Gazpacho Guy Meets Jules Verne

Gazpacho Guy Meets Jules Verne

By John Taylor; 27 January, 2006

When I was working on my mound construction book last fall I
researched the history of proposals for tube transit, floating cities
and flying cities. I found my paths led back to one source, my
childhood favorite writer, Jules Verne. Although in recent years I
have rarely found it in me to crack a novel of any sort, I do read
biographies of novelists. I just completed this one of Verne,

Peter Costello, Jules Verne, Inventor of Science Fiction, Hodder and
Stoughton, London, 1978

I do not recommend this biography, it has many errors and typos and
the research is incomplete and out of date. Nonetheless it has its
virtues, offering a critical overview of his vast work, and insights
into the interplay of his thought with personal problems. Costello
gives a good picture Verne's illustrious career and that is what
interests me at the moment. Coincidentally this biography came out in
1978, the year my own successful writing-to-survive career began (it
is successful because I have survived, until now, and that has to be
enough). In the years since 1978, Verne's reputation took off like a
rocket to the moon, though I am certain that happened in spite of this
bio, not because of it. There is an active Verne society with a
newsletter now, and Verne's later novels are coming out in annotated
versions, often translated into English for the first time. Thanks to
critics like Roland Barthes, academics are coming to realize that
there is much more to Verne than the children's novelist he is made
out to be in the English speaking world. In reality he wrote only one
or two novels specifically for children, and they are not ones that
you would recognize or even find in the children's section of your
neighborhood library.

Jules Verne called his oeuvre "scientific novels," and readers are now
realizing that it fits much better than the later term, "science
fiction." Verne spent his apprenticeship as a writer slogging for ten
or fifteen undistinguished years writing light musical dramas for the
stage. In order to make ends meet, he worked on the stock exchange for
a while. His father disapproved in an age when a father's approval
meant something. Then Verne turned a corner; he met a receptive
publisher and learned how to turn his dramatic skills to better ends.
He combined melodrama with his love for science, exploration, music
and the sea. Most important, though not mentioned in this bio, this
publisher forced him to take the edge off his bred-in-the-bone
cynicism and pessimism. For a time at least he wrote optimistic,
encouraging novels about the possibilities of scientific discovery.
The world loved him for it, but ignored him when he reverted to his
natural disposition. Verne built up a large file cabinet full of cards
(now it would be called a database) recording snippets from press
reports and scientific journals. This database was the raw material
and inspiration for his novels to the end of his life.

One thing that strikes me from this life is Verne as father. Verne
married late to a widow with two small children, and she bore him one
son, Michel Jules Verne, after which there were marital problems
probably caused by a mistress or two, all trace of which Verne
succeeded in expunging from the record before he died. The
estrangement with his wife persisted for many years, though eventually
they reconciled. Verne was a distant father and his son grew up
delinquent in his eyes. He was very critical of his son in
adolescence, and, in the words of this biographer, Michel "lived down"
to his father's expectations. Eventually though, they reconciled too
and in his last years Michel became Verne's literary executor and
finished many of his unfinished projects.

Michel turned out to be a talented and original writer in his own
right and several times wrote, submitted and published novels of his
own, taking advantage of the similarity of his name to that of his
father. Indeed several of the ideas that attracted me back to Verne
actually seem to have been cooked up by Michel rather than Jules. If
Verne had lived up to his responsibility as a father he would have
taken an effort not only to apprentice Michel but, when his skills
were ready, he would have pushed him into the limelight so that he
could have had an independent career. As it was, Michel never made it
on his own; though he wrote a handful of original works in later years
there were few readers to notice.

Not that you can blame Jules Verne for this neglect since he made very
little effort at promoting his own career either, much less that of
his son. After the spectacular successes of his early books, he
settled down like a factory worker punching a clock, producing two
novels a year until his death. He learned his dramatic métier but
avoided learning the necessary corollary, the art of self-promotion.
He let his publisher take the lion's share of the profits from his
early books, and just kept on writing regardless. When he traveled it
was not to promote his books, it was in virtual anonymity, though his
wife was very pleased with all the attention from notables. Verne's
readership over two decades went down from hundreds of thousands to
sales of a mere few thousand per book, which is as much as your
ordinary, run of the mill, unknown, hack novelist can expect.

To put this another way, Jules Verne was an exemplary Catholic in one
way especially, he genuinely hated Mammon. In spite of his being a
former stock broker, the very idea of profit and money grubbing was
repugnant. Many critics are surprised at the high praise Pope Leo gave
his work for "purity" when Verne and crew were given an audience with
him in Rome. They point out that there are virtually no references to
God, Jesus, sin or salvation in anything he wrote. But when it comes
to this, Verne's dislike of money was Catholic to the core. This is
why I have always had problems with Verne's greatest character,
Captain Nemo. The fellow invents a submarine, plunders undersea
treasures around the world, then condemns other people for corrupt
money grubbing. That I just find strange, incomprehensible, more
hypocritical than righteous. Nemo is far from a sympathetic character
to me.

Okay, you guessed it, I focus on this aspect of Verne because it hits
close to home. I am no self promoter of my career either. Worse, I
have no moral scruples about profit like Verne did, so why my problems
forcing myself to grub for it? Like Verne, I like the process of
writing more than being a famous personality. And like Verne I resent
the fact that I would have to go out and scrounge for my career to
flourish, to stop writing and start schmoozing for a large enough
readership to sustain our family. If this was true even for the
world-famous Jules Verne, it is especially so for me. At least that is
how I think until my next failure in health, after which the whole
thing is mooted again, for the thousandth Sisyphonian time.

It was surprising to learn that Verne ran for election on the local
city counsel in the late 1880's and held the position of what we would
call an alderman to the end of his life. True, his scientific novels
involve much city planning, so local political decisions, especially
having to do with his old love the theatre, did hold his interest.
Myself, I have the same revulsion for administration and bureaucracy
that Verne had for Mammon, and I find it hard to understand why he
would voluntarily subject himself to all of that. Yes, he was schooled
as a lawyer, but still... The hardest thing by far for me about being
a Baha'i is serving the Administrative Order in an official capacity;
if I had a free choice, I would be an observer and supporter from far
back in the wings, not a participant in the grind of decision making.
Consultation is for me like the cross was for Jesus; I would have God
make the cup disappear if I had my druthers.

Before I end let me say that although I am not a novelist and do not
even read novels (though I watch avidly every filmed version of
Verne's stories that I can get my hands on, even the butchered
made-for-television productions -- like the abominable adaptation of
Mysterious Island that hit the video stores this week), I have a deep
love for what Jules Verne loved, discovery, exploration, the sea,
justice, music, storytelling, and the possibilities opened up by
technology. In the spirit of Verne, let me speculate a little about
the possibilities for the immediate future stirred up by reading about
his life and career.

First of all, careers are a crock, especially for writers. The
Guardian said that in future history will be written by groups, not
individuals. I say that this is not the half of it. Not only writing
about history but almost all writing, in my opinion, will be done in
packs. Wolves, the most intelligent of all predators, run in packs, so
why not original writing? In view of the scientific discoveries
outlined in Surowiecki's Wisdom of Crowds, group writing must
predominate more and more over individual careers.

This is already happening. Work is carved out by advancing information
technology and distributed to writers' studies around the world. Take
Wikipedia, a group writing project on a grand scale, the logical
continuation of the Enlightenment's Encyclopedie, only it is being
written not in French or English but in all human languages, all at
once, by millions of enthusiastic writers around the world. Open ended
writing, moderated by self effacing authority, born in and of the
Internet, is the writing of the near future. Or take video games, or
MUDs on the Web. These soon will become the writing paper of the
future; they are novels, movies, entire virtual worlds all mashed into
one. Hook them up to a stationary bicycle or other virtual reality
exercise machine, run them under an open regime devised by teachers
and health professionals promoting virtues like wisdom and moderation,
and such invention can easily be made into utopia generating devices
of monumental proportions. All it will take is the spirit of true
Baha'is working together, and our world will be transformed beyond
Verne's wildest imagination.

All thoughts in these essays are humble offerings to the Holy Word,
for they originally derive from communion with It in my obligatory
morning reading and prayer. Today's reading comes from the Bab's Seven
Proofs, and follows upon proofs cited yesterday:

"Now consider the Revelation of the Bayan. If the followers of the
Qur'an had applied to themselves proofs similar to those which they
advance for the non-believers in Islam, not a single soul would have
remained deprived of the Truth, and on the Day of Resurrection
everyone would have attained salvation." (Selections, 120)

This points to the complete dependence of groups upon critical
abilities of the individuals in the group. Without that, hypocrisy
rules, we criticize others instead of ourselves. Creeping tyranny
rises to the top in group functions, and artist and groups divorce.
Creative workers are corrupted by lack of self-criticism, and groups
fail in their function along with them. Hard as it is, an artist must
work in and with groups, for consultation is key. No individual ever
compares in power and correctness to a group. Conversely, assuming
that consultation is done properly and in a spiritual manner, groups
need not cramp the style and originality of an inspired genius like
Verne.

No, more. I believe that if Jules Verne had been part of a "scientific
novel" production group cooperating with working scientists, his
imaginative output and accuracy and relevance might not have tanked as
they did. He and his son after him might have gone on to world
changing influence. In view of his concern for the environment and
beauty in his city planning career in city hall, we might not be in
the mess we are today if he had worked his full potential as an artist
in a group. Today, scientists and astronomers are increasingly
recognizing the importance of the role of science fiction in promoting
and popularizing the ideas and ideals that they deal with technically.

The reason groups and artists need each other is that working alone,
no matter how brilliant, an artist inevitably hits his level of
incompetence. The quality of their words suffers the moment he or she
(Margaret Atwood is a name that springs to mind) becomes prominent
enough that the opinions of publishers, editors and copy writers cease
to carry due weight. Every individual must recognize that creative
freedom, like all freedoms, ceases to be a good when carried to
excess. Like the French Revolution, too much rebellion, freedom and
independence become violent and eat their own children. The flashing
brilliance of the Renaissance happened when, for a brief time,
scientists, artists and planners worked in harmony as teams. Let us
pray that this happens again on a world level. Today's prayer was for
just that:

"Darkness hath encompassed every land, O my God, and caused most of
Thy servants to tremble. I beseech Thee, by Thy Most Great Name, to
raise in every city a new creation that shall turn towards Thee, and
shall remember Thee amidst Thy servants, and shall unfurl by virtue of
their utterances and wisdom the ensigns of Thy victory, and shall
detach themselves from all created things. Potent art Thou to do Thy
pleasure. No God is there but Thee, the Most Powerful, He Whose help
is implored by all men." (Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations, 171)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Baha'u'llah's Brave New World

Baha'u'llah's Brave New World

By John Taylor; 26 January, 2006

The Marquis de Sade shot past the 18th Century deists and wrote "A
Dialog between a Priest and a Dying Man," an apology for atheism, a
refutation of Christianity and all it stood for. More than any other
philosophe, Sade captured the anti-religious undercurrent of the
"Enlightenment." As a former atheist myself, reading a summary of this
dialog infuriated me and I plan to get a hold of an etext, if I can,
and deal with it in detail. It was especially distressing to read that
what the dying man regarded as his most devastating ammunition against
belief in God is now actually fully accepted by most believers,
especially by us Baha'is. The very nature of belief in God is
completely different now. Now, we believe in a reasoned manner. Proofs
enter in. Consider this, from another in the series I am reading, this
time, "Introducing Philosophy,"

"But all of them (philosophers) believe that philosophers are obliged
to provide some kind of explanation, proof or evidence for their
ideas. And this obligation marks the one obvious difference between
philosophy and religion." (Introducing Philosophy, Dave Robinson and
Judy Groves, Icon Books, Duxford, UK, p. 5)

Splutter, splutter. I think that the reason that such an extraordinary
distinction can pass muster in Europe must be that so few ever read
the Qu'ran. Depending on the translator, there are between 9 and 55
mentions of proof in that Holy Text alone. If de Sade's dying man had
a mullah instead of a priest by his side, he might not have won so
decisively. But still, Jesus did say, "By their fruits ye shall know
them," does that not count for anything? Besides, the KJV offers six
mentions of the word "proof," and the World English Bible ten. The
dying man's priest should have searched them on his Blackberry.

Take a deep breath, John, and count to ten. Let us back off from this
and take another tack. What is to follow is ground I have covered
before but it is worth plowing it over, perhaps annually, like a crop.
The House of Justice begins "One Common Faith" with a special
reassurance that we can be confident that the,

"period of history now opening will be far more receptive to efforts
to spread Baha'u'llah's message than was the case in the century just
ended. All the signs indicate that a sea change in human consciousness
is under way."

Let us focus in on this phrase, "sea change in human consciousness."
Consciousness is a slippery word, hard to nail down almost by
definition. John Lock defined it as the "perception of what passes in
a man's own mind." Dictionaries suggest a broader definition, an
awareness or concern for something, be it within or without the mind.
As for "sea change," this interesting expression was born, like many
English words, in the imagination of the Bard. His last play, his swan
song, and my favorite of them all, The Tempest, has prince Ferdinand
stranded on a beach thinking that his father and all hands are dead in
a storm and shipwreck from which he has barely escaped. He wonders
about some music he thinks he hears,

"Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth?
It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon
Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather."

Shakespeare then has the airy spirit Ariel sing the song again. Since
Shakespeare, Ariel has become a symbol for poetic inspiration, but
here she offers a song of Dutch comfort; it is consolation passing
strange, assuring Ferdinand that his father is dead, drowned and
gradually being encrusted by jewels under the sea:

"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell"

It turns out that this song of Ariel is a spell, not to say a lie,
that Ariel has been charged by Prospero to cast upon the young prince.
The image reflects the anger of Prospero, a brother wronged by the
present king of Milan. Ferdinand's father, the present king of Milan,
is in reality alive and stranded elsewhere on the island. However, the
plot of the play does offer real sea changes to all concerned,
anointed by the magical imagination of Shakespeare. Many magical
twists and turns finally correct the dislocated political situation.
Wrongs are righted, Prospero regains his usurped crown, Ferdinand
meets and falls in love with Miranda, his cousin and Prospero's
daughter. When she first meets Prospero, Miranda has no memory of life
off of the desert island, and has never seen a man other than the base
and deformed Caliban and her aged father. She declares,

"O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous
mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in't!"

Aldous Huxley took Miranda's innocent wonder at what a beautiful thing
a healthy youth in full flower can be, and made it infamous by
entitling his satire of our technology and pharmaceutical obsessed
life, "Brave New World." A thousand times, alas. Now, you cannot say
"brave new world" without echoing Huxley's rank cynicism, the reverse
of what Shakespeare's poetic expression intends. Fortunately, "sea
change" did not undergo such a bad sea change. It still implies not a
bad change (like the encrustation that actually happens to an object
left for centuries under the sea) but an imaginary transformation of
our "fading parts" into something "rich and strange;" moldering flesh
in the sea of imagination turns into coral and diamonds, into a
precious, rare and wonderful thing.

Now the reason I am alive and still have hope, the reason that I am a
Baha'i, is that I still look forward to a brave new world without
qualm or hint of irony. I really believe that if we could see with our
inner eye we would witness this sea change going on in our soul and in
the general consciousness of society. However ugly it may look
outwardly, I believe with all my heart that a sea change is in the
offing, a wonder is in the making. I believe that the day will soon
come that anyone entering a religious gathering, not just a Baha'i
meeting but any gathering of sincere believers in God, will make that
very declaration that Miranda made upon seeing her cousin Ferdinand:
"How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people
in't!" Why would people of faith turn from objects of revulsion into a
thing of beauty? The Bab made it clear when he defined the word
"manifestation" in the following passage. Speaking of Islam's promised
Qa'im, he wrote,

"God hath made Him manifest invested with the proof wherewith the
Apostle of God was invested, so that none of the believers in the
Qur'an might entertain doubts about the validity of His Cause, for it
is set down in the Qur'an that none but God is capable of revealing
verses." (Selections, 118)

A prophet points to a future time when religion and faith will be
known and understood. The followers of a prophet place their trust in
his insight, they do not really know anything of themselves. A
Manifestation of God, though, makes all clear by offering proof. He
sets forth arguments that stand on their own before any who try to
comprehend. Proof is the big criterion, the difference between now and
past ages of prophesy. Today there need no longer be any "doubts about
the validity of His Cause" because His proof is set out in revealed
verses, a body of literature that backs it all up. The Bab continues
with His proof, pointing to His own lack of qualifications, especially
his youth,

"Now the Ever-Living Lord hath made manifest and invested with supreme
testimony this long-awaited Promised One from a place no one could
imagine and from a person whose knowledge was deemed of no account.
His age is no more than twenty-five years, yet His glory is such as
none of the learned among the people of Islam can rival; inasmuch as
man's glory lieth in his knowledge." (Id.)

The glory of the coming brave new world will be that not one or two,
but many, many people will be intellectually equipped to stand up and
offer extempore all necessary proofs of the existence and relevance of
the One True God. It will all be manifest, obvious. Let me, O God, one
day be in that number.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Against Ignorance and Apathy

A Stand Against Ignorance and Apathy

By John Taylor; 25 January, 2006

I awoke this morning with a heavy question on my mind: "What is the
difference between ignorance and apathy?" After much heartache and
hairsplitting I finally came up with an adequate answer: I do not know
and I do not care. Later, I said the daily obligatory prayer and I had
a change of heart. I had borne witness that God created me to know and
to worship Him, so my purpose has got to be the reverse of ignorance
and apathy. It has to be to know and to care, to recognize and to have
concerns. Knowledge and love work separately, but together, like,
well, the wings of a bird or the legs of a wombat. Or the legs of a
person, for that matter. Muhatma Gandhi on his famous salt march had
his followers sing a Bhajan by Narasimha Mehta, a 15th century
Gujarati Bhakta, the words to which went like this:

"He only can be called a Vaishnava who feels the sufferings of others
as his own."

I am not entirely sure what a Vaishnava is, but I think you could
substitute "Baha'i" or "follower of `Abdu'l-Baha" for Vaishnava and it
would probably fit without much squeaking. Similarly this, from the
oldest Hindu scripture,

"Truth is one, sages name it variously." (Reg Veda 1.164.46)

This persuaded some Hindus in the 19th Century that their faith is in
fact monotheistic at heart. Certainly this could be read at any Feast
without the slightest incongruity. The only kind who would object are
those who hold their faith cards too close to their chests, like the
evangelistic preacher I heard at a church on Inman Road in Dunnville a
few years ago, who had the children (including my Silvie) sing a
rendition of the verse, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man
cometh unto the Father save by me." He then shouted at his flock,

"Do not accept anyone who says that truth is like a mountain with many
paths up to the summit. Jesus is the way, the path. There is only one
Path that will get you there, and He is It."

This exclusionist, anti-mountain attitude to truth contrasts starkly
with the eclectic spirit of China in the time of Christ. At that time
everyone was borrowing from one another in a veritable orgy of
syncretism. It was then that the Great Appendix of the Yi declared,

"In the world there is one purpose, but there are a hundred ideas
about it; there is a single goal, but the paths toward it differ."

I especially like the illustration in "Introducing Eastern Philosophy"
that goes along with this quote from the Great Appendix. It shows a
soccer field with many lines where the ball can possibly be kicked by
any of several players into the goal. Many paths, one goal. Of course,
as far as I know soccer had not been invented in the year 0 CE, but
the image is still striking. Maybe truth is like that, even easier
than a mountain summit, maybe it is a pair of soccer posts between
which we all have to work together to kick the ball. If so, Jesus can
still be the goal posts, the way, truth and life, albeit the pastor
may abhor it. Or, for that matter, maybe truth is even harder to
avoid, maybe we are spiders caught in a sink or bathtub drain. We try
to grip that slippery porcelain in a furious bid to escape, when the
goal is down there in the drains somewhere.

So the real question is, is truth a mountain summit, a soccer goal, or
a sink hole? Or is it all three at the same time? We all have a
physical nature, a body trying to fill its appetites in full freedom,
like our friend the Marquis de Sade. de Sade is the spider in the tub
sliding toward the drain but doing its best to escape to the freedom
that is slavery. At the same time that the higher self mounts the
summit and plants its flag at exactly the moment when the spider of
self is sucked into the drain to its doom. Meanwhile, in the social
soccer stadium, someone on your team scores; maybe it is you, maybe
another team member, it does not matter. The goal is one, the ways in
are infinite. Consider what the Master said,

"Consider the virtues of the human world and realize that the oneness
of humanity is the primary foundation of them all." (Abdu'l-Baha,
Baha'i World Faith, 245)

In the spirit of work as worship, and worship as work, let us continue
with our excerpts from Zenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates, this time
from Book II, Part VIII.

At another time chancing upon an old friend whom he (Socrates) had not
seen for a long while, he greeted him thus.

Soc. What quarter of the world do you hail from, Eutherus?

The other answered: From abroad, just before the close of the war; but
at present from the city itself. You see, since we have been denuded
of our possessions across the frontier, and my father left me nothing
in Attica, I must needs bide at home, and provide myself with the
necessaries of life by means of bodily toil, which seems preferable to
begging from another, especially as I have no security on which to
raise a loan.

Soc. And how long do you expect your body to be equal to providing the
necessaries of life for hire?

Euth. Goodness knows, Socrates--not for long.

Soc. And when you find yourself an old man, expenses will not
diminish, and yet no one will care to pay you for the labour of your
hands.

Euth. That is true.

Soc. Would it not be better then to apply yourself at once to such
work as will stand you in good stead when you are old--that is,
address yourself to some large proprietor who needs an assistant in
managing his estate? By superintending his works, helping to get in
his crops, and guarding his property in general, you will be a benefit
to the estate and be benefited in return.

I could not endure the yoke of slavery, Socrates! (he exclaimed).

Soc. And yet the heads of departments in a state are not regarded as
adopting the badge of slavery because they manage the public property,
but as having attained a higher degree of freedom rather.

Euth. In a word, Socrates, the idea of being held to account to
another is not at all to my taste.

Soc. And yet, Eutherus, it would be hard to find a work which did not
involve some liability to account; in fact it is difficult to do
anything without some mistake or other, and no less difficult, if you
should succeed in doing it immaculately, to escape all unfriendly
criticism. I wonder now whether you find it easy to get through your
present occupations entirely without reproach. No? Let me tell you
what you should do. You should avoid censorious persons and attach
yourself to the considerate and kind-hearted, and in all your affairs
accept with a good grace what you can and decline what you feel you
cannot do. Whatever it be, do it heart and soul. Study to make it your
finest work, the expression of a real enthusiasm. There lies the
method at once to silence fault-finders and to minister help to your
own difficulties. Life will flow smoothly, risks will be diminished,
provision against old age secured.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Gazpacho Guy meets the Marquis

Gazpacho Guy meets the Marquis de Sade

By John Taylor; 24 January, 2006

I just finished "Introducing Marquis de Sade," not exactly a writer
that I would stumble over in the normal course of events, but
illuminating nonetheless about the dark side. Sade has a horrid
reputation and face it, he deserved every bit of it. As an aristocrat
he learned early to indulge his appetites, taking full advantage of
the rampant inequality, sexual and economic, in pre-revolutionary
France. He went to a Jesuit school that introduced him to theatre and
corporal if not sexual abuse. He entered the cavalry at 14, writing
later, "I am sure I gave a good account of myself. The natural
impetuosity of my character ... served to enhance that unflinching
savagery men call courage." Then in private life he carried on until
he was tossed into prison. There, he read diligently for years and
entered the lonely apprenticeship of a writer, an apologist destined
to carve out the rationalizations of license.

Distressingly, today Sade's libertinism is mainstream,
indistinguishable from normality, even in language. If you call
someone a libertine, most will say, "What does that old fashioned
expression mean anyway? Do you mean sexually active? A sex addict? A
sexual athlete? An abuser? A rapist?" There is no name to distinguish
such fellows anymore. Philosophically, Sade ended up an atheist and a
"Manichaean." As what was then called a "libertine", his thought
anticipated what is now called libertarian thought and politics. Both
physically and emotionally, Sade was a prisoner to the end of his
days, an unapologetic thrall to appetite and ideas. He was living
proof of the paradox that to give oneself up to complete, uninhibited
freedom is not liberation but self-enslavement. Most interesting is
Sade's espousal of extreme dualism, which the "Introducing..." book I
think incorrectly labels "Manichean." He holds that the natural way is
for life to fade into death and death into life, so why not go with
the flow? At the other end of the spectrum is the God, family and
family values. Then, as now, it was the libertine versus the family.
The libertine feeds upon the family, which supplies him with a steady
supply of daughters and sons upon which to sate his desires. Then, as
now, the family had few defenders.

Sade was released from prison by the French revolution and for a long
time was in favor with the rebellious leadership of the Revolution. He
rose high and fast in the new tyranny and, ignoring his being an
aristocrat, his ideas were startlingly close to theirs, especially
when it came to the complete rejection of Christianity. At the same
time, like the Scarlet Pimpernel, Sade surreptitiously spirited away
from the impending guillotine many fellow aristocrats. Among them were
his former parents-in-law, the people who had conspired to have him
committed for insanity for twelve years. He forgave them such a wrong
and actually saved their lives.

True, that traumatic experience in prison had made him what he was and
he may have felt that gratitude rather than spite was in order. But
still, I find this much more disturbing than his worst excesses, real
or imagined. How could one on the opposite end of the ethical spectrum
perform such a good deed? How many believers in God would be so
forgiving of someone who wronged them so sorely? Would I? I can only
suppose that de Sade knew what shocks people, and he must have been
aware that repeating this anecdote would surely do the trick. After
all in his novels he often has his actors place the holy wafer where
the sun does not shine, not because he cared himself about sacrilege,
he was an atheist, but because he knew it would shock most of his
readers. Now in Quebec these communion wafers have lost their
religious cachet apparently, since they are sold in stores and have
become a popular, low fat snack food. But the idea of a baddy doing a
far better thing than most goodies would do, that is still just as
shocking now as it was then.

This is why I feel uncomfortable around discussions about ethics. What
is the point of talking about good deeds or bad, trying carefully to
fit them into a consistent philosophy when most people, as soon as the
chips are down, act so unpredictably? A libertine with the worst
imaginable ideas, like Sade, can forgive the unforgivable while a
person with all the right opinions can, in the pressure of the moment,
act despicably. If this is so common, why even bother to open our
mouths about right and wrong? Why not let computers make our moral
choices for us? Real moral choices, the ones we work at every day, are
not subject to one or two momentary choices, they are built up, like a
family mansion, brick by brick, moment by moment over a lifetime. As
Goethe said, "Nothing that makes us happy is illusory." And no snap
decision is enough to make us happy or unhappy.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Crimson Fear 1

Crimson Fear, Part One

By John Taylor; 22 January, 2006

In the past several essays we have been exploring Baha'u'llah's uses
of the color "Crimson" and His use of terms like "Crimson Ark" and
"Crimson Book." In a Hidden Word last time we saw how crimson
symbolizes a soul's mystic passage from enlightenment to sacrifice, a
spiritual reality that seems somehow reflected physically in the
genetic code, which is the machinery of evolution. The ability to read
this crimson code unites us in a single spiritual heritage; puts us
into the same boat, almost literally, on a journey that will extend
far beyond the bounds of material existence.

"And now concerning thy question whether human souls continue to be
conscious one of another after their separation from the body. Know
thou that the souls of the people of Baha, who have entered and been
established within the Crimson Ark, shall associate and commune
intimately one with another, and shall be so closely associated in
their lives, their aspirations, their aims and strivings as to be even
as one soul. They are indeed the ones who are well-informed, who are
keen-sighted, and who are endued with understanding. Thus hath it been
decreed by Him Who is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise." (Gleanings,
LXXXVI, 169-170)

On a sociological level, the unifying power of the "Crimson Book"
manifests itself in Baha'u'llah's covenant, demonstrably the first
written, authoritative Will and Testament in religious history. This
Book acts as a sort of genetic code which believers and those in the
"crimson spirit" can "read" or "decode" into unity, social progress
and ultimately the Most Great Peace. Today I want to decrypt crimson
in relation to the fear of God. Baha'u'llah identifies His Crimson Ark
and those who enter its "shadow" with a "luminous standard" embodied
by fear of God.

"We have admonished Our loved ones to fear God, a fear which is the
fountainhead of all goodly deeds and virtues. It is the commander of
the hosts of justice in the city of Baha. Happy the man that hath
entered the shadow of its luminous standard, and laid fast hold
thereon. He, verily, is of the Companions of the Crimson Ark, which
hath been mentioned in the Qayyum-i-Asma." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets, 120)

I must pause here to admit that I am stymied by the mention of the
"Qayyum-i-Asma" in this passage. I will append a note at the end of
this essay explaining how far I got in the Writings of the Bab; I hope
someone familiar with the source languages and documents will chase
this little mystery to ground.

In spite of this hiccup, the meaning of this passage is evident.
Sometimes "Companions of the Crimson Ark" means unambiguously the
members of the House of Justice, and though in this case it is
addressing all believers, His "loved ones," there is nonetheless a
hint that since justice is their commander, the House of Justice is
the arbiter of what is just. The overall thrust of what He is telling
us about fear seems to say, in the argot of my youth, "Fear of God has
had a bad rap. Get over it." The reason fear will never go away is
that it is essential to justice, and justice is the characteristic
teaching of Baha'u'llah.

Fear is unavoidable in talking about justice because of the problem of
hypocrisy. The Greek philosophers talked of this intractable problem:
all too often, then and now, a man seems to the world to be
meritorious but secretly, in private, he exploits widows and orphans,
traditionally the vulnerable, unprotected members of society. As long
as he can hide his wrong there is nothing to stop him except by
meeting with God. To commune with the Supreme Being and not to fear,
blithely to continue at whatever one was doing before, wronging others
if one can get away with it, is implicitly to deny the influence of
the All-Seeing. The Law of Moses therefore asserts: "You shall not
wrong one another; but you shall fear your God: for I am Yahweh your
God." (Lev 25:17) Later, Jesus railed at the hypocrite who washes the
outside of the plate -- that is, public wrongs subject to scrutiny --
yet leaves the inside, unseen, private wrongs, unwashed.

This is not to say that the fear of God should be over-emphasized or
singled out, as so often in the past. `Abdu'l-Baha admonishes parents
to teach it in a balanced way, along with love and other virtues, to
children from the earliest age.

"Let them (mothers) strive by day and by night to establish within
their children faith and certitude, the fear of God, the love of the
Beloved of the worlds, and all good qualities and traits."
(Selections, 125)

In the concluding passage of a late Tablet, the Ishraqat, Baha'u'llah
again invokes the "companions of the Crimson Ark."

"... We exhort all believers to observe justice and fairness and to
show forth love and contentment. They are indeed the people of Baha,
the companions of the Crimson Ark. Upon them be the peace of God, the
Lord of all Names, the Creator of the heavens." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets,
134)

Here Baha'u'llah does not mention fear but He does justice, along with
fairness, love and contentment, all being defining elements of a
believer. The context is important though, for fear and its opposite,
hypocrisy, enter in here nonetheless.

Baha'u'llah has been discussing a case where a law of the Holy Book
against usury had been flouted De Facto by the Islamic clergy. This
corrupt body in Persia had been given the task of enforcing Islamic
law but wangled around it in the most hypocritical, brazen manner.
This made, in Baha'u'llah's words, a "plaything of the laws and
ordinances of God." (id.) Baha'u'llah alters and moderates the severe
restrictions of Islamic (and Mosaic, for that matter) law against
interest on loans, and entrusts such ticklish issues entirely to the
House of Justice. The,

"conduct of these affairs hath been entrusted to the men of the House
of Justice that they may enforce them according to the ... dictates of
wisdom." (id.)

Wisdom is an important proviso here. In order for justice not to be a
"plaything" it must be applied strictly, but also wisely, moderately
and in a timely manner. This tension in God's covenant between hard
and strict application of the law and merciful accommodation to human
weakness is hardly new. Jewish scholars point to two instances in the
Bible where God and man enter into dialogue and negotiate, God's
proposed destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and God's order to Abraham
to sacrifice His long awaited son, Isaac. As always between lovers in
a marital relationship, in the Crimson Covenant fear and love,
strength and weakness, justice and wisdom, eventually work a happy
balance. This in itself, while not eliminating fear, tends to moderate
it; in the future we can be confident that however harsh an
application of law may seem, it is not applied in the arbitrary,
terror inspiring manner of a law unmated by wisdom.

We are not finished with crimson fear, and will continue next time.

End Note on "Qayyum-i-Asma."

The Bab wrote two "Books of Names," one in Arabic and the other in
Persian, both of which veer close to the mention above. There may be
others not included in the excerpts that we have in English. One is a
mention of "ark" in the Kitab-i-Asma (XVI, 17),

"If ye seek God, it behooveth you to seek Him Whom God shall make
manifest, and if ye cherish the desire to dwell in the Ark of Names,
ye will be distinguished as the guides to Him Whom God shall make
manifest, did ye but believe in Him. Verily then make your hearts the
daysprings of His exalted Names as recorded in the Book, and ye shall,
even as mirrors placed before the sun, be able to receive
enlightenment." (Selections, 131)

The other, perhaps more likely, is in the Arabic Qayyumu'l-Asma, in
chapter LVII,

"Indeed God hath created everywhere around this Gate oceans of divine
elixir, tinged crimson with the essence of existence and vitalized
through the animating power of the desired fruit; and for them God
hath provided Arks of ruby, tender, crimson-coloured, wherein none
shall sail but the people of Baha, by the leave of God, the Most
Exalted; and verily He is the All-Glorious, the All-Wise."
(Selections, 57-58)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Television Still Bad

Television is Still Bad For You

By John Taylor; 21 January, 2006

I caught the tail end of a Pete Rose interview with the author of a
book called "Everything Bad is Good For You," about how television and
video games are not as bad as many people think. He points to Woody
Allen's film Sleeper, where a fellow goes into suspended animation and
wakes up in a distant future only to find that smoking is now
considered good for you. Whenever anyone feels tired they are urged,
"Take a cigarette, it will pep you up." Everything we now think is bad
turns out to be a good thing and vice versa.

The writer does not go that far but he does claim that television has
become better over past decades and many people put it down and avoid
it unfairly in his opinion. The writing quality in television series
is now much more compelling, the number and depth of characters are
improved, and so on. He cites studies showing that while movies have
not become more complex (you can only go so deep in an hour and a
half) television has done so, by leaps and bounds. Perhaps so, but
movies have improved in other ways, in my opinion; maybe not
complexity but quality of writing is better, special effects are
incredible, and on and on. This degrades his point, since you now get
a better bang for your buck, and more to the point one hour of movie
watching will provide more entertainment value than the hundreds of
hours sitting on a couch that it takes to cover a season of a
television series. I cannot say this with his authority because I have
never attempted such a marathon couch-sitting session, but I have not
tried heroin either and I am against that too.

The author (whose name I did not catch) points to the fact that video
games above all have exploded in complexity to such an extent that IQ
scores in youth are soaring. A person rated above average in an
intelligence test in the 1960's would be far below average now. Kids
today have little general knowledge but a razor-like ability to solve
problems on the fly. To me this may just be proof that standard IQ
tests always have been inadequate; they do not measure what is most
important, such as the ability to work creatively with others, to
evince virtues and deal with real life situations -- so called EQ, or
emotional intelligence.

Above all, there is the problem of testing itself. Examinations are
artificial; they only approximate the real world. This is demonstrated
in the so-called Winston Churchill effect, where people very good at
taking tests are eclipsed by others, like Churchill. He is the
familiar extreme of someone who showed up terrible in every test he
ever took and failed in school but excelled in life itself by saving
the free world. Putting noses to video terminals may pump up youths'
ability to take tests and do nothing else for them. Judging by the way
things are, this may be so. For every technical problem solved today a
thousand new ones crop up. What little social, political, moral and
spiritual savvy we used to have are degrading to the crisis point.

Our author concedes that like everything, television and video games
have to be taken in moderation. The question is, how much is a
moderate quantity? That is always the question, recognized in every
reasoned debate since Aristotle and before. The only thing I can
answer to that is, a lot less than most people think.

This author says more TV may be better than many think, as does my
father, who is a sort of TV evangelist. He deplores my keeping
television away from our kids, calling the deprivation a "punishment"
(they are allowed only after homework and piano practice, and then
only films, not television). He calls me cruel and goes on about all
the wonderful kid's shows the little ones are missing out on. He even
pays for a second satellite feed from his dish for us just in case I
ever change my mind. But I tell him over and over that I would not
take that feed even if they paid me the fifty bucks a month it costs,
instead of their having the temerity to ask *me* to pay for it. But I
have to restrict it so severely mostly for myself. I admit it, I
easily get addicted. More than the tiniest tidbit of television -- we
get PBS and sometimes TVO from our antenna, and I sometimes watch a
little after the kids have gone to bed -- easily grows into an evil,
unbridled force that gets inside my brain and metastasizes into a sort
of mental cancer.

I concede that television would not be as bad if it were not situated
where it is. Planted in the middle of the living room, it sucks away
at the natural information flow of family and communal life. It
catches you just when your defenses are down and bathes you in images
designed to manipulate. The center of the home no longer can properly
be called a living or even a recreation room, it should be called the
vegetating station or the brainwashing chamber. Believe me, it is no
coincidence that TV execs call evening hours "prime time." There was
no such term in the family before because evening is not just "prime
time" for them, it is the only time. Those few hours are the only
chance for everyone to come together and interact on more than the
most superficial level. Prime time has become stolen time. The robber
is the state, the wealthy few and the corporations. The victim is the
institution of the family.

The insidiousness of television, even a very little of it, is that it
cuts out the guest-host relationship that is perhaps the main
information function of a family. Guests have become interruptions,
distractions from the boob tube. For millions of years households
gratefully accepted guests, offered them free food and accommodation
in order to get one thing back: information. Not having a mass media
data pump flowing into their living room, people felt a lack, a real
need for news and entertainment, and guests offered that. Believe it
or not, a guest, even the worst of the lot, is better at giving news
than any news anchor backed up by a wealthy network and dozens of
hired consultants and talking heads. A guest does things with
information that no television can hope to offer.

How so? Because a guest is alive, present, right before you. You can
cross examine a guest. You can argue with them. You can mingle,
sympathize, change a guest and change yourself, or even better,
pretend to change for them. You can form a new friendship, or thank
God that you do not have a friend like that. You can serve a guest and
in doing so get to know a whole, three dimensional human being. If the
guest turns out to be a schlep, that is even more fun. Best of all,
you can witness other family members interacting with that schlep. A
guest is a new element, an untested commodity worth far more than five
hundred channels.

The best thing about getting to know a guest is that you do not forget
the information you pick up. It stays because it is yours, you helped
make it. I had a guest a decade ago who hailed from Sweden. Not a
pleasant person at all, rather a know-it-all. The sort of tourist who
goes around the world in a quest to prove how much better her home is
than anywhere else. Yet I learned more from her than a thousand
televised travel documentaries taken in passively and forgotten a few
days later. This Swede was alive, obnoxious and got me angry.

She said, her nose turned in the air, you guys are stupid here. You
pay five bucks a month on your phone bill for "services" like call
waiting and call forwarding and in Sweden we get them all, at no extra
cost. What are you paying for, something that is already built into
the microchips of the phone exchanges? It costs them nothing extra,
once the chip is installed. That is not a service, it is rank
exploitation. Such capabilities should be included in every telephone
bill free, like in Sweden. This infuriated me and I swore never to pay
a cent extra on my phone bill. Plus, it gave me ammunition against the
thousand salespersons who in the intervening decade have called
periodically and tried to persuade me to pay for the bells and
whistles of telephony. I am grateful to that Swede, who made me a
better consumer, or non-consumer, who I am sure saved me thousands of
dollars over the past decade. Five dollars a month for this and five
for that adds up to big money over time, as corporate swindlers well
know.

The importance of guests I cannot emphasize enough. A salon with
guests in it gives a chance for every person in your home to see one
another in a novel situation. We are bound to say things we otherwise
never would, teach lessons that children would not otherwise hear from
you; you will show a part of yourself they otherwise never might
witness in the family alone, especially in "couch potato" mode. You
and family members can work ideas out together with the guest, show
virtues in motion, get involved with the guest together as a family
learning team. You learn and teach, both together and apart. You can
put homegrown ideas forward and mingle them with similar yet different
commodities and attitudes grown in foreign soil on another side of the
planet. Even a neighbor next door offers novel lessons, interesting
possibilities, information of surprising local events that a whole
world flickering on an idiot box cannot offer.

As with most things, television is at root a spiritual problem. I was
interested to hear at our World Religion Day a Buddhist monk recite
the vows that they now require of new acolytes. One vow is to swear
off promiscuous television viewing, which subjects the mind to
violent, lust-provoking images. All right Buddha! That is making an
old spiritual teaching relevant to the dilemmas of the 21st Century.
Swearing off the tube is the first step to inner peace, to chastity,
and to a stronger, more vibrant family and social life. In a word, the
biggest reason of all to avoid it is to give us a chance to make love
real, to expunge the lie that we call love today.

"In the hearts of men no real love is found, and the condition is such
that, unless their susceptibilities are quickened by some power so
that unity, love and accord may develop within them, there can be no
healing, no agreement among mankind. Love and unity are the needs of
the body politic today. Without these there can be no progress or
prosperity attained. Therefore, the friends of God must adhere to the
power which will create this love and unity in the hearts of the sons
of men." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, 171)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Code of Soul

Crimson Code of Soul, Philosopher's Café, World Religion Day

By John Taylor; 20 January, 2006

Today's essay, the Crimson Code of Soul is shorter than usual, so I am
including a recent article from a local columnist about the
Philosopher's Café in the Wainfleet Library that Stu and I are
co-hosting this year, as well as the local paper's report on the World
Religion Day celebration held in Dunnville last Sunday. The Café
article includes a big photo of Stu, myself and another attendee in a
"Rodin's Thinker" pose. It is strange to be referred to as a "computer
guru," though since I did not mention my being a Baha'i I guess that
is all she had to go on.

1. Crimson Code of Soul,
2. Philosopher's Café report,
3. World Religion Day report

The Crimson Code of Soul

The House of Justice in its recent document, One Common Faith,
distinguishes religion's perspective from past ideologies, all of
which built utopia on unaided human conceptions. Ideology not only
failed but provoked endless suffering and wars both hot and cold. In
contrast,

"Religion's perspective on humanity's future, therefore, has nothing
in common with systems of the past -- and only relatively little
relationship with those of today. Its appeal is to a reality in the
genetic code, if it can be so described, of the rational soul." (OCF,
para 72)

Religion works on this spiritual DNA invisibly, since as Jesus said,
the Kingdom is within. People of faith do not agitate or manipulate
externals, they, in hidden communion with the Spirit, somehow work out
the "purpose and leading edge of the creative process."

The idea of spirit being like the genetic code is an increasingly
powerful one; this analogy is taking on the influence that clockworks
-- God as designer of clocks makes and winds up the universe and then
leaves it alone -- had among deist philosophers in the 18th Century.
From what I hear, Anthony Flew, a leading philosopher and atheist,
recently crossed over to accepting the existence of God, finally
persuaded by the unbelievable complexity and adaptability of the
genetic code. He saw that there is no way that such a mechanism,
infinitely more complex and mysterious than any clock, far beyond what
the best scientists can fathom, could have evolved on its own, unaided
by Something ineffable and far beyond our comprehension.

Is there a genetic code in the soul, a "meta-genetic code" that gives
form to the evolution of our physical DNA, perhaps? Baha'u'llah
definitively tells us that the soul itself is inherently
incomprehensible; it cannot know itself any more than the eye can see
itself. The this quality of soul is probably similar to, even part of,
language; everyone with all their mental faculties can speak, even
though the smartest linguist cannot grasp exactly where or how we get
this strange faculty. In the last Arabic Hidden Word Baha'u'llah
leaves us hope that we can grasp how the soul works out the purpose of
God, in spite of its inability to grasp what it is itself.

"Write all that We have revealed unto thee with the ink of light upon
the tablet of thy spirit. Should this not be in thy power, then make
thine ink of the essence of thy heart. If this thou canst not do, then
write with that crimson ink that hath been shed in My path. Sweeter
indeed is this to Me than all else, that its light may endure for
ever." (Arabic Hidden Words, 71)

This encoding process God does not do alone. We are not written on, we
write. We actively collaborate in composing His creativity on the
"tablet of thy spirit." This starts in recognition of God,
enlightenment. Since complete recognition of the Impenetrable Mystery
is impossible (one cannot recognize what one does not understand),
then He says, write it in the language of love, in gratitude,
closeness, adherence. In this stage of obedience and fidelity the
heart obeys and holds to faith. Again, impossible. Faith is knowledge
followed by action; its knowing is flawed and as yet there has been no
action. The third and last stage is that of action, writing with the
crimson ink shed in His path. Only sacrifice of life's blood activates
the entire process, to know, to obey, to sacrifice. The Bab seems to
paint a picture in words of the invisible, inconceivable actions
happening in this soul place,

"Indeed God hath created everywhere around this Gate oceans of divine
elixir, tinged crimson with the essence of existence and vitalized
through the animating power of the desired fruit; and for them God
hath provided Arks of ruby, tender, crimson-coloured, wherein none
shall sail but the people of Baha, by the leave of God, the Most
Exalted; and verily He is the All-Glorious, the All-Wise."
(Selections, 57-58)

Philosopher's Café report

Great minds do not always think alike

Lynn's Page

Inport News, January, 18, 2006, p. 13

Lots of healthy, brain stretching and exercising going on at the
Philosophers' Cafe, last Thursday, held in the meeting roam at
Wainfleet Public Library at 6:30 p.m.

I've always believed that the brain is like any other body part; if
you do not regularly use it - it gets out of shape. I think of the
Philosophers' Cafe as a lively yoga class for the brain: relaxing,
invigorating, and rejuvenating.

You don't have to be a member of the Wainfleet library to attend but
they do ask you to call ahead to pre-register. No university degree or
specific reading or research required for this cafe - but do bring you
own traveler cup of coffee. All you need to bring to this group are
your honest opinions, ideas, life experiences, and an open mind.

Heck, you don't even have to talk you can just listen, but I doubt
you'll be able to stay quiet for long.

It is a marvelous forum to try to figure out what you think about
hot-button issues. How can you know what you think unless you put some
deep thought and discussion into it? And its amazing how your ideas
can change when' you consider others' experiences in the matter. Walk
into the meeting roam and there's a nametag waiting for you; first
name only.

Seated in a circle are 8 adults on the evening I attended, men and
women, ranging in age from young 20s to seniors. I fall somewhere in
the middle, with a few others...

Last year when I attended I think there was double the attendance - so
the numbers of philosophers vary on any given night. The topic of the
evening is: "Illness and Human Nature," and after everyone briefly
introduces themselves, our philosophy group leader, Stu, starts us off
with a notable quote from a famous MD; and in response to the quote he
offers up an anecdote from his own life experience.

He gets the conversation ball rolling - and everyone from the circle
is busting with something to share.

Some people choose to talk about general ideas, and back up their
argument with articles or books they've read. One computer guru is
full of statistics, informative websites, and a library of books he's
read.

Same philosophers choose to talk about their ideas and back up their
arguments with very personal life experiences.

All ideas are listened to; all ideas are welcomed and pondered. If you
agree or disagree, you can have your say next. It's all very
courteous, fascinating, sometimes wandering off-topic, but mast of all
there's a god respect for what everyone brings to the discussion.

There are times that it's even funny. One quick witted woman in the
group made an astute observation that had us all laughing out loud. It
was just so true that it struck us all by surprise. Enlightening,
spontaneous moments like these happen often during the Philosophers'
Cafe...

There's only one face I recognize from my past visit. And there's a
paradoxical, intimate and yet anonymous relationship between
philosophers. There's a comfortable zone of anonymity amongst
participants yet everyone wears a nametag with their first name
displayed - and we respond to each other on a first-name basis.

There weren't any cliquey groups of people, everyone there seemed to
have come on their own.

I regretted not bringing my 17-year-ald daughter because I knew she
would have enjoyed it and there were more than a few experiences
shared that she could have benefited from.

Some philosophers share very personal stories to illustrate their
arguments, and indeed, it provides strong reasoning that nobody can
dispute.

And in every personal story you can find same glimmer in it that
pertains to your own life, or to someone who is close to you, so it's
all very relevant and really reinforces that we are all different and
yet really all the same too, no matter what ages or genders.

I got to speak afterwards with Philosophers' Café leader, Stu,
afterwards. Stu is a recently retired elementary school teacher whose
expertise in drawing everyone in conversation comes naturally to him.

He tells me he's much like a carpenter in a way; except his tools and
materials that he works with are ideas. He has this very calming and
serene influence on the group during discussions and comes forward
only to put us back an track when we've conversationally derailed -
and it happens - but Stu's there to put us back an track with another
quote or definition that generates more ideas and directions we can
discuss.

From my perspective, the evening was so highly enjoyable because, as a
mother of young and older children, I hardly seem to have quiet time
in a day to think, much less talk to other adults.

So this hour and a half of adult discussion was heaven. It made me
think about things and experiences I might have otherwise not thought
about.

Next topic of discussion is Euthanasia: When Does Human Life Lose its
Quality or Value? The next meeting is on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m.
Meetings are about an hour in length, although our group went into
overtime and everyone seemed almost reluctant to leave. To
pre-register call 905-899-1277.

Dunnville Celebrates l5th Annual World Religion Day

BY KAREN BEST
Chronicle Staff Writer,
DUNNVILLE Chronicle (Reproduced with permission)

Children sang about virtues, the central theme at the 15th World
Religion Day celebration at Grace United Church.

In introductory comments, event emcee Ron Speer said virtues are a
part of the sacred teachings of the great faiths of the world.
Representatives of 10 religions shared their views of virtues at the
Sunday afternoon gathering.

Before a choir of students from Grandview, St. Michael's and Dunnville
Central Schools sang, Bethany Ricker read a Bible passage and Silvie
Taylor recited a Baha'i prayer.

This year Zoroastrianism was the focus faith. The ancient religion is
based upon the teachings of Zoroaster who was a Persian prophet.
Because most of the faith's documents were destroyed by Alexander the
Great in 331 BC, his teachings are passed on through songs and
rituals.

Nozer Kotwal, one of the 2000 Zoroastrians who 1ive in Canada,
explained key tenets of the faith: God is without beginning and end,
he said. People use their own freewill to choose how to live. Those
who choose good over evil enjoy a happy afterlife.

"Living in about 1500BC, Zoroaster received this message and others in
a revelation at 30. He began a lifelong mission to spread the message
that God is the father of truth. Thirty four centuries ago, Zoroaster
preached about preserving all elements of nature and women's' rights,
pointed out Kotwol.

Zoroastrians believe that fire is the most important creation and it
is used in all the faith's rituals. Kotwol emphasized that this does
not mean that they are fire worshippers.

After the Arabs invaded Persia in 641 AD, followers were forced to
convert to Islam. Zoroastrianism all but disappeared. In 1925, it
rebounded. However its future is uncertain. Dwindling numbers, late
marriages and non-acceptance of conversions are factors in a recent
decline, said Kotwol.

He hoped that modern scholars will inspire Zoroastrian youths to live
a life of truth and to take care of the world according to their
faith. The most important message from the faith's founder is, "Real
happiness lies in giving happiness to others."

Throughout the rest of the proceedings, representatives of Hinduism,
Judaism, Christianity, native spirituality, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism
and the Baha'i Faith offered inspiration. Betty Frost, who also
assisted in event organization, said learning about other religions
fosters a spirit of community in this multicultural country.

Strife will lessen in the world if everyone understands there are
different religions, said Swadesh Sachdeva, who is a Hindu. Mike
Wiersma read a Torah passage describing the four decades that the
Jewish people spent in the wilderness. God disciplined them to keep
his commandments to earn a life in the land of olives, oil and honey
where they lack nothing.

Of the seven cardinal Christian virtues, mediaeval priests selected
faith, hope and love as the most important, Brian Melick of the Dunn
United Church told the audience. Virtues arc best looked at through
the lens of love for God, others and self, he continued.

The Creator gives everyone all they need for a good life, said Elize
Hartley, a Metis woman from Hamilton. While aboriginal people follow
natural laws where sun, air, fire and water are key elements of life,
others are not and are destroying the earth, she warned. Everything in
the world has a spirit and destroying any small thing destroys part of
mankind, she continued. People must consider seven generations back
and seven generations forward, Hartley reminded listeners. Then she
was joined by five other Metis women for songs that lifted their
voices to the Creator.

Justice and non-violence, loving kindness, respectful sexual conduct,
considerate communication and healthy consumption of food and media
are key virtues for Buddhists, explained Sister Tinh Quang. Kindness
is a mark of faith which is necessary to enter paradise according to
Islam teachings. Sikhs believe the one God, who is worshipped by all
faiths, is equally in every man and woman.

In the middle of the program, Breanne Pottie filled the church room
with sacred music. Eyes closed, she eased her bow across the violin's
strings, creating solemn and joyful expressions of worship

Throughout life, people practice and develop virtues, said Pat
Kjarsgaard who represented the 162 year old Baha'i Faith. The key
virtue is courage because it is often the prerequisite for other
virtues. One may need courage to love or to be kind, she explained.
The life purpose of most people is to acquire as many virtues as they
can, she summed up.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Chivalry

Chivalry; the Real Women's Issue

By John Taylor; 19 January, 2006

I want to comment on some criticisms of feminism and of Canadian men
in an article by Mark Steyn in "The war on terror is the real women's
issue; Feminists whine about life in the West but they will not fight
the bigger battle." (Maclean's, January, 9, 2006, p. 54) His thesis is
that women's rights activists are too set in their ways; they are
beating a dead horse complaining of injustices in Western countries
where they won every major battle long ago. For example, 60 percent of
students in US universities are women. Exclusion from education is no
longer a bone of contention. Meanwhile feminists shy away from
confronting the real danger, the greatest threat to women in the
world, Islam. Of course, political correctness keeps him from putting
it that baldly. Steyn's article calls it instead the "war on terror."
But we read the code and understand.

For example, he points out that feminists in Canada do their best to
turn December 6th, the date when 14 women were shot in a Montreal
engineering school, into a national day of mourning for ubiquitous
violence against women. Except that commentators forget to mention
that the whacko who did it, Marc Lepine, was not a Western man but was
born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater. He just
carried the universal aggression and injustice to women festering
inside Muslim families out into the open, in this case the school that
rejected his application and had accepted these women students. The
real problem this tragedy showed up was not his bile but the lack of
virility of the Western men present, according to Steyn.

"...the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to
leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female
classmates to their fate -- an act of abdication that would have been
unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history. The
`men' stood outside in the corridor and, even as they heard the first
shots, they did nothing. And, when it was over and Gharbi walked out
of the room and past them, they still did nothing. Whatever its other
defects, Canadian manhood does not suffer from an excess of
testosterone."

Feminists, he says, has won the battle for equal rights by feminizing
Western culture, and Western men. No male feels a hint of the chivalry
once universal for the opposite sex. In fact, for decades females,
feminists or not, have actively discouraged boys from building up
feelings of solicitude for girls as they grew up. We all know that
from a purely physical point of view, there is no need for treating
women as weak and delicate, even when they are weak and delicate. Why
should men feel protective of a "weaker sex" that really is not only
not weak, but stronger in many important ways. Studies among soldiers
found that women troops have on average about twenty percent less
upper body strength but that on the battlefield they more than make up
for that with their superior stamina. Is a 15 percent weaker condition
anything for a young man to risk taking a bullet for, especially one
who has no training as a soldier or police officer? Clearly, those
engineering students on that December day thought not.

And now activists browbeat Western men every December 6th about the
fact (nobody denies it) that violence and harassment, far from being
eradicated by gains in women's rights, is actually increasing. Perhaps
the most telling, ironic sign imaginable is that many young women,
non-Muslims, in France are propositioned and assaulted so mercilessly
in the street that they have taken to wearing veils and chadors to
reduce the chances of being abused. Unbelievable. Western women in the
most female friendly culture you could ask for voluntarily fleeing
into what feminist leaders regard as rank symbols of male oppression,
and worst of all, fleeing not from Muslim men but Western men.

This, I tell you, has to have big implications. It is a sign of a
failure in moral ideas, one that will be impossible to ignore in the
long term. Steyn tells equality activists: you cannot have your cake
and eat it too. You cannot advocate for women's "rights to their
bodies," that is, pro-choice, pro-abortion, and expect the society
that follows through on that to grow and thrive. It is a contradiction
in terms.

"...the average Russian woman apparently exercised her `right to
choose' no less than seven times. Today, abortions outnumber live
births. As a result, Russia is at the start of a demographic death
spiral unprecedented in a relatively advanced society not at war."

Meanwhile in every Muslim country where Shari'ah law applies, women
quite literally do not have a right to their body, that is, a husband
has the legitimate right to rape his wife at will. Steyn does not
mention this, so I will spell out what he is implying: The birth rate
in misogynous Muslim lands is frighteningly high. Muslim women keep
their babies, and they grow up and swell the ranks.

At the same time, in feminized countries birth rates are shockingly
low, and dropping. Worse, marriages break up and there is a sense
families no longer are permanent or fit for raising children. Within
at least a generation, feminism and female dominated countries will be
overwhelmed by pure numbers. Already rich, developed lands are hugely
outnumbered in the UN by nations where female rights are minimal. The
only way to open to leaders to uphold female rights is to subvert the
fundamental democratic principle of representation by population.

This is a dangerous situation. Some new form of feminism has to be
worked out that is compatible with larger families, that teaches men
to look out for women, and does not browbeat them, and most of all,
that encourages growth in the population. If not, there will be no
feminism in a very short time. It is shaping into a confrontation of
cultures -- and let us call a spade a spade -- of religions too, on a
grand scale. Muslim men tend to perform "honor killings" (ignoring the
oxymoron) on women who seem to slip from under their thumb. Steyn
points out that after the terror bombings of last summer,

"In London ... police announced they were re-opening investigations
into 120 deaths among British Muslim girls that they had hitherto
declined to look at too closely on grounds of `cultural sensitivity.'"

That kind of sensitivity, complicity in murder, nobody needs and
nobody should be surprised that in such a sick religion and sick
culture it is easy for bigots to recruit and brainwash so many young
men into suicide bombers. One step leads to the next, run-of-the-mill
misogynists are molded into armed terrorists, for these young boys are
already all too familiar with how terror works in their own family.

Mark Steyn points out that feminist leaders fervently opposed the
rightist Bush-wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but now these countries
have a higher percentage of women parliamentarians than Canada.
Something is wrong somewhere. Steyn is a columnist and feeds on touchy
opinions but he makes undeniable points; he concludes, saying: "C'mon
gals! Anyone can beat up post-feminist neutered Western males. Why not
pick on a target worth the effort." Meaning Muslim men, I suppose.

What is the root of the problem? You will not be surprised to find
that I think it is in a failure to apply Baha'i principle. I will not
reiterate the principle of equality of the sexes here except to say
the following.

First of all, the cause of women is harmed, not helped, by contention.
Baha'u'llah categorically forbad strife, and for good reason. A person
in authority has to be a teacher first, not a bulldog. The Master
predicted just what is happening now in advanced countries when he
said that as soon as women have equal access to education, the
struggle will be over. "When men own the equality of women there will
be no need for them to struggle for their rights!" (Paris Talks, 163)
That is because men will see clearly that full equality is in their
own interest. Again, the Master said, "As long as women are prevented
from attaining their highest possibilities, so long will men be unable
to achieve the greatness which might be theirs." (Paris Talks, 133)
The greatness of Western men is the greatness of Western women, but as
long as feminists agitate and bellyache at them this crucial point
will remain obscure and they will not value what women do and have
done for them.

It is not just that the average Western male will sit back passively
like those students in the Polytechnique and watch as Muslim
terrorists, acting alone or in concert, attack their women. The point
is that unless Western men realize and value what equality has done
for them, if they do not love and protect their women, put them on the
pedestal they deserve to be on, just so long non-Western men will
continue to think of us as emasculated and weak. They will miss the
point that the truly emasculated man is an abuser not a supporter of
women.

Let me get down to what I really want to complain about here.

I mentioned earlier a neighbor woman who knocked on my door to
complain furiously that my son, Thomas, had bitten her son, who is in
the same Grade One class, on the finger. It transpired that her son at
the time was sitting on top of Thomas, refusing to get off. Biting was
the only way Thomas knew to literally get him off his chest. I later
mentioned this uncomfortable fact to that mother and she was not put
off by her error in the slightest. "Yes, I heard about that later."

Then she launched into a long litany of silly complaints about my son,
including carrying around a cat in an improper manner. It turned out
that long ago she had conceived a strange, surprisingly deep hatred
for Thomas. I recalled that earlier she had persuaded the boy's father
to come and complain that Thomas was climbing trees too high. "But I
allow that," I responded, surprised. They were afraid that Thomas's
bad example of tree climbing might persuade their son to do the same
thing. I wished him luck in that.

After she paused in her complaints about Thomas's wrongdoing, I
suggested that maybe teaching the Golden Rule to her son instead of
fighting and climbing onto others might save his finger from being
bitten. She took that in the wrong spirit and began swearing at me.
Since both of her children were present I pointed out that maybe
swearing in front of little children was not a good way to teach them
good conflict resolution skills. Now every day as she goes by to pick
up her son in the school halls she looks daggers not only at Thomas
but at me as well.

Though this is perhaps an extreme example, it does seem to me that
generally speaking the leadership skills of women and mothers leave
much to be desired. Any teacher who browbeats and abuses students
should be removed from the classroom immediately, since contention
reverses the fundamental goals of education. In the same way any lack
of cordiality by male against female or vice versa has to be addressed
immediately. We must never fight but always persuade, teach one
another what is best for all.

It is normal for mothers to shout at small boys, to spit bile at them
in terms that curl my hair, and that is regarded as normal, acceptable
behavior for a woman. I recall my own mother, who was as kind most of
the time as any mother I have ever seen, saying to me in anger once,
"You miserable little snit." These words, deserving as I no doubt was
at the time, pop unbidden into my head from time to time. Strong words
and they still hurt. Is it any wonder that later on boys thus verbally
attacked grow into men who do not respect women? By my observation,
young girls now swear much more often than boys. Unless there is
cordiality and politeness between the sexes, or even among members of
the same sex, how can goals of equality ever be advanced any further?

At root is a severe, crying lack of leadership qualities on the part
of feminist leaders, and not only the leaders but of western women
generally. Boys are not learning from them how to treat women. They
get mixed messages. That means that educators should devise chivalry
courses for both sexes. Starting from a young age girls and boys must
learn how to deal with, and mostly how to lead and teach, the opposite
sex; without that, how can they learn to be kind and polite, much less
truly love the opposite sex?

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Work as Friendship

Work as Friendship

By John Taylor; 18 January, 2006

Comments on the selection by JET:

Yesterday's selection on friendship culminated when Socrates suggested
that the greatest fruit of friendship is not so much friendship itself
as friendship brokering. Just as the purest prayers are often
meta-prayers, moments when we pray for prayer, the ability to pray
purely for His will, not ours, so the best friend often is that friend
who introduces you to more friends. Recent studies have born this out.
The people who really help you take a leap forward in life, who find
you a job, recommend a new service or introduce you to a crucial
contact tend to be people who barely know you, who saw you briefly at
a meeting and were impressed. This is not because closer friends do
not bear you goodwill but simply because they tend to know the same
people that you know. A person too similar does not have as much to
offer as someone in a wholly different stream of life. Diversity of
thinking makes us most useful, novelty of circumstances helps turn up
creative possibilities.

Wonderful as such services are they are few and far between. The real
value of a good and close friend is on an everyday level. In our
selection from Xenophon today Socrates turns to the nitty gritty, the
ways that friends reinforce one another in facing the trials and
tribulations of life. A friend is a shield against unhappiness. A
friend bolsters you in your reason for being. This is no small thing.
It has been said that depression is the worst epidemic of our age; if
that is so it is because we have lost the art of being friends, of
helping one another attain our bliss. The way Socrates helps his
friend in the following selection was of use not only to him but to
all who witnessed, including Xenophon, including me. The lesson about
the value of work and how it reinforces both love and security will
never be forgotten.

Zenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates Book II, Part VII

He had two ways of dealing with the difficulties of his friends: where
ignorance was the cause, he tried to meet the trouble by a dose of
common sense; or where want and poverty were to blame, by lessoning
them that they should assist one another according to their ability;
and here I may mention certain incidents which occurred within my own
knowledge. How, for instance, he chanced upon Aristarchus wearing the
look of one who suffered from a fit of the "sullens," and thus
accosted him.

Soc. You seem to have some trouble on your mind, Aristarchus; if so,
you should share it with your friends. Perhaps together we might
lighten the weight of it a little.

Aristarchus answered: Yes, Socrates, I am in sore straits indeed. Ever
since the party strife declared itself in the city, what with the rush
of people to Piraeus, and the wholesale banishments, I have been
fairly at the mercy of my poor deserted female relatives. Sisters,
nieces, cousins, they have all come flocking to me for protection. I
have fourteen free-born souls, I tell you, under my single roof, and
how are we to live? We can get nothing out of the soil--that is in the
hands of the enemy; nothing from my house property, for there is
scarcely a living soul left in the city; my furniture? no one will buy
it; money? there is none to be borrowed--you would have a better
chance to find it by looking for it on the road than to borrow it from
a banker. Yes, Socrates, to stand by and see one's relatives die of
hunger is hard indeed, and yet to feed so many at such a pinch
impossible.

After he listened to the story, Socrates asked: How comes it that
Ceramon, [an employer of labour, apparently, on a grand scale] with so
many mouths to feed, not only contrives to furnish himself and them
with the necessaries of life, but to realise a handsome surplus,
whilst you being in like plight with your large family to feed are
afraid you will one and all perish of starvation for want of the
necessaries of life?

Ar. Why, bless your soul, do you not see he has only slaves and I have
free-born souls to feed?

Soc. And which should you say were the better human beings, the
free-born members of your household or Ceramon's slaves?

Ar. The free souls under my roof without a doubt.

Soc. Is it not a shame, then, that he with his baser folk to back him
should be in easy circumstances, while you and your far superior
household are in difficulties?

Ar. To be sure it is, when he has only a set of handicraftsmen to
feed, and I my liberally-educated household.

Soc. What is a handicraftsman? Does not the term apply to all who can
make any sort of useful product or commodity?

Ar. Certainly.

Soc. Barley meal is a useful product, is it not?

Ar. Pre-eminently so.

Soc. And loaves of bread?

Ar. No less.

Soc. Well, and what do you say to cloaks for men and for women--
tunics, mantles, vests?

Ar. Yes, they are all highly useful commodities.

Soc. Then your household do not know how to make any of these?

Ar. On the contrary, I believe they can make them all.

Soc. Then you are not aware that by means of the manufacture of one of
these alone--his barley meal store--Nausicydes not only maintains
himself and his domestics, but many pigs and cattle besides, and
realises such large profits that he frequently contributes to the
burden of public services; while there is Cyrebus, again, who, out of
a bread factory, more than maintains the whole of his establishment,
and lives in the lap of luxury; and Demeas of Collytus gets a
livelihood out of a cloak business, and Menon as a mantua-maker, and
so, again, more than half the Megarians by the making of vests.

Ar. Bless me, yes! They have got a set of barbarian fellows, whom they
purchase and keep, to manufacture by forced labour whatever takes
their fancy. My kinswomen, I need not tell you, are free-born ladies.

Soc. Then, on the ground that they are free-born and your kinswomen,
you think that they ought to do nothing but eat and sleep? Or is it
your opinion that people who live in this way--I speak of free-born
people in general--lead happier lives, and are more to be
congratulated, than those who give their time and attention to such
useful arts of life as they are skilled in?

Is this what you see in the world, that for the purpose of learning
what it is well to know, and of recollecting the lessons taught, or
with a view to health and strength of body, or for the sake of
acquiring and preserving all that gives life its charm, idleness and
inattention are found to be helpful, whilst work and study are simply
a dead loss?

Pray, when those relatives of yours were taught what you tell me they
know, did they learn it as barren information which they would never
turn to practical account, or, on the contrary, as something with
which they were to be seriously concerned some day, and from which
they were to reap advantage? Do human beings in general attain to
well-tempered manhood by a course of idling, or by carefully attending
to what will be of use? Which will help a man the more to grow in
justice and uprightness, to be up and doing, or to sit with folded
hands revolving the ways and means of existence?

As things now stand, if I am not mistaken, there is no love lost
between you. You cannot help feeling that they are costly to you, and
they must see that you find them a burthen? This is a perilous state
of affairs, in which hatred and bitterness have every prospect of
increasing, whilst the pre-existing bond of affection is likely to be
snapped, the original stock of kindliness used up.

But now, if only you allow them free scope for their energies, when
you come to see how useful they can be, you will grow quite fond of
them, and they, when they perceive that they can please you, will
cling to their benefactor warmly. Thus, with the memory of former
kindnesses made sweeter, you will increase the grace which flows from
kindnesses tenfold; you will in consequence be knit in closer bonds of
love and domesticity.

If, indeed, they were called upon to do any shameful work, let them
choose death rather than that; but now they know, it would seem, the
very arts and accomplishments which are regarded as the loveliest and
the most suitable for women; and the things which we know, any of us,
are just those which we can best perform, that is to say, with ease
and expedition; it is a joy to do them, and the result is beautiful,
(done) with ease, rapidity and effect. Do not hesitate, then, to
initiate your friends in what will bring advantage to them and you
alike; probably they will gladly respond to your summons.

Well, upon my word (Aristarchus answered), I like so well what you
say, Socrates, that though hitherto I have not been disposed to
borrow, knowing that when I had spent what I got I should not be in a
condition to repay, I think I can now bring myself to do so in order
to raise a fund for these works.

Thereupon a capital was provided; wools were purchased; the good man's
relatives set to work, and even whilst they breakfasted they worked,
and on and on till work was ended and they supped. Smiles took the
place of frowns; they no longer looked askance with suspicion, but
full into each other's eyes with happiness. They loved their kinsman
for his kindness to them. He became attached to them as helpmates; and
the end of it all was, he came to Socrates and told him with delight
how matters fared; "and now," he added, "they tax me with being the
only drone in the house, who sit and eat the bread of idleness."

To which Socrates: Why do not you tell them the fable of the dog? Once
on a time, so goes the story, when beasts could speak, the sheep said
to her master, "What a marvel is this, master, that to us, your own
sheep, who provide you with fleeces and lambs and cheese, you give
nothing, save only what we may nibble off earth's bosom; but with this
dog of yours, who provides you with nothing of the sort, you share the
very meat out of your mouth." When the dog heard these words, he
answered promptly, "Ay, in good sooth, for is it not I who keep you
safe and sound, you sheep, so that you are not stolen by man nor
harried by wolves; since, if I did not keep watch over you, you would
not be able so much as to graze afield, fearing to be destroyed." And
so, says the tale, the sheep had to admit that the dog was rightly
preferred to themselves in honour. And so do you tell your flock
yonder that like the dog in the fable you are their guardian and
overseer, and it is thanks to you that they are protected from evil
and evildoers, so that they work their work and live their lives in
blissful security.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com