Philosophy and Baha

Philosophy and the Feast of Baha

By John Taylor; 22 March, 2006

We returned from the feast of Baha last night and stuck into our storm
door was an envelop with ten dollars cash and this printed note from
Ron, our LSA secretary:

Tuesday, March 21
6:45 PM

John and Marie,

I got the call from Helen at 6:40 PM that only she and Nancy and maybe
Gail were going [to the Feast] plus you and myself. I was just going
out the door when she called.

She and Nancy are really tired and would like to have cancelled but
you had already left. As you read this you will already know that. I
do hope that your feast was a good one despite the small turnout.

I had a difficult day with a long stressful treatment at the Cancer
Centre so I decided to stay put and I must leave early tomorrow
morning for the next one.

My sister is in a bit of a crisis and I must deal with that on
Thursday. I have been supporting Betty's family and Barbara's family
as they face some difficult decisions.

I appreciate having the evening free but I do wish Helen had called me
sooner so I could have saved you the trip to Caledonia.

Here is ten dollars to help you with the gasoline cost of that trip.

Ron

When she read that Marie said, "He does not need to run around like a
chicken with its head cut off, he has enough on his plate without
worrying about us." But I thought back to all the feasts I used to
attend in the big city; I would ride the bus and get lost and forget
the address of the Feast or screw up the location completely and often
be in tears at missing it but still I knew all too well that whether I
show my face there or not would hardly be noticed by anybody. Now the
secretary of the community not only writes us a personal note but
includes gas money to cover the costs of travel! Truly, I feel utterly
unworthy to be in this number.

We are talking about the pre-Socratics. When I had been out of school
for a few years I audited some philosophy classes. The first was a
very large class and the lecturer was talking about love. It was just
before mid-term exams and there was a palpable atmosphere of tension
in the room. It was as if a great hand were pushing down on the heads
of these poor young people, pressuring them to listen up about love
and not mess up, for their whole career was on the line. Any
philosophy such a class might learn must be like the work of slaves or
laborers forced to scrabble to survive. The product comes out of
force, it has nothing to do with love or love of wisdom.

The second class I audited was smaller and the kindly, gentle, bearded
professor -- who bore more than a passing resemblance to Socrates --
was complaining about the pre-Socratics, about how we have only
fragments of what they said, and that these fragments are more poetry
than philosophy. They can always be taken several ways, unlike the
plodding but unambiguous product of a modern philosophy treatise. The
class was then disrupted by a very angry student who vociferously
objected to one way that a certain pre-Socratic might be interpreted.
He violently disagreed and the professor was apologetic and placating.
Myself, I felt highly embarrassed for the subtext of this tirade was
addressed to his fellow students. He was telling them, "Look at me, I
can get this passionate about stuff that you dummies can hardly even
grasp." This too, struck me as a highly anti-philosophical atmosphere
in which pearls were cast before swine.

My more recent grass roots experience with popular philosophy in the
form of the Socrates Cafe movement in some ways improves on the
slavish, forced attention to philosophy that you find in an academic
atmosphere. Among these adults there is a certain detachment about
ideas, but mostly it swings the other way toward apathy. For them it
is as if philosophy were one channel in a five hundred channel
universe and we are free to flip the dial there, or not.

For me, philosophy is in the Feast, in the little details of the
community shown in that monthly snapshot. Last night only a remnant of
our walking wounded made it out. There was Gail, whose whole family
are Baha'i and whose Aunt is just pioneering to the Faro Islands.
There was 6 year old Thomas, whose flu had resolved into a painful ear
infection, and who has a hangdog expression, uncharacteristically
subdued by his first serious illness. He looks around the room with a
half smile on his face, strangely reminiscent of the handsome movie
star Ben Affleck. There were Helen and Nancy, whose usual health woes
are pushed into the background by worry about a native demonstration
protesting a land development taking place several doors down from
their home in Caledonia. And there were those who could not come, like
Betty who broke her hip just after a return from India, where she was
presented with an award for her many books published by their
Publishing Trust.

During the Feast, Helen Kelly shared the following prayer of
Baha'u'llah for someone making a decision (they are to say it 19 times
a day for 19 days), which a travel teacher had given to her many years
ago. I copied it down but did not find it in Ocean.

"O My God! Thou seest me detached from everything save Thee, clinging
to Thee. Guide me then in my doing in a manner which profiteth me for
the glory of thy cause and the loftiness of the state of Thy
servants."

More broadly, there is the world situation, most especially the
Baha'is in Iran. Now the Mullahcrats are taking down names of Baha'is,
clearly readying themselves for another holocaust, and there is
nothing to be done but brace ourselves and trust in the mercy of God.
Betty's latest book is a vociferous protest against this bloody
persecution. She never misses a feast, but the hip operation kept her
away this time.

Philosophy is in this snapshot of believers being propelled by love,
not forced or pressured love or apathetic entertainment love, but love
of Baha'u'llah. A love sending them continually into eternity in a
slow-mo sequence of bowling pins struck by a bowling ball, or maybe
the star field simulation screensaver, where you do not notice a star
until it is a line streaking into oblivion. Philosophy is the total
devotion of Ron, who has no time for philosophical thoughts but is
absolutely devoted to family and community, who looks over our
believers and many non-believers like a mother hen her chicks, seeing
that Betty and any other sick person gets flowers and a card, even as
he himself can hardly move for arthritis, prostate cancer and a
thousand other afflictions. I will give his ten dollars for gas to the
Huqquq, for when I make a donation to my chosen deputy, even though (I
found out later) a member of the NSA I always get back a handwritten
note, a complete anachronism in this age of computer printouts but a
sign of personal devotion that seems in the spirit of Ron's way out of
line contribution to our gas expenses.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com