Vows and Proofs

Vows and Proofs

By John Taylor; 30 January, 2006

The prayer from Baha'u'llah that was part of my morning ablutions
today included this petition:

"Write us up, then, with those who have fulfilled their pledge to Thy
Covenant in Thy days, and who, through their love for Thee, have
detached themselves from the world and all that is therein." (Prayers
and Meditations, 174)

It asks not for the usual steadfastness in the Covenant but to be able
to plan it, live it out, and fulfill vows in it. My pledge over the
past year has been to build up my health, and I have not been entirely
unsuccessful. Fortunately, food is cheap these days; if you can slough
off the advertising sirens (see the mention of detachment in the above
prayer), we can eat better now on a smaller budget than any time in
history. I realized last year that I had no excuse not to eat as well
or better than 99 percent of our ancestors.

As the Badi' faithful know, I restrict myself to one recipe, gazpacho
soup, hence my nickname, Gazpacho Guy. I have little time and energy,
so I keep it simple. I make a quick gazpacho, it takes a couple of
hours to prepare a batch that supplements three meals a day for at
least a week. To save more time, I dip a mug into the pot rather than
ladling it into a bowl. Over five months I have become a fairly expert
gazpacho cook -- if "cook" is the word since there is no cooking, it
is a cold soup. A big pot sits in our fridge most of the time. Even
when Mom makes her kid friendly meals my bowl of gazpacho weakens my
appetite and I take only a token portion. Not that anyone partaking of
my soup would be impressed by the taste, for I am no gourmet; I cook
for health not taste. I have added to the basic gazpacho ingredients
of tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, onions, olive oil and apple cider
vinegar. Now I include, well, basically whatever I see turning up in
studies as beneficial. That means heaps of garlic in every batch for
one thing. My breath, even with all the parsley I throw into the mix,
is powerful enough to melt non-ferric metals with a single puff. But I
do not care. It feels good, this permanent taste of garlic. It marches
like an army in my mouth, sinking into soft tissues like the claws of
a purring cat. It feels like health.

Another big hurdle I surmounted was the sorry lack of exercise in my
routine. Energized by the gazpacho, I now go for a one hour walk out
to Taylor Road and back (about three clicks) every morning. Then after
work in the afternoon I practice table tennis in the garage, another
hour. I find that ping pong is the only aerobic exercise that captures
my interest enough to continue at it. My stationary bicycle remains in
the garage, unused. In fact I have become so enthusiastic about my new
sport that my difficulty is limiting it. Left on its own my brain
would rehearse overhand table tennis shots full time, over and over.
To cure me of that, I go to my Mac Mini to play a few chess games on
its Gnu Chess program. Being crushed at chess by an object smaller
than a cereal box somehow restores my mental balance and after that I
can go on to other things.

None of this enthusiasm for table tennis would be happening now if it
were not for the new friend I made last year at the Wainfleet
Philosopher's Cafe, Stu. He comes twice weekly to the Youth Center and
we have built up quite a little rivalry on both the chessboard and the
table tennis table. Stu comes on Thursdays for a homework club; as a
retired grade school teacher he helps our children and several others
with homework. On Friday he runs a chess club in the Youth Center, but
lately nobody has turned up and we devote our time to our chess and
table tennis matches. He is a much more experienced ping pong player,
smart and flexible. Until recently I suspected that he was holding
back from utterly humiliating me. On the chess board we are as even as
two players can be, sometimes I dominate and sometimes he does.

For a couple of years I practiced table tennis off and on at the youth
center. Not having much game experience, whenever even casual
onlookers challenged me to a game, they would crush me. Then Stu gave
me a focus. I began more regular practice. Years before I had bought a
table tennis table from Dominic, the founder of the Youth Center not
long before he died. It sat idle in the garage until a couple weeks
ago when I broke it out and practiced there daily in order to get an
edge on Stu. I was making little improvement until a believer from
Smithville, Dale, came over to buy a lathe in the garage. He noticed
the table and though he had not played for years he agreed to a game.
Dale, turned out to be in a wholly different league from anything I
had experienced. He has a frightening ability to propel the ball to
near-supersonic speeds. I found myself flinching and even ducking when
a smash came too close. Once he missed the table and it hit my leg,
and the ball stung like a bee, even through thick jeans. Of course,
after a few minutes of readjustment he blew me off the table -- though
like a good Baha'i, never without an encouraging word. But the thing
is that I am the sort that thrives on defeat. Now my game has gone
into "post-Dale" mode. Do not tell Stu this, but I play my best when
certain defeat is hanging over my head. Why else would I even be here,
alive, writing to you? Though Dale has not come back yet for a
promised rematch, the very fact that such a player exists and could
come any time has improved me immensely. I am catching up to Stu in
our win-loss tally. Best of all, now when a casual non-player sees me
practicing at the youth center and challenges me to a game, I do not
lose. My serves come over too fast and curvy to return. Thank God for
small mercies...

I have been doing a little research on table tennis. One website
claims that it is the second most popular sport in the world, after
soccer. How could that be? thought I. I cannot find a table tennis
club within an hour's drive of here, nor have I ever seen a single
match on television. What are they talking about? Then I realized. Of
course, China. A billion enthusiasts make a difference. I also read on
the net an amusing account of a better-than-average North American
club player who happened to travel to a Japanese school. He met some
eleven year old girls who were playing table tennis, all the age of my
daughter Silvie. When he challenged them to a game they all won
easily. He noticed that before each match they engaged in a little
game using hands and fingers. When they had finished, one or the other
would come over to play him. Later on, he asked them what they had
been doing.

"We were deciding who would play with you."
"You mean the winner got to play?"
"No," they answered, embarrassed, "The loser."

It seems that the level of play here will have to make big strides
before it can touch a Japanese schoolgirl.

I had written the above and was proofreading when Silvie came along
and pointed out several errors, including spelling slips and the wrong
date. With each correction she would gleefully exclaim: "The spoiler
strikes again." Well, keep it up, spoiler, you may have a future as a
copy editor.

Before I go on to our reading for this morning from the Bab's Seven
Proofs, let us note a newspaper report. Although the new Pope Benedict
has gone out of his way not to innovate like his predecessor, one
commentator noticed that while addressing the Jews of Rome he called
Jews "the people of Israel." This was an apparent shift from a
long-held dogma that Catholics replaced Jews as the people of God. ("A
pope who trusts in basics," Daniel Williams, Hamilton Spectator,
January 28, 2006, D16) Be that as it may, the Qu'ran too made that
concession quite a long time ago. It confers upon the Jews that
crucial title, given by God Himself to Abraham, notably in the third
verse of its 17th Surih,

"And we gave the Book to Moses and ordained it for guidance to the
children of Israel - `that ye take no other Guardian than me.'"
(Rodwell)

The Bab in the Seven Proofs (Dala'il-i-Sab'ih) singles out this verse
and actually renames the 17th Chapter of the Quran, "The Children of
Israel" despite its commonly recognized name, "The Night Journey."
Speaking of the question of proofs of validity in religion, the Bab
cites another passage from this 17th Surih,

"The evidences which the people demanded from the Apostle of God
through their idle fancy have mostly been rejected in the Qur'an, even
as in the Surih of the Children of Israel it hath been revealed..."
(Selections, 121-122)

The verse from this chapter of the Qu'ran (17:92) that the Bab then
cites details a long list of idle and presumptuous requests for
"proofs" of Muhammad's divine mission. They wanted him to magically
conjure up gardens, fruits, rivers, a house of gold, and on and on.
This refers back to the point the Bab made earlier, which I cited the
other day, which stresses that if Muslims had used the same criteria
and proofs for themselves that they offer to other faiths, everyone
would have become a Babi instantly He announced Himself. After citing
these verses from Surih 17, the Bab continues to point out the folly
of demanding of God made-to-order religious proofs. How could they,
when their own scripture condemned and rejected that so emphatically?

"Now be fair! The Arabs uttered such words, and now, prompted by thy
desire, thou dost demand yet other things? What is the difference
between thee and them? If thou dost ponder a while, it will be evident
that it is incumbent upon a lowly servant to acquiesce to whatever
proof God hath appointed, and not to follow his own idle fancy. If the
wishes of the people were to be gratified not a single disbeliever
would remain on earth. For once the Apostle of God had fulfilled the
wishes of the people they would unhesitatingly have embraced His
Faith. May God save thee, shouldst thou seek any evidence according to
thy selfish desire; rather it behooveth thee to uphold the unfailing
proof which God hath appointed. The object of thy belief in God is but
to secure His good-pleasure. How then dost thou seek as a proof of thy
faith a thing which hath been and is contrary to His good-pleasure?"
(Selections, 122)

The Bab points out here the first essential to religious proof,
getting at the right kind of evidence. Who decides what is evidence?
Do we? No, it has to be God not imperfect mortals. God tests and sets
the criteria for testing. Students do not examine teachers, students
do not make up exams or decide professional qualifications. That is
absurd. Teachers examine students. In the same way, patients do not
treat doctors, doctors treat patients. In a sane, ordered universe it
cannot be the place of lower intellects to test the All-Highest
Intelligence or set the criteria for testing Its work.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com