Month of Will, Coming up

Here is the upcoming Badi’ Month, as an experiment for this neglected blog, and perhaps a convenience for some. The whole calendar can be downloaded from the site for White Mountain publishing at: http://www.wmpub.ca/09-bahai.htm and, <http://www.wmpub.ca/09-bcal.htm>

Leadership Tolerance

An Interlude on Tolerance

Tolerance, not force, is the most effective way to lead

 

 

 

 

Comments on a Passage in Panorthosia

 

 

Although world government is the obvious solution to environmental concerns, many reject the idea out of hand. Why? Essentially because of issues of trust. What could we do if a world government becomes a global tyranny? Or if it declines into a faceless, impenetrable bureaucracy? Even in the Seventeenth Century Comenius recognized the force of this objection, and addressed it by emphasizing that the keynote to power has to be tolerance. No matter how perfect the system may be technically, if it is run by bigots, warmongers or unfeeling functionaries, it will be tyrannical or violent or heartless. In an early passage in Panorthosia, Comenius wrote,

 

 

"Something should also be said about the tolerance which ought to be extended by those in positions of power both towards one another and to their subjects." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 8, para 27, p. 120)

 

 

Comenius upholds tolerance as a positive virtue. Today, it is politically correct to make a nod at the need for tolerance, but we look at the problem mostly in a negative way. We condemn blatant intolerance, especially when it is violent. But we despair of ever rooting out jingoism, bigotry, prejudice and fundamentalism and stamping them out in all their manifestations. We point fingers all around, but accusations only distract from the self-critical stance that would improve the situation overall. Like creatures trapped in a sealed bottle, the more we flail about, the quicker we use up the oxygen that keeps us alive.

 

 

Instead, let us concentrate our minds on tolerant attitudes. Let us teach tolerance in schools, and accept only tolerant discourse in the media. Let us expect tolerant speech from leaders of thought, especially in faith groups. And, needless to say, let us choose tolerant leaders when we vote. We should expect more of such assessment in a tolerant society rather than less, for the same reasons we would expect that the designers of a high tolerance machine would make more minute measurements, rather than fewer, as they build it.

 

Furthermore, Comenius understood that there is an opposition between tolerant power and power based upon force. In the same passage, he continues,

 

 

"The situation calls for lenient, not violent action, on both sides, since it is clear that a noble spirit has been granted to the whole of human nature, preferring to be guided rather than dragged along or compelled. Anyone choosing to use compulsion only embitters, poisons and alienates men, and either makes them hypocrites or prepares the way for a fresh and perhaps greater breakaway."

 

 

A lack of lenity in wielding power explains why revolutions, in spite of noble and inspiring ideals, tend to nullify the good they aim to establish. By forcing change, they provoke resentment, reaction and violence. As Comenius says, any proposal for change has to appeal to our complete human nature, or the entire atmosphere will be poisoned. Tolerance and openness invite consent; they bolster the will and purify our common ground.

 

 

Nobody wants to be compelled to obey; to be jammed into somebody else's idea of what is right. This was portrayed in classical thought by the proverbial bed of Procrustes, an early serial killer who, the myth says, chopped off the legs of guests too tall to fit into his iron bed; when they were too short to fit, he stretched them on the rack. Tolerance describes the virtue of a good host, who seeks a larger or smaller to accommodate the needs of every guest. Without tolerance, there is no happy guest-host relationship, nor can leaders and followers get along without dissent.

 

Politically, tolerance is summed up in the supreme law of service, "Salus populi suprema lex." (Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.) Ethically, tolerance is the desire of a friend to seek good for one's friend, even against his or her own interest. In a word, love. For Comenius, love among friends has to be the prime motivation in power relations -- not compulsion or fear. Otherwise relationships are illusory and fleeting.

 

"Fear is a poor guarantee of lasting friendship. As Terence says in one of his comedies - `He who does his duty under the lash of punishment has no dread except in the thought of detection: if he thinks he will not be found out, back he goes to his natural bent. When you link a son to you by kindness, there is sincerity in all his acts, he sets himself to make a return, and will be the same behind your back as to your face'. Therefore anyone who thinks that men should be treated with violence and not kindness has no idea of how to govern human nature."

 

Love unites all with all, permanently. Fear? It can only unite against a single, immediate, naked threat. It is, in the words of the Tablet of Ahmad, uniting to assist one another, rather than true unity. As soon as the threat disappears, the fearful go right back to where they were in the beginning. This eradicates the only real ground between us, trust. There must be trust among friends. There must be trust for love to last. Otherwise, fear, like a fire, destroys the garden of goodwill between leader and follower. Baha'u'llah holds trust, and lack of fear, to be the basis of faith in God when He declares, "If thy faith be fearful, seize thou My Tablet, and preserve it in the bosom of trust." (Baha'u'llah, Epistle, 103) In the image of the Qur'an, if you place your hand in your bosom and it comes out white, then your truth is pure, your trust justified by divine confirmation.

 

 

 

 

As Comenius implies, arbitrary power is incompetent power. We all know how important tolerance and trust are, but we do not act upon this knowledge. Comenius continues,

 

"We can put our trust in those who have been won over willingly, but never in those who have been compelled by force or attracted under false pretences, which is the way to multiply our disagreements instead of removing them. For as Claudian observes 'Peaceful exercise of power succeeds where violence fails'."

 

Claudian hits the nail on the head here. There is a huge difference between compulsion and the peaceful use of power. This is what the people in the Middle East have learned as they peacefully demonstrate the power of the people. This can overturn tyrants who, until recently, had learned to suppress the slightest hint of opposition. They should be putting Claudian's statement on their placards:

 

 

"Peaceful exercise of power succeeds where violence fails."

 

The only reason that violence and oppression dominate is that most do not really believe that this is true. We vaguely agree, but in practice we accept that force always wins out. Tyrants rise to the top because in practice, compulsion works. The same is true in the family. Spouses use force because they believe that they really can dominate their spouses. Similarly, parents use violence to oppress their innocent children. Torturers inflict pain to extract information out of the mouths of prisoners.

 

In the media, torturers openly defend their cruelty to victims by referring to precedent. "Torture has been used from day one for good reason; it works, plain and simple. Otherwise, it would not have been used." On a certain level, this is true. For victors, there are undeniably benefits from the use of force and violence. Force and fear of force does bring compliance, but it is temporary. In the same way, slavery was ubiquitous for thousands of years. A people with a stronger army can conquer an entire people and force them to work as slaves.

 

 

 

 

But again, as Comenius points out, as soon as the threat dissipates, so does the power of compulsion. The real ground of enduring power, friendship, dissipates and crumbles before our feet. And, most important of all, the breach of faith poisons us because it cuts off friendship with God, Who created us all as equals. His faith keeps us alive spiritually, in the same way that oxygen keeps our bodies going. A tyrant, torturer or slave owner may temporarily benefit from oppression, like a drowning mouse frantically flailing about as it drowns. But faith and trust are capable of building an entire world, one where the threat of violence is a thing forgotten.

Moving Like Raccoon

Moving Like Raccoon

By John Taylor; 2010 Oct 06, Mashiyyat 10, 167 BE

When my children were young, they had a favourite toy which they called their "raccoon" (they are sometimes marketed as "Weazel Balls"). Raccoon was a yellow plastic ball connected to a fluffy, brown and white "tail". When they placed it on a smooth surface and flipped its switch, it vibrated furiously, rolling forward, sideways, every which way. Wobbling erratically, there was no way to guess which direction it would go next, to the consternation of Malley, our cat, and the children's delight. Raccoon's gyres and gimbals amused childish minds while exasperating the ordered feline imagination; in Hamlet's words, it made the "unskilful laugh but the judicious grieve." We all wondered how Raccoon got its strange, stutter step. When the batteries ran down we opened up the yellow sphere and found its secret. The erratic motion came from a clever design; an off center electric motor did nothing but vibrate while opposite were its batteries, which acted as a counterweight. The gyrations came from alternating balance and imbalance between these two weights.

Raccoon's mechanism is an apt metaphor for the incomplete, economic globalism that is putting our times out of joint. The ordered mind wants our thoughts and actions to synchronize and our world to roll straight forward. But an invisible misalignment in the design forces a wobble. If our education does not produce balanced citizens, if it trains only narrow-minded specialists who are sophisticated technically but clueless in ethics, philosophy and spirituality, is it any surprise that lives are unbalanced and politics disruptive? Institutions and interests work against one another in a crazy spin it is impossible to say in what direction events will roll.

One result is globalization. Quicker transportation encourages free trade across borders, making the economy more global. Meanwhile most peoples' hearts and minds are glued to one location, set in the past. At the same time, the Internet pushes hearts and minds into instantaneous travel in cyberspace, which is far faster than any transportation could ever become. As a result, individuals spin around their own "batteries" instead of the center of the whole. The source of energy aligns with us not the whole. Fanatics and partisans proliferate. They earnestly support causes which, one way or another, contradict one another. As a result, our global center spins, bursts forward, halts and turns in a completely different direction. Instead of world order everything resolves into a flittering Brownian motion.

::

Proportions of Harm and Need

Harm and Need

The Principles of Harm and Need

By John Taylor; 2010 Sep 03, Asma 16, 167 BE

The cosmopolitan condition marks the end of an age of ideology and the beginning of the age of principle. Today let us discuss the principles of harm and need.

 

Stoic philosophers taught that we should do what we love and are good at doing, but only if it does not harm others. This duty to "do no harm" is part of the famous Hippocratic Oath; where at the beginning of a medical career physicians swear that treatment will before all else "do no harm." In a cosmopolitan condition this principle is universalized. Every apprentice will swear to avoid harm. This determination will be reinforced by a workplace constitution which assures that every job adheres to the principle of harm. Since everyone learns a trade in elementary school, everyone offers the oath at least once.

Going to the Greatest Need

The harm principle has a positive corollary, the principle of need. This imperative to "seek out the greatest need" is also known as the service principle. Each worker has a duty to make himself useful. Each job is a service to self, God and humanity; it follows the Golden Rule by filling a real need. Again, when labour fails to serve it becomes a form of corruption that spreads harm.

In plying a trade, then, I should avoid activity without real benefit. My duty is actively to seek out services that make a difference both in the short and the long term. A trade, then, is not a mere set of skills to be used for good or evil; it is part of a coherent career, a lifelong entrepreneurial initiative to root out needs and invent new ways to fill them.

 

The need principle has a technical and a moral side. Technical need is a test of skill. An expert demonstrates expertise by performing work that colleagues consider a challenge to the characteristic knowledge of their trade or profession. The limits of technical need are summed up in a common saying: "A man with a hammer sees everything as a nail."

 

Moral need is a kind of triage. The prime obligation of moral need is to address problems without respect to how well prepared the expert is to solve them. In a flood, the first task is to get people out of the water, not to show off one's skills in carpentry or medicine. Moral need takes critical cases before urgent ones. What we know and can do well is placed second to what the situation requires us to do.

A career can be meaningful only if it is balanced, if the worker attempts all three, to avoid harm and to serve both elements of need, technical and moral. These must be harmonious with one another, as Plato's Athenian stranger says in the Laws,

"If we disregard due proportion by giving anything what is too much for it, too much canvas to a boat, too much nutriment to a body, too much authority to a soul, the consequence is always shipwreck; rankness runs in the one case to disease, in the other to presumption, and its issue is crime. ... No soul of man, while young or accountable to no control, will ever be able to bear the burden of supreme social authority without taking the taint of the worst spiritual disease, folly, and so becoming estranged from its dearest intimates. (Laws, 691c, from Plato, Collected Writings, p. 1286)

The question is, what "due proportion" is appropriate for each trade, profession or job?

Undoubtedly this will become clearer with experience in the cosmopolitan condition. Gradually, the incentives of computer games will be integrated into the world of work, engaging every worker in applying the principles of harm and technical and moral need. Another help will be the three Comenian polities of light, peace and holiness, which break up what Plato called the "overpowerful and unmixed sovereignties" that throw the proportions of life out of whack. In order to do this, each job in the workplace will take time to serve each of the three institutions, the college, dicastery and the consistory.

As Plato says, it takes tremendous foresight and power "to limit the sovereignties and make one of three..." (Laws, 692c, from Plato, Collected Writings, p. 1287) However, since each of the three institutions uses its own currency, it is as easy as looking into one's bank account to know which of the three "sovereignties" needs improvement in order to regain an overall balance and harmony.

::

Ridvan, Ensaf and God’s Peace Plan

Peace Plan

Thoughts on the Second Day of Ridvan

By John Taylor; 2010 April 22, Jalal 13, 167 BE

Yesterday, the first day of Ridvan, was a warm, beautiful day. My 10-year-old son Thomas and I walked and shopped, biked and hiked around Dunnville before the Holy Day and election, which took place in late afternoon.

We have a total of 24 believers in Haldimand, and over half voted; but so few of us are able, willing or active that it pretty much meant that a discernable pulse and a willingness to show your face once a year (and sometimes not even the latter) is sufficient qualification to be elected to the Assembly. One hopeful sign however was an apparent unanimity of opinion among voters as to who should serve. Normally, the Assembly member with the greatest number of votes becomes the convener, who is responsible to arrange the first meeting where the officers are elected. In this case, however, seven of the nine were tied at twelve votes each. Seven convenors? We decided just to leave the job up to the former secretary.

A sad note was that Ron Speer was not re-elected, having moved to Georgetown earlier in the year. He was on the old Dunnville Assembly and later on the amalgamated Haldimand LSA for a total of over thirty years, since its foundation.

Our daily Baha'i class continues unabated. Tomaso insisted that we read God Loves Laughter for what must be the fifth or sixth time. Each time I read it, it is different. One reading I got the impression that Sears' family was run by a father who today would be considered a child abuser. He was always ready to whack his son and Bill as a result became closer to his grandfather. The next reading refuted that thesis. I noticed that Sears was close to his father, and the father with the rest of the family, in spite of the corporal punishment. My father always prided himself that he never hit the five kids he raised; he thought that hitting is an act not only of cowardice but of stupidity – if you cannot outsmart a little tyro like that, you are not really using your brain.

Anyway, Bill Sears' family was probably pretty normal for the time, and if you banished all humour at the expense of fathers you would have to shut down the whole genre of the family sitcom.

Our reading of GLL this time is different. I notice typos that are themselves amusing. The copy we have is clearly the first edition, printed in England. You can see the Hand of the Cause writing something and then an officious copywriter coming along and changing it to something incomprehensible. For example, there is a reference to the Green Bay Packets, instead of the Packers...

This morning, Ridvan Day Two, I lured Thomas out of bed and persuaded him to get ready for school by reading aloud the twelfth chapter of the novel City of Ember, which his teacher read to his Grade Five class, and which he liked so much we are reading it again together. This is youth fiction, with a restricted vocabulary.

For me, when I read a novel the main lure is the author's command of language. If the novelist is not as much poet as storyteller, I rapidly grow bored. So as a way to amuse myself with the author's pedestrian diction, I read with an Oxford accent or Irish brogue, or, as lately, I mimic a famous actor, like John Wayne or, lately, Christopher Walkin. This is surprisingly difficult to do, because if my parody gets at all noticeable, Thomas, or Silvie before him, immediately stops me and asks that I read in a "normal voice." So I have to keep it very subtle, it has to be an impression, not a send up, or my little accent buzzer goes off.

This morning we were at an exciting point in the novel with much action and suspense, so I was able to push the limits with my accent game. The buzzer went off only once, late in the chapter. By then it was too late. I had actually become Christopher Walkin and I could not shake that broken lilt, that downturn at the end of each sentence, even when I tried. Then came the time for us all to recite our morning prayer and reading. I found that Christopher Walkin can recite the words of Baha'u'llah. The kids protested, "Is that not disrespectful?" I thought not, since Walkin is one of the best orators in the English language. Go onto YouTube and listen to his reading of Poe's "The Raven." It is the best rendition of that poem I have ever heard, including the formidable version by James Earl Jones.

Then as I rushed the kids off to school, I found that Christopher Walkin can speak fluent Esperanto as well. In fact, my impression of his voice is actually better in Esperanto than in English, since for the life of me I cannot do a New York accent. I have been trying to correct that with my usual learning method lately, YouTube videos. A youth by the moniker "Sunghero" gives an excellent little seminar on how to do an impersonation of this actor, and impersonations generally. Sunghero also gives some good situations in which to use a Walkin impression, including awkward silences and approaching members of the opposite sex. Since he is Chinese and speaks with an English accent, among others, I think Sunghero should do a music video showcasing his talent done to the tune of "Secret Agent Man," only with the lyrics changed to "Secret Asian Man." The latter is what my kids go around singing whenever we listen to the Tom Jones CD in our car.

Last week, in Dundas, I attended an inspiring deepening on the Arabic Hidden Words given by Ninaz Shadman. I have been telling everyone who will listen that she is great, not since the Hands were still around have I heard a Baha'i speaker put the pedal to the metal like that; she is the equivalent of a Baha'i Bible-thumper. This term puzzles my kids, and I have to explain that it means that she speaks with verve, vim, passion, all the spiritual uplift that the first AHW says that we should have if we want to be able to say that we got anything out of Baha'u'llah's Writings. All others, in comparison, might well say, in Shakespeare's words in Richard III,

"I have not that alacrity of spirit nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have..."

Better still, Ninaz is familiar with the original languages and does not shy away from using the actual words used by the Central Figures. For example, I learned for the first time the difference between Ensaf, personal justice, and Adalat, social justice, or balance. Thus, when Baha'u'llah says, "The essence of all that I have revealed for thee is justice...," the word He is using is Ensaf, the same term as in the second Arabic Hidden Word. I did not know that. My justice, not ours. In English we just say "justice," we seem to have no distinction between personal and social. This is funny and disconcerting. It makes me feel strange, kind of like it does to let some unknown actor inhabit you and take over your mannerisms and quirks of speech.

Let me close with a frank email exchange that I recently had with a rather conventionally-minded believer about the book I am writing. They wrote:

"There is something I saw in this blog and in others you have written which disturbs me somewhat.  You state that the world government proposed by Comenius "is the most insightful and appealing plan for a world government ever devised." Where does it leave the plan for world government which Baha'u'llah gave us now stand in your opinion? It sometimes seems to me that you have supplanted the Baha'i Faith in your book by idolizing Comenius..."

JET: Dear ----,

My book, People without Borders, will be a work of political science, which as you know, the Guardian encouraged young Baha'is to study. I am comparing Comenius's design of a world government with other plans made up by world federalists and political scientists.  I would not compare the Plan of God to what any man has thought up, if only because nobody knows how God's inscrutable Plan will play out.

When Baha'is speak of the Plan we do not refer to any detailed plan for a world government, since we are non-political. The Guardian was emphatic that we not advocate any scheme for a world government, nor are we to put forward a political platform. Nor did Baha'u'llah try to make up any detailed design of a world government, although He did advocate the attempt by kings and leaders, not by Baha'is. He forbids such meddling by His followers in the Kitab-i-Ahd.

Besides, since Comenius's plan is based on Biblical teaching, I'd say that his plan is to a large extent God's plan, and that he would presumably have submitted to Baha'u'llah had he lived a few centuries later. I am intentionally not mentioning Baha'i in this book, for several reasons. I may follow it with a book that does, I certainly have lots of material.

Thank you for reading along, and feel free to mention any further problems that occur to you.

 

Response: "Dear John, Thanks very much for your clarification. That will certainly help me to understand your future essays."

::

Happy Naw Ruz

Our thanks to Jimbo, who sent us this quote from the Master.

"O thou whose heart overfloweth with love for the Lord! I address thee from this consecrated spot, to gladden thy bosom with mine epistle to thee, for this is such a letter as maketh the heart of him who believeth in God's oneness to wing its flight toward the summits of bliss.


Thank thou God for having enabled thee to enter into His Kingdom of might. Erelong will thy Lord's bounties descend upon thee, one following the other, and He will make of thee a sign for every seeker after truth.


Hold thou fast to the Covenant of thy Lord, and as the days go by, increase thy store of love for His beloved ones. Bend thou with tenderness over the servitors of the All-Merciful, that thou mayest hoist the sail of love upon the ark of peace that moveth across the seas of life. Let nothing grieve thee, and be thou angered at none. It behoveth thee to be content with the Will of God, and a true and loving and trusted friend to all the peoples of the earth, without any exceptions whatever. This is the quality of the sincere, the way of the saints, the emblem of those who believe in the unity of God, and the raiment of the people of Baha....


Verily is He the Loving, the Tender, the Ever-Bestowing."

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 25)

Our Ayyam-i-Ha

 

Peter visits with his dog Turbo, just sprung from canine jail,
just before we left for the meeting. 


 

Sofia, Marie, Ron Speer




   

Silvie with Ayyam-i-Ha gift.

Jolene takes from the pile during the gift exchange.

   

Thomas plays board games afterwards.

 

If I looked like a drunk during the days of plenty, imagine what I must look like now, during the afternoon of the fast. Follow the link for more pictures.

From The Taylors etc.

Wisdom before incentives

Thoughts on Ayyam-i-Ha

Thoughts on Ayyam-i-Ha from Peter Gardner

Thinking of the meaning of Ayyam-i-Ha. Kurt Hein, one of my facebook friends, called it the days of the Essence of God. This piqued my interest, so I went to Baha'i Library site to see if he wrote anything about it. Finally, I discovered that my favorite writing about the calendar and Ayyam-i-Ha is written by you.(see http://bahai-library.com/?file=taylor_novelty_badi_calendar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayyám-i-Há)

I saw the connections you drew with the various dispensations from God in the past.  Today, while saying the Ayyam-i-Ha prayer, I noticed the phrase, "My God, my Fire and my Light!".  That looks like a bow to the Zoroastrian Faith, to me. 

How delightful.

I bet Baha'u'llah used those words on purpose to honour His great spiritual ancestor.

Happy Ayyam-i-Ha

Thanks to Marg and Adriana for this quote to start off the days of Ha.

"If thou truly givest ear to that which hath been revealed for thee from My Supreme Pen at this moment, thou shalt soar with the wings of eagerness in the heaven of love for the Lord of the Day of the Covenant, and wilt say during all the days of thy life: Thanks be unto Thee, O Thou the Desire of the world, and praise be unto Thee, O Thou the Beloved of the people of understanding. May all existence be a sacrifice for Thy favour, and all that hath been and will ever be, a ransom for Thy Word, O Thou the Wronged One amongst the people of enmity, O Thou in Whose grasp are the reins of all who are in heaven and on earth...." (Baha'u'llah, in Compilation of Compilations, vol II, p. 357)

Mulk

The Dominion of Mulk


By John Taylor; 2009 Jan 27, 09 Sultan, 165 BE

Thoughts about Next Month's Feast Virtue

Several years ago I wrote a series of essays on the 19 virtues in the Badi' Calendar -- probably the main reason I called this the "Badi' Blog." Since then, a book on the calendar has been published by George Ronald, and a study of the Writings of the Bab has come out as well. The mistakes I made back then are clearer. Still, some still stands, and I want to go over it and re-post the best of them over the next year or two. So let us start with the virtue for the next feast: Mulk, or Dominion.

 ==========


The Dominion of Mulk


In the early 1860's the safety and sovereignty of Canadians were gravely threatened by the great power to the south, which had split into a bloody Civil War among its states. Young men walking the streets of Canadian cities, including my home town of Hamilton, were regularly shanghaied by army recruiters with urgent quotas to fill. Some were persuaded, others seduced by prostitutes, plied with free alcohol only to wake up the next day as canon fodder. One day a boy or young man might walk free and two weeks later die a foot-soldier, overtaken by a violent, obscure death in the front lines of a foreign war. Nobody knows precisely how many disappeared there were. Most fought for the Northern Union but others, willingly or not, somehow turned up in the dead lists of the Confederate Army.

After hostilities stopped there came threats and saber rattling by hawkish elements pressuring a victorious American government to invade Canada. This persuaded a reluctant Canadian government, in spite of reservations about how ready we were for independence, that there was no choice but to join in confederation. In 1867, the provinces merged into a single country they called the "Dominion of Canada." The Fathers of Confederation chose the word "Dominion" carefully. They wished to have the rights due an independent nation, but not to follow the rebellious ways of their neighbor to the south and arrogate to themselves absolute sovereignty. Canadian leaders, backed by large numbers of "United Empire Loyalists" who had immigrated from America, held fiercely to the British Empire. They wished to leave all final decisions to the English parliament in London. Canada persisted in its reluctance to take the reigns completely for many decades afterward.

Only in 1983 was the Constitution repatriated and Canada ceased technically to be a dominion and became a fully federated nation. Still, that did not mean that we had to get rid of the name. Partly out of a misguided fear of offending anti-royalist sensibilities in Quebec, we got away from using this wonderfully distinctive appellation. Dominion Day has been changed to Canada Day, and the Dominion Government is now called the Federal Government. As the Faith becomes better known, I hope that Canadians will return to using this wonderful attribute of God in our name.

It was therefore with a thrill of nostalgia that I read the recent letter of the Universal House of Justice addressing us thus,

"With exultant hearts we hail the followers of Baha'u'llah assembled at the conferences convened in the Dominion of Canada." (Letter, 10 Jan, 2009)

What is past is prophesy. May the day come soon when Canada is a dominion again, only this time not of an empire but a world government whose dominion extends wherever humans abide.

Anyway, the delegates gathered at Canada's Confederation convention in 1867 considered for a while calling the new nation the "Kingdom of Canada." However our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, thought the name would "wound the sensibilities of the Yankees." The Canadian Fathers of Confederation were not ignorant of the Bible. As a result, Sir Samuel Tilley suggested the name, "Dominion of Canada;" his inspiration was from the Psalm,

"He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." (72:8)

Because of this, the Coat of Arms for Canada has the Latin inscription "Ad mari usque ad mare," from sea to sea. Baha'is believe that this is a prophesy of the banishment of Baha'u'llah from the Caspian to the Mediterranean seas. As we shall see later on, 'Abdu'l-Baha made much of the fact that we are (or were) the only nation in the world to call itself a dominion.

The word "Dominion" is a Biblical term with a long history and far reaching millennial implications. The Psalm speaks of the power of God reaching out everywhere, without limit, as a dominion from sea to sea,

"He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth. Those who dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him. His enemies shall lick the dust." (Ps 72:8-9, WEB)

This reminded Canadians of our borders, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. In fact, now that the Arctic Ocean is melting, soon we may be a land extending from sea to sea to sea. The river going to the "ends of the earth" was in their view our largest river, the St. Lawrence. The mention of "wilderness" struck a chord, since we were a nation of pioneers, many subsistence farmers lost in the endless forests of the north. Canadians living a hardscrabble life looked with longing eyes at the permanence and compassion, the absolute over-lordship of God's kingdom.

"Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. Your dominion endures throughout all generations." (Ps 145:13, WEB)

Having been tossed in the wake of the terrible Civil War so close to home, the word dominion in the 19th Century also offered a promise of peace.

"...the battle bow will be cut off; And he will speak peace to the nations: And his dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth." (Zech 9:10, WEB)

At the same time, as a scriptural term dominion implies moral rule, placing the Word and teachings of God first, and putting them into action in our lives.

"Establish my footsteps in your word. Do not let any iniquity have dominion over me." (Ps 119:133, WEB)

This moral nuance shows up in the prophesies of Amos, who predicted the desolation of materialism that now grips the world, from sea to sea.

"Behold, the days come," says the Lord Yahweh, "That I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Yahweh. They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek the word of Yahweh, and will not find it." (Amos 8:11-12, WEB)

During this month of Mulk we living here might well reflect: How can we escape the ravages of materialism? Might it not be our destiny, handed to us by Sir Samuel Tilley, to be the first nation to submit to the material dominion of a world government, or even to the spiritual dominion of the Lord of Hosts? Could it be that the many blessings showered upon our nation, both material and spiritual, are meant as steps to that high calling?

Next time we will look in detail at the link Abdu'l-Baha made to Canadian Dominion in the Tablets of the Divine Plan.
Revised from 1995, and Apr 05, 2006


--
John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

::

Silvie's Christmas Greetings

A very Merry Christmas to our non-Baha'i friends and relations from Silvie and the Dunnville Taylor clan.

p14 dependability virtue: don't let the angels down

Some angels grumble: by Persian poet Hafiz


Every time
a man upon the path
does not keep his word
some angels grumble
and have to remove
a few of the bets
they had placed upon his heart
to win.

Ayyam-i-Ha Interlude

Ayyam-i-Ha Interlude

By John Taylor; 24 February, 2006



It is migraine weather, hooray! So let us kick our feet off and take a break from the essential reality for a day or two and speak together of ephemeral illusions.


My friend Stu is a retired public school teacher who for decades coached his school's chess team. When I met him and heard that he was still teaching a combined introductory course and ongoing chess club for children at the Welland Public Library, I wanted to have one here in hopes that Thomas and Silvie might become involved. Unexpectedly, the powers that be in our library picked up on the idea and this winter Stu is teaching his second course in the Garfield Disher Room every Wednesday.


This time around several experienced adult players wandered in along with the dozen odd boys -- so far not one girl or woman has turned out-- and now there is talk of starting a permanent chess club in Dunnville. The most enthusiastic new player is Gord. This week Gord staged a simultaneous match against the entire club. He took white for every game and walked around the room playing about fourteen games in succession. He drew his game with me and won every other, including his confrontations with six-year-old Thomas and his grandfather, my father.

To nobody's surprise, the oldest member, my father lost in a few minutes but to the surprise of all concerned, Thomas refused to resign and was the last player left. Many older boys had lost interest long ago and forfeited their games in order to leave or play games with one another but as I pointed out to all who were gathered around, our Taylor motto is "A Taylor Never Quits," and Thomas lived up to the family name. Nor did he cry afterwards or make a fuss for losing a hopeless king versus rook and king endgame; he was looking forward too avidly to the trans-fatty acid-packed treat his grandfather always buys for him at Tim Horton's on the way home after the chess club. Still, Thomas's interest in chess is growing fast; it is even beginning to compete with Pokemon and Yugi-oh, which is saying a lot. I am glad because chess helps spatial reasoning abilities and fends off dementia, which admittedly will not be a problem for him for a while yet.


I had played Gord once the week before and beat him handily, but it was his first game for many years and he seems to be a strong but very rusty player. We exchanged reminiscences during spare moments the evening of his simultaneous exhibition about our early chess playing years and it turned out that we were both on the Hamilton Chess Club back in the Seventies; it is a very large club and we do not recall ever meeting personally, though it turned out that we were both involved in a simultaneous match of about thirty members with the Canadian champion at the time, Lawrence Day. I recorded my game and I recall that he beat me in 17 moves, which is, for those who do not play, lickedy-split. He lost his game on that day with Day as well.


In my time I only had the gumption to enter two chess tournaments -- stress does not help migraines -- but Gord told a story about one of his games in a tournament in Toronto that tops anything that ever happened to me. It seems that in an early round of this event he was matched against a player whose position fell apart quickly and when he became agitated and went to extend his arm. Gord thought he was about to resign and naturally he extended his hand to shake hands with the fellow, as is traditionally done. Instead the guy was actually winding up; he took a swing at Gord and the sucker punch laid him out on the ground and gave him a shiner for a week afterwards. "I was stunned, both literally and figuratively." The pugilistic chess player was escorted from the venue and not allowed to participate for two years. It seems that chess is like hockey, you can commit assault and break the law all you want as long as it is part of a legitimate sporting contest.


My main enthusiasm now is not chess but table tennis. I am very fortunate to have Stu to go up against twice a week. As a left hander, he is much more difficult than your usual player. His forehand is on my right instead of my left, so everything I do has to be the opposite. When I play a right hander I always lose several games until I get back in the habit of serving to my right instead of the left side of the table. The challenge of Stu keeps up my interest in exercising like nothing else can; I train all week in hopes that I will figure out some new serve, shot or other technique to crush him. He is not a hard hitter on the ping pong field of battle but he is extremely wily. He is the smartest opponent I have met. It does not take him very long at all to find a way around my best-laid traps.


Take this week. I had developed five or ten completely new shots. When I applied them in game conditions only about three worked, the others Stu easily figured out. Three successful shots, including an improved rocket serve were still enough to win the first three games quite handily. But then I tired; my rocket serve went erratic and he beat me four times in a row, winning the match by a hair. It was down to the last serve, and, as he would put it, his Karma favored him. You may say, all you have to do now John is practice your rocket serves until every smash is a winner and even do that when you are in a state of collapse due to fatigue. Simple enough. Sure, but you forget, the fast starts next week. Since we play in the late afternoon I will be lucky to get through without fainting and smashing my head on the table, going down to a defeat that is stunning, both literally and metaphorically.


Your usual writer delves into a subject and makes a contribution to knowledge, but an essayist, at least this essayist, delves into his own ignorance and comes away with a sick, confused feeling of utter inadequacy. I dread even looking at the pile research tatters I have amassed for each and all of the Baha'i principles. There is more there than one person could ever do justice to. I dread most of all the time after I die when somebody will have to throw all of these filing cabinets out.

I will be in a better place and may not care then, but now I care. I read with clammy hands how Jules Verne spent his life carefully filling in little three by five cards with research information and then after he died his son junked that huge database, much to the chagrin of every Jules Verne scholar to this day. The horror! For doing that his son gained the eternal opprobrium of Verne scholars, caused them endless cursing and gnashing of teeth. I do not flatter myself that I will be famous like Verne, but I know that these principles must take on increasing importance in coming years, and I would like my life's work in some way to contribute to the advance of what may come to be known as "principle studies." But mostly, I do not want anybody cursing my heirs.

The most dark and depressing section of this database by far is the place where I store my own essays. Masses of diamonds in the rough, but if you try to pick one out you discover that its beauty was mostly in its setting, how it related to my life at the time. But then as soon as you decide to leave it where it was it ceases to be about the principle in question and you come away with empty hands. Is it all a mirage? Then as the years mount up the utter mass of the material grows to the point where by pure inertia it drags me into despair. I see immediately how going over it will take longer and burn more emotional energy in lost turns and abortive brainstorms written at incompatible stages of my life, in varying styles, than my constitution will take. Just reading it would take longer than my feeble attention span will endure.


The only exception to this rule was the eleventh principle, the oneness of God. This was pristine, fresh, unencumbered, mostly because -- I now realize -- I had long ago teased out several separate topic categories like "Nature of the Manifestation," Progressive Revelation," "Progress and Evolution," and "Role of the Learned;" these sucked away most of the material that would otherwise have come in here. Now that I have spent almost a month writing about the oneness of God I can say with pride that already I am starting to get that sick, confused feeling as I look over this string of essays. But the feeling of being overwhelmed is not yet total, so there has to be much more to come, perhaps another complete month, or at least through the fast into Naw Ruz.


Now that I think of it, Ayyam-i-Ha is the only religious holiday I know of that is dedicated exclusively to the Godhead, so for me to be writing about the Oneness of God around now is as seasonal for a Baha'i as it would for a Christian to be writing about the birth of Jesus at Christmas-time. So my friends, happy Ayyam-i-Ha, and may your fast be fast – no, I do not mean quick, I mean may its spiritual benefit stick fast. That is what I mean, really. May you learn steadfastness, get grit from your fast, for grit will be your only grits for quite a while.

John Taylor
badijet@gmail.com