Portrait

Portrait of Marie

By John Taylor; 2011 June 09, Nur 05, 168 BE

Marie and I are having our twentieth anniversary this November. For me, she is love personified, truly a gift of the divine. Like any present from God, it spoils everything if you overthink it. It desecrates a gift to question it or treat it with anything but the high reverence it deserves. Should I for a moment dwell upon the dark side of things, I sink into a melancholic stupor, wondering if I am good enough for her or, worse, if I have been good for her. Surely she would be better off with a different man, someone stronger, healthier, richer, better. But here is another secret of love she taught me, that you must accept grace with grace. Love is a bounty. Like a babe born to poor parents. They must accept it and only pray that God will fortify them to provide for their precious, unqualified and unprepared as they may seem to be in their own eyes.

We have had rainy and changeable weather for the past few days and months. In such weather, migraineurs like me go off the deep end. But I find that a hug from my Marie in the morning, or two or three, is not only sweet pleasure in itself, but it is enough, very often, to stave off the looming rain clouds of a migraine attack. Her warm body, soft arms and the caress of her fuzzy hair on my face become a medicament to body and soul. Her touch relaxes me deep down and makes me whole for the rest of the day. She is my doctor, my placebo, my sanity, my delight, my passion.

I often admonish her that it is completely unfair how mother nature is treating us. Here she stands as gorgeous as the day we married, her figure thin and svelte, her halo of golden hair framing lips that are still plump and full (models have to literally brush their lips until they almost bleed get the pouty look that is natural to Marie), her freckles -- not one of which I would exchange for a whole chorus line of beauties -- as appealing as ever. Her school friends mocked her for those freckles when she was young, and when I look at those freckles and kiss them, I always am filled with righteous indignation that anyone could put her down, but especially for such a spectacular virtue. It is like ostracizing Einstein for being a nerd, or Picasso for being an artsy-fartsy. Anyway, there she stands in perfection like starry skies while here am I, fatter, uglier and greyer with every passing year. It is as if she walked into some time machine and locked me out, hopelessly in love, pounding on the door, begging to be let in to be with her.

When I decided to write this, I rummaged through our old photo albums to find the most important photo in my life, the one she sent me when we first became pen pals, in December of 1989. I received her letter, with that photo included, and felt astonished that a babe like that would deign to write to me, of all people. In the snapshot, a kitten sits on her shoulder, and she actually manages to be cuter than a kitten! That Tom Jones song, "What's new pussycat?" took on a whole new meaning. That gilded hair, the pert nose, the silken, freckled skin of her cheek were as ravishing as any I had seen. What a pleasure, what an honour, that a beautiful creature like that would write to me, all the schleps in the world!

I proudly displayed my portrait of Marie, my second Esperanto pen pal, to my father. He glanced at it and said, "Oh, that's nice," and continued what he was doing. How could anybody see her and not fall off their chair? Here I was, walking on air, my stomach pumped with helium, holding out her snap at arm's length like it was radioactive, which of course it was. Even now as I hold this photo my skin goes ratatatatat like a Geiger counter.

This picture, and a few others she sent, were all I had of her for months, almost a year, other than her handwriting in a language that I barely understood.

The Hand of the Cause, William Sears, adored his Marguerite of the "robin's egg blue eyes" not only for the usual reasons a man loves a woman, but also because she introduced him to his religion, she expertly taught him and gently led him into the Baha'i Faith. What greater gift of love than that of faith? Well, for me, my Marie of the subtly flecked green on blue eyes gave a gift almost as wonderful, she brought me into the embrace of Esperanto, the language we still speak "en famille." Since so few others in Ontario speak the language, it is truly a private language. And how many lovers literally speak their own language?

This is why I had written to the Universal Esperanto Association in the first place, asking that the members of an Esperanto club in Russia find a pen pal for me so that I would be forced by regular correspondence to learn Esperanto. I had tried to learn Esperanto on my own, without anybody to speak it to, several times through the years, starting in High School when I first heard of the Baha'i Faith. But I had always failed. Surely a pen pal would help. Instead, they simply published my entire letter in their official organ, the magazine "Esperanto," in its want ads section.

The first to respond was Aneke Scheuten-Buys, a Baha'i Esperantist in Holland -- I could tell it was a Baha'i by the date, though little of text of Aneke's letter was decipherable. Then came the kicker, my Marie’s letter, my second Esperanto pen-pal. As the months passed, dozens wrote me from around the world, from England, Sweden, Algeria, Iran, Russia, Germany, Japan and Bulgaria. These letters did motivate me to learn the language -- one American in Kalamazoo, Michigan was particularly helpful and patient in correcting my many grammatical mistakes -- but nothing came close to the desperate impetus of regular letters from a girl with the face of a supermodel.

I hasten to add that physical beauty was far from her only virtue, as her weekly, anxiously awaited letters quickly made clear. She was gentle, compassionate, considerate, kind and sweet. And most of all, she was honest, and she expected nothing less than complete frankness and sincerity. She insisted that I respond explicitly to every point she brought up.

Once, as I approached the mailbox, I impulsively stuffed into my weekly letter a "Sweet Marie" chocolate bar. Since she lived in recently communist Czechoslovakia, she would never have seen her name on a chocolate package. Plus, I wanted to show how the whole world recognizes her sweetness, not just me. Unfortunately, she was angry with me when the letter sorting machine chewed my fat, oversized letter and after a week it was sent back to me, resulting in a two week delay. Do not do that, she admonished me, what you say is far more valuable than any chocolate. What better compliment can you give to a writer than that?

She was, and remains, one of the most clearheaded, levelheaded and practical people I have met. Yes, I know, when you are crazy in love any object of affection seems levelheaded in comparison, even a complete loon. But in this case she really is all that; I can attest to it. After almost twenty years of marriage she remains my anchor in stormy trials. Lately she has been reading aloud her blog postings, translating from Czech to Esperanto. Her voice reading her own writing aloud remains strangely tranquilizing even now; like her hugs, her words and voice are exquisitely soothing, a balm to heart and soul.

Anyway, back to 1990. With each letter, I pored over dictionaries to get every word, every nuance of what this babe said to me. As I always did with nubile women, I made it clear from the start that I am a disabled person with zero career prospects. I was aware that cripples have no right to expect wives at all, much less trophy wives, as part of life's benefits. I always felt that justice required me to be upfront about the fact that I lose concentration at unpredictable times, and that a change in the weather or some subtle factor like food at the wrong time, or extra stress, caused a chain of migraines, one feeding the next, for days, months and years at a time. Besides, any deception about what I am would only break my heart into smaller pieces, and make everything worse. The stress of rejection only brought on another, bigger snake eating its tail -- that is, a phenomenon where one migraine's latter symptoms cause a new attack, and another and another, for grueling month after grueling year. I was never shy with women, but I was terribly fearful of the mind-storm what would hit me if I became entangled, attached, rejected, stressed or melancholic. I had no choice but to live a life of absolute celibacy.

I waited for Marie to break it off after I had written this to her, in my broken Esperanto, telling her exactly who and what I am. Every other had rejected me and I expected nothing different from her, compassionate as she seemed. Instead, in her straightforward way, after about three exchanges of letters Marie replied with a marriage proposal. She was not kidding, either, as I half feared. With great joy mixed with trepidation, I flipped through the Esperanto-English dictionary for the words to accept her proposal. The word for "yes" was, "Jes."

We kept our correspondence. It is filed away. I would like one day to go through our early letters to find out how, with such halting language skills, I got anything at all across to her, much less a one-way crossing of the Atlantic, a whirlwind visit and courtship, a joyous wedding and, two years later, the birth of our baby daughter, and all the rest that has happened since.

Marie was a humble repairperson working in a large factory. For almost a year she scrimped and saved every penny, eating little, avoiding social events, in order to make this thing happen. My disability pension was tiny and, she guessed, was unlikely to cover all our expenses. What is more, to my delight, she met the Baha'is in her city, Ostrava, became acquainted with them and even helped them put up posters for their meetings. To me this service to the Faith, even if she was not a believer, sanctified our endeavours. Surely God would bless her efforts.

During that year of correspondence everybody told me that I was crazy, that the risk was too great that such romances never work out. They were wrong, and here is why. What better courtship can you have than a year of letters only? For Baha'is who divorce, a year of patience ends a marriage. For us, a year of patience started our marriage. The birth by fire annealed our hearts as nothing else could have. If I had been able to hug and taste of my Sweet Marie then as I am blessed to do now, the flood of flavour would inevitably have washed all rational thought, and memory, to oblivion. It all would be lost forever by now. We could never have got to know one another as deeply before marriage as, through this hard bounty of God, we actually did.

I just read that the difference, the touchstone between love and infatuation is effort. Infatuation is felt, love is worked, decided, known through a lifetime.

If you are stricken by someone, you think you fall in love and you get into a state where you think of nothing else, you cannot sleep, eat, and on and on, it seems real but hard statistics prove that the chances of such passionate relations lasting beyond two years are slim indeed. You can stretch out your infatuation a few months by keeping it a secret -- somehow shame and a sense of wrongdoing preserves such trysts a little longer by isolating them in a vacuum. But in the end, nothing is built on a foundation of sand.

The difference between such ephemeral liaisons and real love is that one you get for free; you do not earn it, it just hits you over the head and that is that. Love demands much more. It has to be earned, it must be worked out by sacrifice, deprivation and hard work.

Marie's love still enthralls me to the bone, every day, after these twenty-one years because I know how real, powerful and potentially eternal our bond is. It goes way deep, far below surface feelings. We paid our dues during that year of hard labour and obnoxious, painful separation. In that time, we learned to be together even if our bodies are separated. When our bodies were finally united, we knew how to change their energy into constructive effort for the good of our family.

Somebody asked Paul Neuman why he was faithful to his wife, Joanne Woodward, when as a Hollywood star he could have had at the snap of his fingers his choice of willing, beautiful women. He answered, "Why go out for hamburger when you can have steak at home?" Rather crudely put, but he explained perfectly why Marie is, if anything, more beautiful now in my eyes than when we married.

In order to find the first photo of Marie that she included in her first letter, I had to dig through our old family albums, which I had not seen for many a year. When I actually saw in those old photographs what she looked like then, I almost had to shade my eyes, the beauty of my bride was so radiant. There was no denying that, in a certain sense, I was wrong about that time machine. Time in a superficial way has had its effects.

But, looking at my bride, not an image of her but in the flesh, after twenty years of maturation, she went from pretty to beautiful, more deeply beautiful than anyone ever I have seen. The blossom may have dropped, but the fruit is now ripe, ruddy and plump. Her beauty then was thin, dry, drawn out. Now it is full, mature, real, and has taken on so much force that it is almost frightening. For example, she just has to enter the room and I am electrified, plunged into a sort of ghost world where suddenly other women, no matter how beautiful, pop out of existence. There is only her, just my angelic bride, Marie.

It is futile to try to paint this portrait, in photos or words. Beauty points beyond this bottom-up world to the top-down, the divine reality. What good does it do to point out a pointer? When look into my bride's green eyes, I do not need pointers, for I see into eyes that will themselves see us in the glory of the World of Beauty.

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Badi’ Blog Posting for Tuesday, June 07

Principiis Obsta, or, Poor Richard’s Proverbs

It would be hypocritical of me to write a book about Comenius, whose thought is so wrapped up in reform of the family -- or indeed to claim to be a Baha'i, a faith that similarly establishes family as the foundation of political, religious and social unity -- if I did not devote my entire energy (to the extent of blogging little if at all lately) to helping improve our own little nuclear family. Until lately we were in many important ways a dysfunctional family, but we are working hard to make it better.

One improvement we are working on is meal planning. Our visit to Louhelen Baha'i School demonstrated (Marie deserves credit for this observation) how impressive it is in the eyes of our two kids at the start of every day to have a written announcement of what the main course at dinner will be. With that to look forward to during the day, fewer noses get turned up at laboriously prepared dishes in the evening. So we got a whiteboard and each morning Marie writes in large letters the menu for the day.

I too had to participate in this successful activity. So I decided to write a new proverb every few days on the same whiteboard that Marie uses to announce the meal.

Lately, I have been going over and "absorbing" into my quote system the sayings written by Benjamin Franklin in his "Poor Richard's Almanac." Poor Richard's was an extremely influential book in history, mixing as it does many essential elements of personal success, such as goal setting, virtue, etc., by combining proverbial admonitions to duty, the first self-help book for ambitious citizens in a democracy, along with a calendar and a daily planner. So far, therefore, the only quotes I have included on the Meal Whiteboard are proverbs taken from Poor Richard. Here are the two most recent examples:

If you were own master…

"Would you live with ease,

Do what you ought, and not what you please."

"Principiis obsta." [Latin: Resist the first advances]

I especially admire the latter advice. There have been so many studies announced in the science press lately on how to resist temptation. The current consensus of expert opinion is that the only way is to really succeed is just what Franklin advises, break the urge at its very first onset. My brother, who quit smoking last year after some fifty years of heavy smoking, says that he feels the onset of this first desire every day, all day long. How often he must undeviatingly heed this advice!

I think this is why advertising has become such a huge industry: a commercial breaks into our consciousness before it is prepared, when its guard is down. It inserts a suggestion, a desire, an idea, that we did not know we had. We do not know that it leads to an altered decision later on. So we enter into decisions that are prejudiced by bits of information introduced long before we were conscious that it mattered. Mind control injected before we know, before a resistance can be built up. An enlightened society that truly loved its citizens would, I believe, ban all mass advertising from the get-go, following just that precept: Principiis Obsta!

Our daily children's class lately features two books by Hands of the Cause, one "All Flags Flying!", by Bill Sears, and two, "Abdu'l-Baha," by Balyuzi. The first Hand early on reached out and grabbed my eleven-year-old, Thomas, and has never let him go. One feature of his writing that struck me as strange early on is that he places his love for his wife, Marguerite, front and center throughout his writing.

For a long time this trait of Sears struck me as sappy and uxorious, however after much pondering upon the wisdom of this Hand, I have come to the conclusion that he is correct in, as it were, singing Dan Hill's song, "Sometimes when we touch" in his autobiographical writing. If a Baha'i really believes in "chastity before marriage and fidelity afterwards," then it is absolutely the right thing to express to the fullest extent that fidelity in his or her writing. Similarly, chastity to some extent requires downplaying relationships outside marriage, be they innocent or not. I would therefore like for the first time, tomorrow, to write a tribute to Marie, my beloved wife, the light of my life.

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Two Stories

Two New Stories told by the Master

Review: Stories Told by Abdu’l-Baha, Compiled by Amir Badiei, George Ronald, Oxford, 2007

 

 

Our daily Baha’i class has been enlivened over the past few months by “Stories Told by 'Abdu’l-Baha,” by Amir Badiei. I borrowed this book from the Hamilton Baha’i library in hopes of getting something interesting for the kids, but to my surprise this book contained many stories that I had never heard before. It seems that Badiei has gone over the entire works of the Master and translated many stories for the first time. I’d say that between a third and a half of these stories and anecdotes are making their premier in English.

 

What an unexpected bounty!

 

Some stories are shocking, some puzzling, and one even talks about what Mary Magdalene did after the resurrection was over and the early Christians were being persecuted. This is a story I have never heard anywhere! Other stories, like the following, were clearly taken from the Master’s own direct observations of nature.

 

“One day I was standing by a creek and observed that swarm of small locusts whose wings had not yet developed wanted to go to the other side of the creek to find food. To make this possible for them, some of the adult locusts rushed forward, each one trying to get ahead of the other. They threw themselves into the water to establish a bridge, from one side of the creek to the other. Then the small on crossed the creek by walking on this bridge.  All the locusts that formed this bridge lost their own lives in this process."' (Stories Told by 'Abdu’l-Baha, p. 110)

 

 

To each story, the compiler adds a title, in this case, “Cooperation is Practiced Even among the Insects,” and at the start an apposite short quote from the Writings. I give eleven-year-old Thomas the job of reading this part to us. For this story, it is something the Master said in New Jersey to the congregation of the “Brotherhood Church”:

 

“There is brotherhood natal in mankind because all are elements of one human society subject to the necessity of agreement and cooperation. There is brotherhood intended in humanity because all are waves of one sea, leaves and fruit of one tree. This is physical fellowship which ensures material happiness in the human world. The stronger it becomes, the more will mankind advance and the circle of materiality be enlarged.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace, 129)

 

Badiei also offers an explanation at the end of the context in which the story was told, which is very often greatly needed. Here is the background for this story, which is not as helpful as it might have been.

 

“Abdu'l-Baha was talking about the necessity of cooperation among all peoples of the world. He told this story to show that cooperation is practiced, even among the animals.”

 

Here is another new-to-me story based on something that happened to a German inhabitant of Haifa. It is kind of a strange story, as true stories often are. But it proves one thing, our Exemplar was not above repeating juicy stories told to Him by others. So strike that off your definition of gossip! On the other hand, there is the given moral of the story, “This story illustrates that some people who believe the chatter of flatterers eventually come to a sad end.”

 

He Was Inflated with Pride and Got a Broken Leg

 

“As to him who turneth aside, and swelleth with pride, after that the tokens have come unto him, from the Revealer of signs, his work shall God bring to naught.” (ESW 60)

 

In Haifa there was at one time a German Consul who became [my] friend. He used to call on [me] often, and I returned his visits. At one time, he disappeared for a whole month. Suddenly, one day he entered [my] room. He had a stick in his hand and was lame. 'Oh, sir, how is it that you have not inquired about my health during the past month?' `Why, friend, what has happened to thee?' 'Yes,' he pitifully answered,

'I am the victim of "Bravo".

Let me tell you how it happened. The German Colony had prepared a ball, to which I was bidden. The governor, the judges and the officials of Haifa were likewise invited. When the dancing was over, they had a jumping contest. One by one they started to jump, but in a clumsy manner. I saw that none of them had learned the art of jumping a long distance, but I had learned it in boyhood, going to a gymnasium in Germany. When the last one failed to reach the mark, I volunteered as a candidate.

 

 

All eyes were on me now.

 

My first attempt was so successful that it elicited the hearty "Bravo" of the governor. In my heart I was pleased and thought I would try again, and go beyond the first limit. I went back and back, then jumped forward, and when I landed on the other side, a tumultuous applause was raised from the governor and the officials. "Bravo, bravo" rang in my ears. By this time I was puffed up with pride and became blind to my own limitations.

 

"Now I will show them," I said to myself, "what real, jumping is," and with this determination I started the third time. I wanted to go further, much further than the first and second time, and so, when I came down upon the earth with it great crash, I felt a most excruciating pain in my right foot. My leg was broken. I became unconscious, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself in bed. For the last thirty days I have suffered much. Thus you see now, how I became the victim of the "Bravos" of the governor."

 

(Stories Told by 'Abdu’l-Baha, 110-112)

Avoiding Lot's Offer

About the "s" word, and especially the "m" word

"What thinkest thou? He who hath made a God of his passions, and whom God causeth to err through a knowledge, and whose ears and whose heart He hath sealed up, and over whose sight He hath cast a veil -- who, after his rejection by God, shall guide such a one? Will ye not then be warned?" (Qur'an 45:22, cited in Baha'u'llah, Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 213)

I want in this essay to talk about sex and masturbation, but I dare not put those words in the title or the whole deal will be caught in the spam filters and hung up to dry.

As Baha'is we are often asked about the position of our Faith on this subject, so it is good to know not only what the Writings say but also the latest research on the issue. I also have a very old piece of reasearch too, as you shall see.

If you are not on their mailing list, Scientific American recently put out an excellent summary of new research on sex, especially masturbation. It came out on Jun 22, 2010 in "Mind & Brain," and is called: "One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot," written by Jesse Bering. It is at:

 <http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=one-reason-why-humans-are-special-a-2010-06-22&sc=WR_20100702>

 As Bering points out, it has been known about fifty years that well over 90 percent of men masturbate regularly, and it was more recently discovered that when couples are sexually active (with each other) they actually masturbate more frequently than otherwise. This is contrary to what most people would expect. Evolutionary biologists speculate about the reasons for that. One idea is that the sperm of the male of the species may be made "fresher" by masturbation. "Spilling your seed on the ground," as the Bible puts it, gets rid of old, defective, dead and dying spermatazoa and gives a new generation a better shot at reaching the egg.

Like most of evolutionary biology, this is an unscientific shot in the dark that has yet to be backed up by concrete evidence. However, if this idea about masturbation turns out to be true, it has interesting moral implications. A married couple who want to conceive need the man's sperm to be as potent as possible. In that case, since making babies is central to the purpose of marriage, it would actually be ethically desirable for a husband to masturbate as often as possible, at least during the wife's child bearing years. I'm just saying.

This morning as I was looking over this issue, I gained something and lost something. Let us start with what I lost.

I had always thought that the Aqdas forbade masturbation with a statement saying, "Thou shalt not indulge thy passions." I imagined that the UHJ in a footnote interpreted this to mean "do not masturbate." This seemed pretty wise to me, in view of the above mentioned statistic about the number of men who masturbate. In other words, Baha'u'llah says in effect, do not indulge yourself, men, but if it is a question of driving yourself insane with sexual abstinence, then masturbation hardly qualifies as an indulgence. It also seemed wise in the sense that excluding ninty percent of the male sex is hardly an inclusive way of propagating a religion.

The mention of "indulging your passions" apparently is an interpretation that the Guardian (or to speak more precisely one of his secretaries writing on his behalf) made of the second paragraph of the Aqdas, and which the UHJ repeated when it was drawing up the Codification. You can read paragraph two for yourself, but my re-reading this time turned up no explicit mention of indulgence. It says, in part,

"We, verily, have commanded you to refuse the dictates of your evil passions and corrupt desires, and not to transgress the bounds which the Pen of the Most High hath fixed, for these are the breath of life unto all created things." (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 19-20)

Let me offer an observation here. Although modern parlance sometimes uses the word "passion" as a synonym for strong sexual impulses, in a strict Platonic sense "passion" is a reference to the angry emotions. Only the term "desire" signifies sexual lust. Desire is the "sheep" of growth, passion is the sheepdog who keeps the sheep in line. Passion is the wolf-like nature of the sheepdog; passion, an instinct to protect, is what in marriage usually leads to spousal abuse. Most often, abuse does not come from desire -- although of course the two often are mixed up with one another when neither is under the control of the shepherd.

In that case, Baha'u'llah's choice of words implies that He is saying that passion, or violence, is evil, because it harms others directly. The danger of desire, especially expressed as masturbation, is not an evil in itself because it does not directly harm others. It is a bad thing, however, only insofar as it tends to corrupt.

Let us follow this trail where it leads.

Unless sex is an expression of a love sanctioned by one's spouse, and by God and society, the expression does not last beyond this world. Anything exclusively of this world is not evil per se, but it can have an odour. Inordinate desire, therefore, is not conducive to life and tends to corrupt. "To corrupt," means to rot, and we know that rot is mildly communicable. Throw a rotting apple into a basket of fresh fruit and it will propagate gasses that accellerate the deterioration of good apples. That, avoidance of corruption, is why we need to limit desire.

Another passage in the Aqdas implies that the greater danger is a priggish attitude of puritans, who would make sex a sin and whose abstinence becomes extreme and makes lack of indulgence itself a kind of indulgence,

"How many a man hath secluded himself in the climes of India, denied himself the things that God hath decreed as lawful, imposed upon himself austerities and mortifications, and hath not been remembered by God, the Revealer of Verses. Make not your deeds as snares wherewith to entrap the object of your aspiration, and deprive not yourselves of this Ultimate Objective for which have ever yearned all such as have drawn nigh unto God." (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, pp. 31-32)

This latter point is reflected in the advice of both the Guardian and the House of Justice to Baha'is who asked them about masturbation. Do not blow it out of proportion. Sex is overemphasized in this culture.

The only direct mention of masturbation that turns up in Ocean is a letter by the House written in 1981 (March 8). They start off by saying that there is no known mention of masturbation in Holy Writ. "We have found in the Holy Writings no explicit references to masturbation, but there are a number of principles and teachings which can guide a Baha'i to the correct attitude towards it." (Lights of Guidance, #1220, p. 364) They then cite the Guardian, whose secretary wrote on his behalf,


"no sexual act can be considered lawful unless performed between lawfully married persons. Outside of marital life there can be no lawful or healthy use of the sex impulse except self-control which, when exercised, undoubtedly has a salutary effect on the development of character and of personality in general..."


Balancing this, the Guardian mentions a moral imperative on the part of society to encourage people to marry young while they still have the vigour to express the sexual "instinct." If you want to see this social imperative at work, I recommend the 1956 movie "Marty," with Ernest Borgnine. This demonstrates that at the time there was a strong sense that everybody, especially elder women, should support marriage by encouraging, not to say pushing, young people to enter into the institution. This sense of duty to back marriage is all but wiped out. Few protest as gay-lesbian-bi-trans marriage is slowly legalized around the world.

The Guardian also points out that the Master often asked us to "keep our secret thoughts pure." Since masturbation requires mental fantasies, that pretty much rules this practice out, he said. Or at least it did before ubiquitous porn on the net made fantasy itself obsolete. As the above linked article in Scientific American points out, the internet has changed human sexuality forever in only two short decades. The average twelve year old is familiar with sexual acts that would have shocked the most dissolute bawdy house bounder in past centuries.

Which brings me to the re-discovery that I made this morning.

Many years ago I remember being delighted to find a brilliant point that Frances Bacon made about sexual morality. I read it and then forgot exactly where it was. For over two decades it sat on my "kitab-i-hearsay" shelf, until this morning I at last stumbled across the right keyword in Ocean. In the middle of Bacon's New Atlantis, he writes,


"The haunting of those dissolute places, or resort to courtesans, are no more punished in married men than in bachelors. And the depraved custom of change, and the delight in meretricious embracements (where sin is turned into art), maketh marriage a dull thing, and a kind of imposition or tax. They hear you defend these things, as done to avoid greater evils; as advoutries, deflowering of virgins, unnatural lust, and the like.
 "But they say this is a preposterous wisdom; and they call it Lot's offer, who to save his guests from abusing, offered his daughters; nay, they say further, that there is little gained in this; for that the same vices and appetites do still remain and abound, unlawful lust being like a furnace, that if you stop the flames altogether it will quench, but if you give it any vent it will rage..."
 "... as for masculine love, they have no touch of it; and yet there are not so faithful and inviolate friendships in the world again as are there, and to speak generally (as I said before) I have not read of any such chastity in any people as theirs. And their usual saying is that whosoever is unchaste cannot reverence himself; and they say that the reverence of a man's self, is, next religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices."


What Bacon says here about shutting all the vents to a furnace so that lack of oxygen will allow the fires within to go out completely reminds me of something I recently read in the science press.

It seems that many coal mining companies around the world have accidentally started fires in coal deposits underground. This is happening not in a few places but all around the world. Hundreds of underground invisible coal fires are burning all the time, uncontrolled, doing nobody any good, constantly spewing who knows how much soot and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Talk about corruption! A similar thing, shutting off the vents to our inner thoughts, is what the message of Baha'u'llah proposes to do to the underground coal fires of human lust. Shut down the vents and let the fire go out on its own.

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Children's Votes

Apprentice Citizens (draft II)

By John Taylor; 2010 July 10, Rahmat 17, 167 BE

My 15-year-old daughter often points out with characteristic ardour that it is unfair that children cannot vote. I respond with the usual objections to children's enfranchisement, that it might subject them to manipulation by unscrupulous adults, or that unformed minds are unready, irresponsible and unduly prone to frivolous influences. She is not convinced, and I am beginning to see her point. If we treat the young as irresponsible, even if they are irresponsible, they will remain that way. But if we treat them as concerned citizens, at least some, if not all, will surely respond by becoming responsible. And such an improvement would have an effect on society for many decades.

It may be true that children would make more mistakes as first-time voters, but the same is true for a novice in any trade. We have no choice but to accept the higher rate of errors for new doctors and apprentice carpenters. Such is the price of replacing the old with a new generation. Why do we not have the same tolerance for error among novice citizens?

My favourite educational reformer, John Amos Comenius, thought that schools should take on the attributes of the society they are preparing children to enter,

"Every School should be a miniature Republic, abiding by definite laws and executing them strictly, both for our present purpose (that everything appertaining to School should be maintained at full strength), and with a view to the future, so that the schools are like preludes where the serious duties of life are correctly rehearsed." (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 22, para 31, p. 53)

I submit, therefore, that under the controlled conditions of a school, children could safely be given a full adult vote. If their vote is as "real" as any adult's vote, most pupils would take their studies much more seriously than they do examinations (in the case of my son and his nine-year-old buddies, this is not very seriously at all) and study the issue in question more diligently.

I deplore our educational system's over-reliance on tests and examinations. A course that ends in a vote rather than an examination would tend to reduce the need for such brutal, Darwinian assessment. A course in health, say, would not end in a gruelling test that teaches nothing, is soon forgotten and takes up class time. Rather a class might vote in a plebiscite or poll on a matter of health concern for their household or neighbourhood.

Because such votes are over specialized issues that parents and significant adults in their lives are not directly involved in, it is unlikely that any of them would try to manipulate the children's opinions. Usually, recently-learned knowledge in specialized issues counts more than long life experience. There is no reason, then, that children should not be as qualified as any adult to vote upon such questions.

Very young children could start off by routinely having what Comenius called "rehearsals" for their role in the democratic element of our republic, perhaps with votes among themselves in group projects. I think that the educational system is to blame for the fact that, after hundreds of years of nominal democracy, the workplace is still all but untouched by democracy.

Another interesting possibility to invite pupils to participate in active research on the democratic process itself. Older pupils would be ideal investigators to experiment with elections for members of student councils.

One of the most interesting experiments in linguistics that I have heard about took place in an unusual multi-ethnic pre-school in Hawaii. A group of infants, none of whose families spoke the same language, were put together in a classroom. After a couple of years together they had invented their own language. It was entirely unique, not a lingua franca, but a complete language with its own vocabulary, grammar and syntax. I have often thought that this would be an equitable way to invent the world inter-language; if the number of children is proportionate to the population of a given culture, its influence on the international language would be approximately fair. In any case, if youngsters are so creative with language, there is no reason why they could not also invent their own, improved forms of democratic elections as well.

Even if it is decided that children cannot vote in real political elections, they should at least be called upon to vote frequently in lesser matters, especially whatever has an immediate effect upon them. For example, if a school corridor is to be painted, why not let pupils vote on the colour? Habits gained in childhood last a very long time, and are an essential part of one's education.

It certainly was to mine.

When I was about eight-years-old Canadian schoolchildren participated in an open vote for the design of our new flag. As I recall, it was a choice between a single and a triple maple leaf. I think I voted for the flag with the single maple leaf, and was gratified when it won. Silly as the election was, it is something I have remembered all my life. Since it was something I did at his age, I shared this story of this children's vote to my son, Thomas, who is now ten years old. Every once in a while he remonstrates with me for voting for the single maple leaf, a poor choice in his opinion.

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Reward and Punishment

Thinking about two "Great Being" Statements

By John Taylor; 2010 March 29, Ala' 09, 166 BE

Let us look today at a "Great Being" statement from the Tablet to Maqsud, one of Baha'u'llah's most important tablets. As my regular readers know, I have been mystified for a long time by these pronouncements labelled as coming from the "Great Being." Who is this Great Being? Is it another name for God? Why did Baha'u'llah label these, and not other statements, as coming from this Being? Indisputably, these are "great" in the sense that they are salient teachings of Baha'u'llah.

Certainly, the Master seems to have thought so.

Many, if not most of the Baha'i principles that Abdu'l-Baha proclaimed throughout Europe and North America, for example, come out of one or more of these Great Being statements. As we shall see, the two that I have selected for today can be applied to the principles of economic equity and of the promotion of education.

Here is the Great Being statement for today,

"The Great Being saith: The structure of world stability and order hath been reared upon, and will continue to be sustained by, the twin pillars of reward and punishment." (Tablets, 163)

But this all ends at the border.

Pollution and climate change are the result of the fact that on the international level corporations and other groups act with total impunity. Money is easily shifted around the world at a keystroke; even the 9-11 attacks on the U.S. only briefly slowed the flood of hot money. Interpol reports that this finances a veritable explosion of international criminal activity over the past decade. The chaotic, failed state of Somalia, for example, allows organized criminals to turn it into an illegal dumping ground for toxic waste from around the world. Most terrorism is a cross-border phenomenon, as is modern war, particular the bloodiest war in recent memory, the free-for-all for mineral wealth in the Congo. Even stable states, like India, are uprooting their aboriginal population in exchange for bribes from mining conglomerates. I could go on but it would only discourage both myself and my readers.

Nor are there any international awards or titles available to encourage good behaviour across borders. Here is an idea, let Queen Elizabeth and other royal houses pass on their right to confer knighthoods and other aristocratic titles to some world institution devoted to that purpose. Then that body could hand out knighthoods, for example, to the police operatives who bring down the new mafias. Or perhaps a sort of Nobel prize given to officials instrumental in blocking the flow of hot money.

I would like to see a title, like "sir," awarded to entire families. That way, any man in the family can call himself "sir," or any woman call herself "dame," as long as that family maintains the highest moral standard. Let one of them be caught committing adultery or some other sexual transgression, and they all lose their title. Every family member loses out on an international honour.

I am old enough to remember when adultery was illegal, and the concern of the wronged spouse at that time was that even if he or she felt very hurt and angry at the betrayal, it remained in their material interest to be sure that their wandering spouse was not arrested and thrown in jail. The only result of imprisoning an adulterer is worse privation for the whole family unit. The innocent suffer more than the guilty. But if the loss is entirely nominal or titular, then it would remain in every family member's interest to keep each other honest -- "honest" in the Shakespearian sense of "chaste".

Another idea for a cosmopolitan award that might appeal to a more egalitarian world is to keep the bar very low, at least in the beginning. At the opening ceremonies of a world government, say, let the new institution confer upon everybody on earth a title, like "human," as in "Human Jane Jones," or, "Citizen John Smith," or perhaps the Shakespearean title for the lowborn: "sirrah," like, "Sirrah Joan Smith." Make the title universal, but a privilege that can be lost. Once the right to bear a title is revoked due, say, to wrongdoing, make it easy, after taking a course or two, to earn this basic title back with a little work. Higher titles would be correspondingly harder to regain. This could be the start of an entire system of moral education based on rewards and incentives rather than the little we have now, sterile condemnation and impotent indignation.

One reason personal sexual morality was tossed out in Western nations after the 1960's was that, as explained by a slogan of the time, "The state has no business sticking its nose into the bedrooms of the nation." That may be so, but under a Comenian world government, families would be given the power to maintain their own integrity. Thus any title would have to be approved by families first, and then confirmed by all three wings of governance, science, religion and politics. It would not be just the state, it would be science and religion, as well as the family, that stick their noses in. This would not satisfy the most liberal among us, but it would at least assure that any laws enforcing morality would be the opinion of the whole society as to what is right and what is wrong. This would strike a proper balance between being too Puritanical and being overly liberal and tolerant. The award of a title would come with high expectations of righteousness, without encouraging dour severity or a moralizing, patronizing attitude.

This prepares us for a second "Great Being" statement, which I will look at next time.

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