumined thereby. Now, through the aid and bounty of God, this power of guidance and this merciful bestowal are found in thee. Arise, therefore, in the utmost Power that thou mayest bestow spirit upon moldering bones, give sight to the blind, balm and freshness to the depressed, and liveliness and grace to the dispirited. Every lamp will eventually be extinguished save the lamp of the Kingdom, which increaseth day by day in splendor.

Abdu’l-Bah
Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bah 310

Will Social Conservativism Go Quietly?
05 OCTOBER 2009

Republicans Back Away From Social Issues

The top of the front page headline story in the Denver Post in yesterday's Sunday paper proclaimed that the Colorado Republican Party was putting social issues on the back burner to focus on the economy, noting:
• A wider acceptance, or political indifference, to formerly taboo topics such as gay marriage.

• A realization that the GOP must broaden its appeal after drubbings in the past three elections in Colorado.

Social issues were rarely mentioned when nearly 400 Republicans gathered at Keystone last month to hear from candidates for U.S. Senate and governor. . . .

Statistician Nate Silver, who operates the FiveThirtyEight blog, points out that at the national Value Voters' summit last month, abortion ranked first among issues of concern to straw-poll voters, getting 41 percent of the vote.

Protection of religious liberty was second with 18 percent, and opposition to same-sex marriage was third at 7 percent.

Two years ago at the same event, sponsored by the Family Research Council, gay marriage was the top choice of 20 percent of the attendees.

GOP consultant Mike Murphy, in a Time magazine essay in June, said the party needs to be more socially libertarian, especially toward gay rights, to attract young voters.

"With changing demographics come changing attitudes, and aping the grim town elders from (the movie) 'Footloose' is not the path back to a Republican White House," Murphy wrote.


Faith Gets Mushy

I don't usually think much of the Parade supplement in the Sunday paper (I call it the "Stupid Pages" because its analysis is often shallow), but its poll on spirituality described by Christine Wicker in her story "How Spiritual Are We?" was notable for showing the mushiest Christian scene in the United States that I've seen after following these polls for decades.

The poll showed that 69% of Americans believe in God, 7% aren't sure if God exists, 5% don't believe in God, and 19% have some other answer to that question. About 12% don't believe in an afterlife. About 12% say no religion is valid.

About 23% don't pray outside religious services, and about 25% don't believe it's a parent's responsibility to give children a religious upbringing. About 24% see themselves as "spiritual but not religious." About 22% say that religion is not a factor in their lives; another 22% said that religion was "in their lives but not particularly important." About 41% of Americans say that religion has too often led to war and suffering. About 50% say that they attend religious services rarely or never. 59% say that all religions are valid and 58% think that religion and politics should not mix. About 22% would consider converting to another religion, and 82% said that they would consider marrying someone of a different faith.

About 12% of people say only their religion is valid, and only about 11% of people pray because they feel that God expects them to pray. About 15% say religion should be a key factor in political decisions. About 17% of Americans would go to a spiritual leader for guidance with a problem. About 30% of Americans say they attend religious services once a week or more often, although probably only half of them are telling the truth. About 45% see themselves as religious, but one-thirds or more of them don't attend religious services weekly. During the recession, more people are going to religious services less often than are going more often, and only one in six people have changed their religious attendance in the Great Recession.

In sum, historically tiny ranks of hard core non-believers now rivals the number of hard core people of faith. Less than half of Americans are definitely religious (perhaps closer to a third), while almost a quarter of Americans have dropped out of organized Christianity.

The beliefs of the majority of Americans are in line with the doctrines of Free Masonry and the Baha'i: God exists, all religions have validity, and religious toleration is best. This isn't the outright secularism that has become dominant in most of Europe, and is the leading alternative to the dominant faith in both the Islamic world and Israel. Only about a quarter of Americans are secular to that extent, those who are actively non-religious make up only about half of them, with the rest simply being overwhelming apathetic about religious belief systems as coherent as Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Younger people in areas where hard core Christianity was once dominant are assimilating the more amorphous national culture. Outside those places, middle aged people have already done so.
….


Lift up your voices and sing out the song of the Kingdom. Spread far and wide the precepts and counsels of the loving Lord, so that this world will change into another world, and this darksome earth will be flooded with light, and the dead body of mankind will arise and live; so that every soul will ask for immortality, through the holy breaths of God."

Abdu'l-Baha
Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 1