Thoughts on the third day of Ala about the First-Day-of-the-Fast Prayer
By John Taylor; 2009 Mar 04, 'Ala 03, 165 BE
Six newly translated prayers of Baha'u'llah were revealed for the fast back in Y2K, and after almost a decade this morning I stumbled across the first of them in a fairly new prayer book. It seems meant to be said on the first day of the fast; this is the third day for me, but I am retarded anyway. Yesterday, the second day, I plunged into a minor migraine attack, and it is touch and go whether my health will permit me to continue fasting much longer. Fortunately, I woke feeling better this morning, so I will continue. My health does put me on the borderline, but if I possibly can, I fast. Anyway, I will include the full text of the prayer that I just said this morning at the end of this posting. Meantime, here are some points about it that struck me in my first test run of praying this new prayer during "real world" conditions of a morning of the fast.
For one thing, this prayer implies that at least one purpose of the fast is to make us into small "h" hands of the Cause. As a border-liner, somebody who probably should not fast but does anyway (I asked my doctor if I should fast, and she did not give a firm yes or no), I appreciate perhaps more than most the value of the fast. This is a gold rush, and you have to sacrifice, camp out in the wild, grub in the mud, anything to get those nuggets into your hand. Except that in this case, you become the hand that holds the gold.
Question: what would you do to become a Hand of the Cause? Having just read God Loves Laughter, I know that it is a calling. Literally. Bill Sears heard it in a dream in his childhood. He later found out that the Master was giving a talk nearby and though he was a three year old toddler, he heard actual words from that talk in his dream. Still, he was not a Baha'i when he found that out, and it was not until years later, years of being married to an active believer, Marguerite, that he actually believed. I was surprised how many years it took and, typical male, how long it took him. His was a slow, hard journey to belief. As is our journey too, especially during Ala, the last month of the year. Ala is nineteen days long like each of the other months, but we all know which is the longest, by far.
The prayer also says that as hands we are tasked with revealing His signs and religion to the world so that all will praise God and see his proofs. Again, by implication, fasting is a proof of the existence of God, starting in our own heart, and going out from there to the hand we become.
A journey of nineteen days begins with a little inanition. We are also reading in our daily study session an Esperanto translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince." The prince comes from a tiny planet with one flower on it, and ends up lost in the Sahara desert, dying of thirst. He meets a fox there who teaches him the value of loving just one thing with all one's heart. Just as he loved his rose, just as the fox became his friend, even when separated the thought of the loved one changes you, like an inner sun. Yes, there are many roses just like his forlorn rose on earth, the fox tells him, but loving his one rose makes it unique, makes him unique, and fills his whole life with love.
So it can be with a friend or loved one we meet now, if only we can make them out through that consuming, maddening thirst. We all are slowly drying up in the dry heat of the spiritual desert that this world is, only now we can feel it. We all come out of our own circumscribed little planet and are lost in a huge, loveless, empty social sphere. Nobody is unique and nothing is pure here. Only physical thirst, the mental vacuity just like being lost in the Sahara, makes you really feel it enough to want to befriend those we meet and learn from them, as the prince did that fox.
This year the fast has started with a cold snap. It is so chilly that it penetrates the warmest clothes like armour-piercing munitions. Even 9-year-old Thomas, who usually refuses to wear idle, vain appurtenances like socks and coats, is putting on his parka with only a half-hearted argument. Last night we walked together outside and he actually complained; true, not of the cold itself but how dry it gets when the mercury drops this low. Hardly warm as a desert but still dry. Every affliction has a purpose, though, because I noticed it when Baha'u'llah mentioned in another fast prayer that there is a "heat generated by the fast." That goes along with His naming of fasting as the "sun," and obligatory prayer as the "moon" that illumines God's religion. The sun gives heat as well as light, whereas the moon sheds a cold, dry light.
I am getting incoherent. I know. What can I say? The fast for today is underway and already I am losing it. I will stop, but first a comment on the first part of the new fast prayer, which is concerned with the motives for fasting -- not out of fear or desire or hope of gain but from love only.
In the Bible is the explanation of an apostle (who was acutely aware of Christ's promise, "Ask, and ye shall receive.") as to why some prayers are not answered: "... they ask, and receive not, because they ask amiss." (James 4:3). It seems to me that this hints at why fasting is like the sun and obligatory prayer only the moon. The moon only reflects light, but the sun uses fusion to generate the complete spectra of electro-magnetic radiation. We fast so as to be in a condition to ask aright whenever we pray. If you do not ask aright, prayer is useless, mere words and letters. Prayer reflects the condition of sincere need, asking aright. In that sense, all prayer depends on the original burning heat we derived from the sunlight we got out of this time befriending our fox in the dry desert of the fast.
First Day of the Fast Prayer
from: Importance of Obligatory Prayer and Fasting Compilation, Section 3, no. 1; first published in The American Baha'i, Sept 27, 2000, Vol. 31, No. 7, pp. 3-6
"This is, O my God, the first of the days on which Thou hast bidden Thy loved ones to observe the Fast. I ask of Thee by Thy Self and by him who hath fasted out of love for Thee and for Thy good-pleasure - and not out of self and desire, nor out of fear of Thy wrath - and by Thy most excellent names and august attributes, to purify Thy servants from the love of aught except Thee and to draw them nigh unto the Dawning-Place of the lights of Thy countenance and the Seat of the throne of Thy oneness. Illumine their hearts, O my God, with the light of Thy knowledge and brighten their faces with the rays of the Daystar that shineth from the horizon of Thy Will. Potent art Thou to do what pleaseth Thee. No God is there but Thee, the All-Glorious, Whose help is implored by all men.
Assist them, O my God, to render Thee victorious and to exalt Thy Word. Suffer them, then, to become as hands of Thy Cause amongst Thy servants, and make them to be revealers of Thy religion and Thy signs amongst mankind, in such wise that the whole world may be filled with Thy remembrance and praise and with Thy proofs and evidences. Thou art, verily, the All-Bounteous, the Most Exalted, the Powerful, the Mighty, and the Merciful.
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1 comment:
The Aqdas lists a few times when the Fast ought not to be followed. In fact, it can be done at another time of the year. Too, those who labor, meaning that they need food for energy, are exempt, for example. There are many others one could think of, so this list will probably be extended in time.
As an aside, one ought not ruin one's health with fasting. Besides, one can still benefit from this time of the year with proper reflection as the energies flow.
I can tell tales like a Baha'i weaving down the highway at high speed one day due to some cognitive/medical imbalance related to fasting with his kids in the car. Okay, perhaps we ought not worry about possible consequences of actions when one is impaired from fasting. Actually, though, the state is not unlike, in some cases, the one of being actually impaired by some substance.
So, consider of all the situations where one's health and capabilities are crucial elements. That is, one has the responsibility of other peoples' lives in one's hands. That type of thing, of course, would not be in the Aqdas, due to the times. Of course, the jet pilot would be exempt due to travel.
But, finally, look at the Ridwan prayer where it says that God could consider one who did not fast as one who did and vice versa.
The Fast must not become a type of competitive issue in the Faith. Those who cannot fast are not in any way inferior, in any sense.
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