Some Teaching Ideas
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Last week an article appeared in the New York Times describing how shy introverts can establish a vital social life by meeting with others of similar interests using a new Internet service called "meetup.com." This is the URL to the article I am thinking of, though its free time may have expired by now:
Sounds to me like me, only with the Baha'i Faith rather than Star Trek. In fact, I have observed in my decades as a believer that in most cases a Baha'i does most of his or her teaching just after declaring, when the Faith is hot news for everybody they know. Then it trails off to nil. After that you can talk till you are blue in the face about the importance of teaching, the person can get as enthusiastic as all get out, but they simply do not meet enough new people to catch the spark of enthusiasm again, ever.
As soon as I saw this article it hit me what a great way to get around this problem, not to mention the deadening isolation of our society in general!
In fact I had tried meetup.com before this came out. Some of my New York State Esperantist friends had been using it to set up spontaneous meetings to teach their language. Unfortunately this website does not seem as developed here in Canada as it is south of the border. Plus, Dunnville is in the middle of a forty mile radius of nothing but farms. I could not find anybody closer within my range of interests.
But the article jogged me on its potential uses for teaching the Faith, especially if we can get the gumption to start our own meetings. Baha'is could use the site creatively to start up new local gab groups. We would then make new friends based not on random coincidence but strong sympathetic interests to the Faith. This might work simply by going through the principles one by one. Go to meetup and say, "I am interested in the principle of oneness of mankind," or any other principle, and see if you can get a discussion group going. Or you could tie in the activities of the Ruhi study circles. For Book One, for example, you could say, "I am interested in meeting somebody interested saying and going over a prayer."
I have noticed, attending weekly fireside meetings in Flamboro over the past few months, that most active Baha'is around here are passionately interested in the Administration. That is what we love to talk about. Once we get onto it you cannot shut us up. I have also noticed that most non-Baha'is are, well, not. For instance, my friend Stu specifically requested a speaker who was interested in mysticism. So I arranged for a talk to be given on that subject. We went to a great deal of trouble and traveled half way across Ontario (note: this is an exaggeration to make a point) only to find that the speaker was more interested in, you guessed it, the Administration. He gave us a sentence or two about mysticism and then the rest of the evening was on the Administrative Order and how wonderful a solution it is to all the ills of humanity. I swear, if we were not already Baha'is we would all have become Baha'is based on this wonderful news; most people think of it as stale bureaucracy but Baha'u'llah's transformation of official functions makes it really a fascinating subject. Unfortunately, the only people who are eligible to become Baha'is are non-Baha’is. And as I say, they are far from interested in the Administrative Order. In most cases, I observe, it takes several years of immersion as a Baha'i to start to appreciate the value of the Administration. Yet we all want to jump-start the process by talking right away about that. And to my eyes, this simply does not work. We end up stymied; like that Star Trek enthusiast in the article who bore everybody they meet with endless babbling about fictional characters that nobody knows or cares about.
Our passion for the Administration is poisoning our teaching work. Take my "Sylvan" essay yesterday. I was responding to typical questions that Baha'is ask. If I talked only to Baha'is, that is what this Blog would be all about, fine points of the Administration. I say all this by way of warning about meetup dot com. If you want to talk about the Administration, do not start a meeting on that. The only people who will turn up will be other Baha'is. I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, branch out into the polity of Baha'u'llah, the principles. Forget the Administration for a while. If you talk about principles I am sure that you will find no problems drumming up interest.
I myself was more than willing after Stu's last fireside to overlook this failure to discuss anything but Administration on the part of my fellow believers. After all, I find it interesting too. But I could not overlook the bitterness of the reaction of Stu. He has withdrawn angrily from all discussion of anything Baha'i. And in retrospect, how in all justice could I blame him? We are told by every bit of infallible guidance we have, that is, from every one of the Central Figures, that most people who do not enter the Faith do so because we bungled it. I see now that we did not deliver on our promise to Stu. I see now that his coldness is our fault.
The really ironic thing is that, even though it is hardly a burning issue for me, the Faith has a great deal new to say about mysticism. This is driven home by an article in the latest World Order Magazine called "The Baha'is as a Mystic Community," (2006, Vol. 37, No. 4), by Moojan Momen.
Momen is by far the most prolific scholar of the Faith in the world today, but I have to admit that I have a thing for him just like I have a thing for Ruhi. He has an extraordinary ability to treat a subject so dryly that he sucks every bit life out of it. His books could be called collectively, "The Baha'i Faith, Dehydrated." Before I came across his books I had an ambition to read every Baha'i book in English, and at that time (the early 80's) it may have been possible to do so. But five pages into his book, I knew I would never achieve my goal. I simply could not read him, no matter how much I tried.
This is true of his books but lately I came across an audio taped lecture by him given to some Haifa colloquium. It was about Babi history and it sounded fascinating. I was looking forward to hearing him. The first thing I noticed once I got the MP3 working was his exquisite pronunciation, Oxford accent in English, native Persian accent for the Persian names. The second thing I noticed was that that was all I noticed. Even live and in person, he had somehow squeezed out every ounce of interest that I could have sworn I had in the Babis. All I could do was listen to the perfectly pronounced words and say to myself, "Before he opened his mouth I was genuinely interested. What in the world happened?" If we could channel his unique genius to more productive ends we could freeze dry the entire output of the world's fruit trees and store it for times of famine.
Anyway, maybe Momen is rehydrating with age because this article on mysticism is, while I would not use the word "gripping," but it is at least readable. As I was wading through it, I started thinking that maybe, using his admittedly extraordinary command of the source materials, I could make up a talk on Mysticism and the Baha'i Faith. Just add water and stir. God willing, I will be enabled to do so, in spite of my own lack of enthusiasm. Notice the above, I talked a great deal about the author, nothing at all about the contents of the article. Not a good sign. As Silvie might say: "Must force ... must force myself to be interested..."
Anyway, I promised more than one teaching idea in the title of today's essay, so here is the other idea. Check out this article from the Popular Mechanics website, "How to use your car as a portable drive-in theatre."
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how_to/4216446.html
It even has a little video explaining how they projected Star Wars III onto their garage door, using a portable DVD player and a video projector. Our LSA stores its video projector with us, so I could do what this video describes with that and my sister-in-law's laptop computer. I would not even need to use the complex and expensive inverters they do, I could run the entire projection setup off with an AC extension cord running from our house.
In other words, during Mudcat Festival, which is coming up pretty soon, when it gets dark I could project a Baha'i film onto my garage door and maybe get the passers by to stop by for a few minutes and watch it. During that week, and during Canada Day celebrations, the crowds constantly are walking by our home. Why not turn my property into a an outdoor cinema? This article describes how to use an FM transmitter to allow other people in their cars to tune in to the audio. Instead of that I would just need to set out a bunch of chairs and hook up a blaster or some ordinary stand alone speakers. I can do that...
I am so entranced with this idea that I am considering ordering a good DVD to show for that. The most current that I have found so far is, "The Promise of World Peace; A Baha'i Perspective," available for CAN$17.95 at Baha'i Books Online. Their website is down but they have a toll free number, 1-800-465-3287. If I write everything down, I will be more likely to call them. Still, I unfortunately tend to chicken out on ambitious ideas like this, but maybe some of my readers will be bolder.
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