Turning

Turning at the Birth of Baha'u'llah, 164 BE

 By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 11, 08 Qudrat, 164 BE

 "And if thou dwellest in the land of testimony, content thyself with that which He, Himself, hath revealed: `Is it not enough for them that We have sent down unto Thee the Book?' (Q29:51) This is the testimony which He, Himself, hath ordained; greater proof than this there is none, nor ever will be: `This proof is His Word; His own Self, the testimony of His truth.'" (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 91)

 It is a holy day today for Baha'is, time to call to mind the entry into this world of a babe named Husayn Ali, later entitled Baha'u'llah, Glory of God. We know a little more about the circumstances of Baha'u'llah's birth in 1819 than we do about most earlier Manifestations of God, but not all that much more. Baha'u'llah was born before the invention of photography, even in its earliest forms. It seems strange then for us inhabitants of a digital age, we who are raising the most photographically documented generation of children in history, to think that we have no portraits of Baha'u'llah as a child, or of his family members, other than a drawing of His father, Mirza Bozorg, a prominent luminary in the court of the shah.

 We could conceivably make up for this deficit by going on pilgrimage to Tehran to see the mansion in which Baha'u'llah was born, and perhaps also visit the country estates where the family spent their summer holidays, surroundings where Baha'u'llah no doubt acquired His life-long love of gardens and greenery. We may not see snapshots of the newborn baby, but imagination gains grounding of by walking in the same locales. Unfortunately, the spiteful fanatic has made such a pilgrimage impossible, at least for the time being.

 From this the ardent lover of Baha'u'llah derives the only lesson possible, radiant acquiescence, contentment with the Will of God. At our Birth celebration we assert our undying faith that however small the quantity of data we have about the birth and childhood of Baha'u'llah, it is not inadequate, it is enough. "He is, in Himself ... the All-Sufficing." As Baha'u'llah Himself affirms in the Iqan, there are only two possible legacies of a Manifestation, His family and His Book, and the greatest of these is the Word in the Book, for spirit operates through the Word.

 So the true birth that took place on this day was not a physical parturition that could be captured in words, images or recordings, what we are celebrating is the birth of Spirit through a human Vehicle, a Vehicle that performed all He was assigned. That was enough for Him, but is it enough for us.

 So, at the Birth the question should not be is it enough but am I enough? Am I performing as His chosen vehicle all that He assigned unto us? No photograph could ever be taken of the answer to that! No mirror could do anything but obstruct questions like, Am I content with the modicum God gave me? Do I really believe I have been given all I need? Am I swimming in the ocean of His Word, and if I am, am I applying it, am I living up to its spirit? Is it enough for me?

 Christ said that spirit is born of spirit. It that is so, then even the tiniest quantity of spirit suffices, since it is by nature self-replicating, self-referential and recursive. In the same way, any profit we derive from contentment with the Will of God is conditional upon pre-existing contentment itself, as the Hidden Word teaches,

 "Ask not of Me that which We desire not for thee, then be content with what We have ordained for thy sake, for this is that which profiteth thee, if therewith thou dost content thyself." (AHW 18)

 The kind of knowledge we derive at the birth of Baha'u'llah does not come of seeing a snapshot of Him as a baby. No, nor a thousand snaps, or a slide show with million images, no matter how high the resolution may be. Such intimacy comes not of data input, it comes of what is termed in philosophy "turning." Since Plato told the story of the cave or den, it has been recognized that education has little to do with the amount of outer information a student takes in, or even with the acuity of his or her faculty of vision. The slaves chained to a cave wall could see nothing but shadows until they turned their whole bodies and worked their way out of the shadows into the light of the sun of goodness. Little as data input has to do with the education of the body, it has less still to do with education of spirit. Only "turning" is enough. In the Republic, just after telling the story of the den, Plato explains the implications of "turning" for true education,

 "Education is not what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes. ... the power to learn is present in everyone's soul and ... the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body. This instrument cannot be turned around from that which is coming into being without turning the whole soul until it is able to study that which is, and the brightest thing that is, namely, the one we call the good." (518c,d, G.M.A. Grube, translator)

 This later became the basis of Christian faith when Jesus on the Mount declared, "But seek first God's Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be added to you." (Matt 6:33, WEB) And we saw in the headpiece of this essay how Baha'u'llah in the Iqan holds up a very similar statement in the Qu'ran. Another Qu'ranic passage, from the Surih of Thunder, goes further, saying that we who learn and apply the Book can stand with God in testifying to the truth of the Manifestation of God,

 "The Unbelievers say: `No apostle art thou.' Say: `Enough for a witness between me and you is God, and such as have knowledge of the Book.'" (Q13:43, Yusuf Ali)

 Anything we gain at today's celebration to help us turn, break out into the light of the good, and then do our duty by going back into the dark to bear witness, that surely suffices.

 

Teachers' Qualities

Enthusiasm, Involvement and Confidence in Teachers

By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 10, 07 Qudrat, 164 BE

Yesterday we talked about the need for enthusiasm on the part of teachers, especially Baha'i teachers. "The teaching of the Cause has always called for wisdom, devotion, enthusiasm, purity of intention and eloquence of speech." (Developing Distinctive Baha'i Communities). For this reason I have long believed that the progress of the Baha'i Faith would best be served by the establishment of a speaker's circuit serving each Baha'i community, no matter how rural or how urban it may be. The following, from a document commissioned by the Universal House of Justice, seems to confirm the crying need for such an initiative,

"The friends everywhere need encouragement. Regular gatherings, at various levels, need to be held to maintain and heighten their enthusiasm for teaching." (Training Institutes, April, 1998)

Yesterday we looked at some of the advice that mathematician John Mighton gives to math tutors in his JUMP program (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies). He started off with this by getting volunteers to tutor those students who were having trouble keeping up in class. Later, when he had enough experience with one-on-one lessons, Mighton took his program to the classroom where he found it works even better in a group setting.

 "The effect is particularly striking with students who have never had a chance to show off in public. After the first week of lessons in one class that I visited regularly, a child who had been diagnosed as a selective mute and another who had never raised his hand in class both actively took part in class and always had their hands up. In any class that I have taught for more than a week or two I have generally been able to get every student to participate in lessons." (Mighton, End of Ignorance, pp. 188-189)

 What teachers like Mighton and indeed the "collaborators" in the Baha'i Institute method are recognizing is that universal participation is not an abstract ideal, it is an extremely effective way to learn. Learning by its very nature harmoniously combines theory with practice. Unity between practicality and theory is one of the great secrets of the scientific method, as historian of science Jacob Bronowski pointed out,

 "The world can only be grasped by action, not contemplation ... The hand is the cutting edge of the mind." (Ascent of Man, Little, Brown, 1973)

 I think the equivalent to "practice" in teaching religion is prayer. Prayer is conversation with God, and you can talk about God (a study known as theology) forever, but it all amounts to a kind of gossip and backbiting, talking about a third party behind his back. Worse, He is right there, ready and willing to talk with us. Theology is a vile thing because it talks about the One we could be conversing with intimately. So, to teach the Faith, get your hands "dirty" and say a prayer with a non-Baha'i, as Book One of the Ruhi program prescribes. Do that, and later in Book Six, when it starts talking about "being" rather than "doing," it will not be such a great mystery.

 Anyway, back to John Mighton. He suggests eleven questions to ask oneself as soon as one starts leaving students behind. Some of his questions are relevant only to teaching math, but the following eight seem to fit almost every teaching situation, including Ruhi coordinators and other teachers of the Baha'i Faith.

 Am I being careful to isolate the most basic steps in the operations?
 Am I teaching one step at a time and allowing enough repetition?
 Am I expecting my students to learn or remember things that are not relevant to the steps I am trying to teach?
 Am I building momentum in my lessons by allowing all of my students to succeed?
 Am I giving sufficient encouragement?
 Am I spending extra time with my weaker students and giving them extra practice?
 Am I excited about my students’ progress?
 Do I believe that all of my students can learn mathematics?

 The last question is, I think, the most important. Do I really believe that Baha'u'llah came to all humanity, and that each of us is capable of responding to Him? It would be self contradictory for one without faith to try to teach faith. If I as a believer cannot summon up a convincing demonstration of confidence in the power of religion, how can I teach religion? No, it goes beyond that, the Master taught that confidence was the great benefit of religion itself,

 "Until it becomes effective, penetrating and interpenetrating hearts and spirits, and until perfect, reasoning faith shall be implanted in the minds of men, it will be impossible for the social body to be inspired with security and confidence." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, 321)

 And if you look at the present lack of response to the climate crisis, in spite of more than enough means to avoid carbon emissions, that is all it boils down to, lack of confidence, a sense that effort is useless. Religion is all about hope and confidence, and as teachers we have to start with confidence that this job can be done. Let me end with two more admonitions to confidence, from the Master and the Guardian respectively,

 "Walk, therefore, with a sure step and engage with the utmost assurance and confidence in the promulgation of the divine fragrances, the glorification of the Word of God and firmness in the Covenant." (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections, 209)

 ". . . The Baha'i teacher must be all confidence. Therein lies his strength and the secret of his success." (30 June 1937, letter to individual, #51 Individual and Teaching - Raising the Divine Call, p. 23)

 

Teacher's Mistakes

John Mighton's advice on how to teach

 By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 09, 06 Qudrat, 164 BE

 A couple of months ago I promised to go over the advice to teachers that John Mighton gives in the introduction to the Grade 3 version of his "JUMP at Home, Math Worksheets for the Elementary Curriculum." I purchased this book last summer to show to my eight-year-old son's teacher, named Kim, after I had read Mighton's bestseller, "The Myth of Ability." Mighton started this voluntary math tutoring program using a group of actors with no special expertise in mathematics. This required that he clearly distill advice on learning mathematics and learning how to teach, a double challenge. The full text of this introduction is available online at the JUMP website, but I want to focus on the "common errors" section because it is of general interest, especially for Baha'is for whom of course teaching is a fundamental expression of faith.

 Common Errors Made in Teaching the Fractions Unit

 Mighton: Do not assume that a student who forgets material easily will never learn the material. Even mathematicians constantly forget new material, including material they once understood completely. (I have forgotten things I discovered myself!) Children, like mathematicians, need a good deal of practice and frequent review in order to remember new material.

 JET: This is something I wish I had been told on the first day I entered primary school. To expect to memorize and remember things forever is to set yourself up for disappointment. The brain holds only to what is used and reused constantly; all else fades. But every time you relearn something, it comes back easier, better, shinier, a jewel set in a new setting. And best of all, every time you relearn something, you can teach it better.

 Mighton: Also remember that the more excited you are at a students progress and the more you use bonus questions to capture a students attention, the more likely they will be to remember the things you teach them.

 JET: A famous anecdote is told of a Greek philosopher who gave a student a lesson, then hauled off and slapped him in the face. His reasoning was that the pain and shock would act as a sort of phosphorescent underliner to the learner's memory. Modern psychology since found that positive stimuli are far more effective, and as a bonus less likely to land up the teacher in jail for assault. The brain holds on only to what seems important. If the teacher is indifferent to whether you learned it, the data is marked "expendable;" if the teacher does not regard learning the lesson as an important milestone, memory marks it "extraneous," and learning stops. Mighton did not plan it that way, but actors are the best people he could have chosen as tutors, because pretending to be exited is the first step to becoming a good teacher. Later, when you see the results, you really do become enthusiastic. Then you are not pretending to be a teacher, you really are one. The great reformer of education, Maria Montessori (1857-1952), wrote,

 "If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future."

 In other words, it is not the transmission of knowledge that counts, it is the manner and attitude by which the information is conveyed. Otherwise, students could learn as much or more simply by sitting back and watching videos or listening to recordings.

 As for the role of enthusiasm in becoming a teacher of the Baha'i Faith, the Master wrote,

 "They must work with a burning enthusiasm to spread the Teaching of Baha'u'llah among the peoples, so that the radiant light of the Divine Bounty may envelop the souls of all the nations of the world!" (Paris Talks, 163)

 And the Guardian wrote,

 "This spirit of confident hope, of cheerful courage, and of undaunted enthusiasm in itself, irrespective of any tangible results which it may procure, can alone ensure the ultimate success of our teaching efforts." (Letter, 31 October 1936 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, in Compilation of Compilations, vol. II, p. 309)

 The very word "enthusiasm" means "filled with God," and it is a contradiction in terms to try to teach about God with anything short of radiant enthusiasm.

 Mighton: Whenever I have taught JUMP in a classroom for an extended time, I have found that I generally needed to set aside five minutes every few days to give extra review and preparation to the lowest four or five students in the class. (I usually teach these students in a small group while the other students are working on other activities.) Surprisingly, this is all it takes for the majority of students to keep up (of course, in extreme cases, it may not be enough).

 JET: I just heard an interview (on a PBS pod cast of the documentary film show "POV") with a director who just spent a year filming one of the best grade five teachers in the world, a fellow whose class puts on an entire production of Shakespeare each year in an inner city school. What he noticed about this superstar teacher is just what Mighton says here. Unlike other teachers, who say "You are on your own," or, "I do not have time for this," when a student gets stuck, this fellow stops everything and makes sure that each point is perfectly understood before going on to the next step.

 Mighton: I know, given current class sizes and the amount of paperwork teachers are burdened with, that its very hard for teachers to find extra time to devote to weaker students but, if you can find the time, you will see that it makes an enormous difference to these students and to the class in general. By investing a little extra time in your weaker students, you may end up saving time as you will not have to deal so much with the extreme split in abilities that is common in most classes, or with the disruptive behaviour that students who have fallen behind often engage in.

 JET: Corruption happens when living tissue mixes with dead and dying tissue, differences harden and the line between life and death becomes obscured. Learning can live uncorrupted only when all present succeed, are involved and participating to their fullest.

 What is true of a classroom is true of the world.

 Politically, when there is rivalry between states, when there are winners and losers, haves and have nots, the spirit of competition takes over. Then government ceases to act as a learner or teacher, it exploits every chance in order to feed its war machine.

 Economically, when some fall into debt and poverty while others are corrupted by wealth, the gears of economy grind and smoke, and the result is global warming. Just as the teacher has to stop and be sure that every student is with her, so the extremes of poverty and wealth must be moderated to enable all to participate to their fullest.

 Mighton: Emphasize the positive. If a child gets three out of four questions wrong, I will mark the question that is correct first and praise them for getting the correct answer. Then I will say, `I think you did not understand something with these other questions'; or, `You may have been going too fast,' and then I will point out their mistake -- or ask them to find it themselves! I have found that if I start by mentioning the mistakes, a weaker student will sometimes simply give up or stop listening.

 JET: Here is why the Master charged his emotional fire hose with Mehraban, loving kindness, and blasted it at all who stood in His way. This is why Baha'is are forbidden ever to indulge in backbiting and gossip, not only because it is morally wrong in itself but also because it denigrates learning and distracts from teaching. To criticize or gossip is to waste a precious learning opportunity, to show we have not learned what Mighton describes, to be positive even in assessment, always to see the divine, never to betray or dampen enthusiasm, always to incorporate mistakes, flaws and slips smoothly into life's learning process.

 Mighton: "If a student is upset by their mistakes, I will sometimes make up a bonus question (that I know they can do) to show them they are capable of doing harder work. (I also tell students that even though I am a mathematician I often make mistakes. And I often start a lesson by telling students that if they do not understand something it is my fault for not explaining it well enough, so they should not feel embarrassed at asking me to explain something again.)"

 JET I want to close with a statement by the Master that I think is an example of what Mighton is talking about. If you do not appreciate the need, the extreme value of teaching, why teach? Why learn? What the Master says here should, and would if I had my way, be repeated daily by every teacher and student entering every classroom in the world.

 Abdu'l-Baha: "If a child is left to its own natural proclivities, without education, it will embody all human defects. Education makes of man a man. Religion is divine education. There are two pathways which have been pointed out by the heavenly educators. The first is divine guidance and reliance upon the Manifestations of God. The other is the road of materialism and reliance upon the senses. These roads lead in opposite directions. The first leads to the world of the Kingdom; the other ends in the world of human vices and is contrary to the cause of divine guidance. For example, consider a babe at the mother's breast, observe its natural aggressiveness, its instinctive antagonism. It claws and bites the mother, even attacks the fountain of life itself. A barbarous and savage country is a country which has been deprived of education, where men are utter materialists like animals."

 "Such a nation embodies all human defects and vices. They even kill and eat one another. Divine education is the sum total of all development. It is the safeguard of humanity. The world of nature is a world of defects and incompleteness. The world of the Kingdom is reached by the highway of religion and is the heaven of all divine virtues." (SW, Vol. 9, 86)

 

Arviat

Arviat

 By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 07, 04 Qudrat, 164 BE

 
 A couple of years ago Grace, a former member of our Haldimand Baha'i community, moved to Arviat, Nunavut, formerly Eskimo Inlet, Northwest Territories, in order to live with the Inuit, formerly known as Eskimos. Then on Sunday we said goodbye to Gale, who, with her husband Mike, is following Grace to Arviat. Grace is a school principal and Gale is a public servant, but she plans to work there as a teacher. I do not know either of them very well, but since our goodbye conversation at the feast of Qudrat I have not been able get my mind out of the far north.

 It has been rainy the past week and though I have not had a full scale attack, the incessant migraine has dogged me and weighed down my brain with a thousand-ton chain. It is pretty clear that what I feared is the case, I am not cured, not free of this burden, my return to relatively normal health was due to the driest summer in over fifty years. The idea of escaping to the north and a drier climate is not new. In 1979 I spent the fall working as a night shift security guard in a gold mine in Val d'Or, Quebec. Unfortunately, I felt worse than ever there. Later, when it was too late and I was on my way home, I found out that the region had just gone through its rainiest autumn in living memory.

  Last night I learned everything I could on the Web about Arviat. Nunavut itself is an amazing place, a mere thirty thousand people stretched out over a remote, treeless, tundra covered area three times the size of Texas. If it were a nation, it would be the 13th largest in the world, in area (though probably the smallest, in population). The name Arviat itself comes from the Inuit word "Arviq," meaning bowhead whale. The town is situated on the western shore of Hudson's Bay and has about two thousand inhabitants. The "place of the bowhead whale," is about a quarter of the size of Dunnville, which I used to think of as a small town. Nonetheless, it is the third largest town in this newly self-governing area of Nunavut.

  All my life there has been massive unemployment in Canada, but lately the unheard of has taken place, there is actually a job surplus. The resultant demand for workers in the south has dried up the labor supply in Nunavut, especially in teaching, health care, and skilled building trades. Gale said that at Grace's small school on one day they were short no fewer than seven teachers. According to newspaper articles, some remote villages are being forced to send children home from school permanently, so desperate is the shortage of teachers.

  From the point of view of local culture, the recent political move to independence has turned a bad situation into a crisis. Before, educated locals, who are of course the only native speakers of the main (but not the only) native language, Inuktitut, were happily employed as teachers. This meant that traditional knowledge was being systematically transferred to the next generation. Now they are being lured away from teaching by civil service jobs, which of course are more attractive because they do not take away several hours from their evenings doing the drudge work of marking papers.

  Like every crisis, this is an opportunity in disguise. I have frequently written about how I hate tests and examinations because they obstruct and pervert the entire course of education. Excessive marking encourages invidious comparisons among students and unless judiciously applied at the right time and in the right manner, harm rather than help the learning process. All test taking teaches is how to take tests (and, increasingly, how to cheat at tests), not how to apply knowledge to real situations in real jobs.

  And here, reading about Arviat, I find another disadvantage to our obsession with examinations. They denude and degrade the teaching profession by making it easy to lure the best talent away to other, less crucial jobs. In this case, the loss of local teachers threatens the very existence of Inuktitut, a language that was recently assessed as the healthiest native language group in Canada. Does any of that make teachers rebel from their profession's toadying to test-tyranny? No, they continue, willing slaves doing unnecessary, harmful slogging for hours every evening. Teachers cannot teach if they waste their energy this way! How can you be expected to teach if there is no time left over to learn for yourself, or even to recharge your spiritual batteries?

  The problem with our materialist society is that we confuse make-work with work. Why else would we have become addicted to fossil fuels? Why else would we live in substandard housing, even in the richest places? Why else would we accept that scoring well in an examination is the same as knowing something?

 Work is getting things done and the ultimate make-work project is the examination.

  If exams are an addiction, then marking them has to be binge drinking. Like members of AA who refuse to consider an abolitionist agenda in spite of the havoc that alcohol has wreaked in their lives, teachers buckle under and accept this intolerable burden without a squeak. Baha'u'llah condemned sciences that "begin with words and end in words" and fail to "profit the peoples of the earth," (Tablets, 51) and the Guardian later interpreted this to mean "fruitless excursions into metaphysical hair-splitting." (Unfolding Destiny, 445) What could be more fruitless than to make the most fulfilling, valuable work in the world into a metaphysical fool's errand? And the price? In Arviat it means saying goodbye forever to a jewel of human diversity, a culture known to have flourished under the most difficult conditions on the same land for at least four thousand years.

 Next time let us take an aerial tour of Arviat using Google maps.

 

 

Mahdi Arising

Plaisir d’Amour for Mirza Mihdi

By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 06, 03 Qudrat, 164 BE

I love listening to music but have never taken it seriously. However, yesterday was an exception. I had a lingering migraine, so it was a write-off as far as getting anything done. I watched a Hugh Grant film called "Music and Lyrics," then I ended up glued to Youtube listening to song after song, chasing up melodies that I always liked but never bothered finding out about. One that has haunted me whenever I heard it had, I seemed to recall, something about "your face" in it. That tiny fragment was, thanks to Google, enough to track down the complete lyrics, and thanks to Youtube I could compare the renditions of several artists. The two finalists in my little private contest to see who got onto our iPod were Celine Dion and Roberta Flack. Both made it there, but now if it came down to a winner I think I would give it to the latter, not because she sings more beautifully, but because she does not slur her words. In the case of Dion, she goes so far as to elide entire phrases. Anyway, the lyrics suit my mood, so here they are.

 The first time ever I saw your face

 "The first time ever I saw your face I thought the sun rose in your eyes, and the moon and the stars were your gifts you gave to the dark and empty skies, my love.
 "And the first time ever I kissed your lips I felt the earth move in my hands like the trembling heart of a captive bird that was there at my command, my love.
 "And the first time every I lay with you, I felt your heart so close to mine and I knew our joy would fill the earth and would last till the end of time, my love.

 In other words, this is not a song, it is a prayer to the Manifestation of God. And it is interesting that it inhabits such high registers that only women seem able to sing it. Which to my mind makes it a philosophical song. Why? Well, I am listening to the audio book version of a philosophical novel right now called "Sophie's World," and one of many things I learned from it is that the Greek word "sophos" refers to the female half, the feminine virtues of God, His compassion, gentleness, and so forth. So a philosopher, which means a "lover of Sophos," is someone who is so enamored that he or she becomes that female side of the Deity. One the other hand a non-philosopher settles for His ostensible, male attributes.

 Another romantic song that has always moved me, especially when love hits rocky shoals, is called "Plaisir d'amour," whose refrain is,

 "Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment,"
 "Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie."

 The Elvis Presley adaptation starts off with "Wise men say, `Only fools fall in love,'" which, now that I think of it, is probably a better translation than the more literal, "Love's joy lasts but a moment, its anguish a lifetime." The Youtube entrants in this contest were also female vocalists, except for one, a Chinese male counter-tenor (I had never heard of such a thing). Of them, the best in my opinion were the divas who sang it in classical styling, Janet Baker, Yulia Townsend and, of course, the incomparable Nana Mouskouri, my overall winner.

 The surprise was that going over the French lyrics, which are either left out or hopelessly slurred by all singers except Nana, I stumbled across my daughter's name, Silvie. The lyrics say, (in my translation)

 "`I will love you,' Silvie repeated to me, `As long as the waters of this brook run gently down the meadow,' I gave up everything for her, but now she has left and found another lover. The waters still flow, but it is she who changed. The pleasure of love lasts but a moment while love's agony endures forever."

 Which is why I say, be faithful in love, be chaste out of marriage and exercise fidelity within that holy estate. And do it, Silvie, for pure motives, for the love of God. Do not be like me, doing it from naked, unadulterated fear of that horrible chagrin d'amour. Of all the pains you can suffer in life, the kind I can endure least is that. Oh, and migraine pain. That too.

 Sad as being personally lovelorn is, even worse "chagrin d'amour" hits when you think of the Latin root of "silvie," which means "forest maiden." This sad song takes on environmental overtones when you think that even if we could find lasting pleasure in love, so many streams and meadows are polluted, swallowed up by development or dried up by climate destabilization. Even nature is no longer lasting as once it seemed.

 Separation anxiety is basic to worldly love, but the love of God is the reverse, the pleasure lasts forever, the agony, well mostly it is brief -- but for Baha'u'llah it really did go on for a lifetime. But most of it, in my opinion, came from the chagrin one feels when you watch helplessly as a line of toddlers stumble one by one off a cliff into an abyss of certain death -- the toddlers being all of humanity.

 It was in 1870, in the midst of His time in the Most Great Prison, separated even from His followers, when the worst possible thing for any parent happened to Baha'u'llah. He witnessed His son, Mirza Mihdi, crash through a skylight, pierce his ribs on a wooden box, and then take almost twenty-four hours to die. He later wrote,

 "Thou art the Trust of God and His Treasure in this Land. Erelong will God reveal through thee that which He hath desired... I have, O my Lord, offered up that which Thou hast given Me, that Thy servants may be quickened, and all that dwell on earth be united." (GPB, 188)

 These words were written in the utmost chagrin d'amour. Shoghi Effendi in his history of these events said that this prayer, "exalts his death to the rank of those great acts of atonement associated with Abraham's intended sacrifice of His son, with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the martyrdom of the Imam Husayn..." Remember, atonement means literally "at one-ness." That is, we only become one if and when we go through crisis and feel the redemptive suffering. Only then will Mirza Mihdi's dying wish to be a ransom for those "prevented from attaining the presence of their Lord" be granted, deep down in our plaisir d'amour.

 

50th Anniversary

Prayers on Fiftieth Anniversary of Shoghi Effendi's Passing

 By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 05, 02 Qudrat, 164 BE

 Yesterday marked a half century since the Guardian died of heart failure in London, England. It is difficult for the likes of me to say anything about Shoghi Effendi; his work goes far beyond mere influence, it would be closer to the truth to say that as much of his blood is coursing through my veins as mine.

 At our Feast yesterday a brief tribute was read, and as I listened I thought that it would be nice to hear some of the Guardian's prayers. It took less than a minute to Google them when I got home. Unfortunately, only a handful of Shoghi Effendi's prayers have been translated. This is good in a way, since the number is manageable and can easily be read in less than five minutes. Could be that just saying them will help understand him better. He himself wrote,

 "The inspiration received through meditation is of a nature that one cannot measure or determine. God can inspire into our minds things that we had no previous knowledge of, if He desires to do so." (LG, 455)

 He would be a hundred and ten years old had he lived to this day. Anyway, to read the Guardian's prayers seems like the best way to commemorate the anniversary of his passing, so to make it more convenient I have collected the prayers together and placed them at the end of this mailing.

 Who was Shoghi Effendi? He was in the eyes of the Master both a sign and a proof of God. As a former atheist, it is a high compliment for me to say that someone's life stands as a proof of the existence of God (for that reason I named my only son "Hujjat," Arabic for proof), and Shoghi Effendi's life was supremely that, a proof that God lives and breathes in our life and breath. Marzieh Gail, who met him in the flesh, wrote just that about Shoghi Effendi,

 "In that age of dictators (where many countries took to multiplying ad nauseam the likenesses of their local secular deity), Shoghi Effendi did not wish his picture displayed. In spite of his modesty, however, the believers could not be long in his presence without sensing that here was one different from all the rest. To many, he was all the proof one needed that God exists: indeed, the Will refers to him as 'blest' and 'sacred', and as Ayatollah, 'the sign of God'. To many, of all the paths in the world, this path of Baha'u'llah was the one to follow, because he had chosen it." (Marzieh Gail, Arches of the Years, p. 291-292)

 What a nicer world it would have been if the only Ayatollah the world ever heard of was the true sign of God, Shoghi Effendi! Instead that holy title, Sign of God, was dragged through the mud by a murderous Islamo-fascist who succeeded in associating the word "Ayatollah" with the likes of Hitler and Stalin in the popular imagination. But nothing can stain the name of God, and this too will pass.

 When Shoghi Effendi was a child, Abdu'l-Baha gave him a high honor by revealing the following prayer for him,

 "...O God! This is a branch sprung from the tree of Thy mercy. Through Thy grace and bounty enable him to grow and through the showers of Thy generosity cause him to become a verdant, flourishing, blossoming and fruitful branch. Gladden the eyes of his parents, Thou Who giveth to whomsoever Thou willest, and bestow upon him the name Shoghi so that he may yearn for Thy Kingdom and soar into the realms of the unseen!" (Adib Taherzadeh, Covenant of Baha'u'llah, 280)

 When the Master referred to Shoghi Effendi's "yearning for the Kingdom," He was nodding to the signification of the Arabic word, "Shogh," meaning "zeal" or "eagerness." I think it is well to remember this when we think of the Guardian's life, because although the common stereotype is that he was the consummate planner and the ultimate administrator, and it is true that this does fit most of his historic contribution to the development of the Cause, at heart to think of him this way is to distort who he was, deep down. No, it was the reverse, almost, his quality of impetuous enthusiasm, of purity and impulse to God, as pointed out by the Master who named him Shoghi (in our tradition that would make Abdu'l-Baha his godfather. Funny thought that, the Master as Baha'i godfather...) that drove the man forward to all that he did. This was Shoghi, the person behind the institution of the Guardian.

 It was very early in his Guardianship, on 24 September 1924, when Shoghi Effendi wrote an immortal paragraph that sums all of this up, and hints, I think, at the secret of his success.

 "Not by the force of numbers, not by the mere exposition of a set of new and noble principles, not by an organised campaign of teaching -- no matter how worldwide and elaborate in its character -- not even by the staunchness of our faith or the exaltation of our enthusiasm, can we ultimately hope to vindicate in the eyes of a critical and sceptical age the supreme claim of the Abha Revelation. One thing and only one thing will unfailingly and alone secure the undoubted triumph of this sacred Cause, namely, the extent to which our own inner life and private character mirror forth in their manifold aspects the splendour of those eternal principles proclaimed by Baha'u'llah." (Shoghi Effendi, Unfolding Destiny of the British Baha'i Community, 28)

 We would all do well to memorize this, for it sums up not only how the enthusiasm of Shoghi resolved into the Effendi, the Guardian, how the man shouldered the plan, but also how you and I can and must do the same, how the "I" becomes the "Baha'i." Through purity and prayer we take faith and enthusiasm and make it into a sun, a mirror of splendour, of Baha. If we fail, well, just think about it, the notorious Ayatollah, Ruhullah Khomeini, he too was staunch, he was as exalted in his enthusiasm as any of us, but he resolved into darkness nonetheless. He did not have the "eternal principles proclaimed by Baha'u'llah" to brighten his spiritual innards, and as a result nothing could stop him from soaking his hands and his title, Ayatollah, with innocent blood.

 In any case, here are the prayers. Let us pray that the time will come when the rest of the Guardian's prayers will be made available to English speakers.

 Prayers of Shoghi Effendi

 "He is God"
 "O Mighty Lord! Thou seest what hath befallen Thy helpless lovers in this darkest of long nights; Thou knowest how, in all these years of separation from Thy Beauty, the confidants of Thy mysteries have ever been acquainted with burning grief."
 "O Powerful Master! Suffer not Thy wayfarers to be abased and brought low; succor this handful of feeble creatures with the potency of Thy might. Exalt Thy loved ones before the assemblage of man, and grant them strength. Allow those broken-winged beings to raise their heads and glory in the fulfilment of their hopes, that we in these brief days of life may gaze with our physical eyes on the elevation and exaltation of Thy Faith, and soar up to Thee with gladdened souls and blissful hearts.
 "Thou knowest that, since Thy ascension, we seek no name or fame, that in this swiftly passing world we wish henceforth no joy, no delight and no good fortune.
 "Then keep Thy word, and exhilarate once more the lives of these, Thy sick at heart. Bring light to our expectant eyes, balm to our stricken breasts. Lead Thou the caravans of the city of Thy love swiftly to their intended goal. Draw those who sorrow after Thee into the high court of reunion with Thee. For in this world below we ask for nothing but the triumph of Thy Cause. And within the precincts of Thy boundless mercy we hope for nothing but Thy presence.
 "Thou art the Witness, the Haven, the Refuge; Thou art He who rendereth victorious this band of the innocent.

 (Shoghi Effendi, in The Baha'i World, XVIII, 1979-1983, p. 35)

 O God! Thy nearness is my hope,
 And to commune with Thee, my joy;
 Thy love is my comfort
 And Thy name, my prayer

 (Shoghi Effendi, quoted in Marcus Bach, Shoghi Effendi: An Appreciation)

 (the following prayer (is) by the Guardian to the Master. It is an excerpt from a longer prayer/apostrophe addressed to the Greatest Holy Leaf, shortly after her passing)

 "Intercede, O noble and well-favored scion of a heavenly Father, for me no less than for the toiling masses of Thy ardent lovers, who have sworn undying allegiance to Thy memory, whose souls have been nourished by the energies of Thy love, whose conduct has been moulded by the inspiring example of Thy life, and whose imaginations are fired by the imperishable evidences of Thy lively faith, thy unshakable constancy, Thy invincible heroism, Thy great renunciation."

 (Baha'i Administration, p.196)

 These come from a letter of the UHJ written on 11 December, 1994, which is to be found on the Baha'i Library website, called "Prayers of Shoghi Effendi," at:

 <http://bahai-library.com/file.php5?file=shoghieffendi_prayers&language=All>

 

dead ambition

Stifling the Ambitions of the Dead

By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 04, 01 Qudrat, 164 BE

Yesterday we talked about rewarding the ambitions of the dead, and we featured a video where Noam Chomsky, while discounting conspiracy theories, nonetheless asserted that 9-11 was a godsend from the point of view of those in power. The event happened in full view of thousands of television cameras, and the media is the mirror or eye of humankind. Although more severe disasters take place almost every day, none are as in-your-face photogenic as 9-11 was. Chomsky held that this made it the best thing that could have happened to the power monger, the answer to his prayers. Any disaster, rebellion, upheaval or crisis, Chomsky believes, is an excuse to tighten the reins, to load up the yoke on the shoulders of the people.

His typically cynical comments led me yesterday on a cursory review of the Wiki article on Machiavelli, a thinker very similar in many respects to Chomsky, except that the latter (contrary to popular opinion) is by far the more radical and rebellious of the two. Wiki offered several quotes from Machiavelli's discourses that counter the common stereotype. I will highlight some of them now, starting with this:

"...no prince is ever benefited by making himself hated." (Discourses, Book III, Chapter XIX)

If the Bush administration had planned 9-11, they would have risked bringing down their most stable power bases. Thus Machiavelli would probably have agreed with Chomsky that conspiracy theories involving those who already have power in their hands amount to nothing more than mental chaff, a distraction from incisive thought about political reality. Machiavelli also wrote,

"For government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you...." (Book II, Chapter XXIII)

 This almost seems to sanction the across-the-board revocation of human rights that took place in most Western countries just after 9-11, the best known being the antinomian "Patriot Act" passed in America. They were business as usual and drove millions on-side, or as Machiavelli puts it, made them "well-disposed" by seeing the horror of a murderous attack on America in their own homes. Thus these acts of legislation cut every legal corner to assure that nobody ill-disposed could injure governments or the elites they represent. In this sense, then, Chomsky is the greater rebel. On the other hand, Machiavelli also says,

 "Now in a well-ordered republic it should never be necessary to resort to extra-constitutional measures...." (Book I, Chapter XXXIV)

 Since Patriot Act-like legislation revokes constitutionally protected rights, it seems that Machiavelli would have considered them symptoms of anarchy, not measures bolstering order. Machiavelli further held that any violent or illegal attack, be it by or against government, is cruel and untenable.

 "Doubtless these means [of attaining power] are cruel and destructive of all civilized life, and neither Christian nor even human, and should be avoided by every one. In fact, the life of a private citizen would be preferable to that of a king at the expense of the ruin of so many human beings." (Book I, Chapter XXVI)

 In spite of their differences, though, there is little doubt that Chomsky would agree wholeheartedly with our final two quotes from Machiavelli's Discourses,

 "...the governments of the people are better than those of princes." (Ib. Chapter LVIII) "...if we compare the faults of a people with those of princes, as well as their respective good qualities, we shall find the people vastly superior in all that is good and glorious." (Ibid., LVIII)

 Yesterday we also looked at how both Machiavelli and Chomsky were anticipated by the Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu, who used the image of a carriage being pulled by a wildcat. That is, when we pick our leaders based on how well they praise the ambitions of the dead, that is, how well they can flatter our prejudices and ideological misconceptions, we are in for a crazy ride over rough ground. Even, perhaps especially, when we are led by a "government of the people." Interesting, though, that an oil company uses an animated wildcat, Tony the Tiger, in propaganda campaigns to sell carboniferous poison. We have indeed a tiger in our tank, a wildcat pulling our carriage, and even if you do not ride in it, you will be suffocated by the fumes. What we need to find fast is a tractable beast to put before the carriage.

 So much for what I learned yesterday. This morning I awoke with a song and a question in my mind. The song was the kids' latest musical favorite on their ipod, "Everything you know is wrong," by comedian and singer, Weird Al Yankovich. The chorus goes, "Black is white, up is down, and short is long; and everything you thought was just so important doesn't matter." I could not get that song out of my head. But the question in my mind was even more persistent. Here it is: Is what Chomsky says about politics also true of religion? That is, are religious leaders using the same technique to tighten (using an expression the Guardian used) their "stranglehold on the hearts and minds of men?"

 If Chomsky is correct that power mongers profit from catastrophes, does what is true of politics also apply to religion? Are cynical religious leaders manipulating our fears and frailties to their own advantage? If they are -- and if you have heard of the situation of Baha'is and Sufis in Iran, or religious minorities in many other places, not all of them Islamo-fascist in character you would have to agree that they are -- then two questions remain: how do they operate?, and, How do we negate their ploys?

 What we need, therefore, is a religious Noam Chomsky, a rebel bold enough to document the plots and conniving of religious leaders, one prominent, and most of all, one neutral enough to hold them to account for their misdeeds. Such a scholar would make more believers aware of the motives of every power-avid leader, and as a result we might be less naive about falling for their deceptions. We need such a scholar, but it goes without saying that no matter who it is, he or she as soon as they open their mouth will be accused of partisanship. Everybody has to come from somewhere, rise out of some tradition, adhere to some belief, especially if they are to say something credible about matters of faith.

 We therefore need not one but an entire body of scholars from several religious traditions, the body that Abdu'l-Baha dubbed the "religious parliament of man." Only such a group of committed, diverse, learned thinkers, acting together and apart, could do what is necessary to see that a domesticated beast is placed at the front of the carriage of our religious life. For more on the same theme, check out this video inspired by the UHJ’s recent publication, One Common Faith, put out by Baha’i in India, at: <http://www.doubletake.tv/cms/one-english>

 Before I end this, I want to note that our exemplar, Abdu'l-Baha, while He did not openly criticize other faiths, nor was He ever destructively cynical in the manner of a religious Noam Chomsky, He nonetheless recognized the reality of fundamentalism, the danger that it poses to us all, and mostly He made clear its essentially non-religious, quasi-political, and essentially materialistic character. Consider, for example, the following, told to a Christian:

 "O thou who doest believe in the Spirit of Christ, in the Kingdom of God! The body is composed, in truth, of corporeal elements and every composition is necessarily subject to decomposition; but the spirit is an essence, simple, pure, spiritual, eternal, perpetual and divine. He who seeketh Christ from the point of view of His body hath, in truth, debased Him and hath gone astray from Him; but he who seeketh Christ from the point of view of His Spirit will grow from day to day in joy, attraction, zeal, proximity, perception and vision." (Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets, vol. 2, p. 316)

 The "mirror" philosophy of the Bab also cuts human power mongers off from any relationship with the true source of power, God. The Bab, in an important statement addressed to His own followers, wrote,

 "O people of the Bayan! If ye believe in Him Whom God shall make manifest, to your own behoof do ye believe. He hath been and ever will remain independent of all men. For instance, were ye to place unnumbered mirrors before the sun, they would all reflect the sun and produce impressions thereof, whereas the sun is in itself wholly independent of the existence of the mirrors and of the suns which they reproduce. Such are the bounds of the contingent beings in their relation to the manifestation of the Eternal Being..." (The Bab, Selections, 93)

A Wildcat Is Pulling Our Carriage

Conspiracy Theories

By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 03, 18 Ilm, 164 BE

"Upon the death of a favorite concubine of the Lord of Lu, somebody in Lu wrote an obituary for her. The Lord of Lu was pleased with it and employed the writer. Mo Tzu heard of it and remarked: An obituary is but to narrate the ambitions of the dead. To employ the man because his obituary is pleasing is like making the wild cat pull a carriage." (The Ethical and Political Works of Mo Tzu, at: http://www.humanistictexts.org/motzu.htm)

Let us turn our thoughts to wildcats pulling carriages, the tyranny of Adolph Nobody, and to what his power base really is.

I was surfing this morning through alternative media sites and came across the following video of Noam Chomsky talking about conspiracy theories and the absurd idea that the Bush Administration planned and executed the 9-11 attacks.

<http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/66473/>

He makes interesting points against these hand wringing speculations, the most important being that pre-occupation with conspiracy theories is essentially anti-scientific in spirit. It acts in the end as a distraction from issues that really matter, things that we can change if we put our minds to it. In response I looked up "conspiracy theory" on the Web and found that there is a pretty healthy literature about the phenomenon. Unfortunately, it is not easily accessible outside a university library. As so often happens lately, Wikipedia proved to be the most accessible source of further information. The online encyclopedia offered the following standard tests for a given conspiracy:

1. Occam's razor - is the alternative story more, or less, probable than the mainstream story? (However overeager application of "Occam's razor" can lead to acceptance of oversimplified views of history.)
2. Methodology - are the "proofs" offered for the argument well constructed, i.e., using sound methodology? Is there any clear standard to determine what evidence would prove or disprove the theory?
3. Whistleblowers - how many people -- and what kind -- have to be loyal conspirators?

As Chomsky says, there are too many chances for leaks if a prominent politician starts to conspire. Richard Nixon's fall after Watergate is an example of what happens to a President who dares challenge powerful interests (as Chomsky points out elsewhere, Nixon got away with assassinating minority leaders, but when he tried bugging Democratic Party leaders, that was going too far).

My own inclination (based on some Ancient philosopher I read long ago, but for the life of me I cannot remember who it was) is to regard the popularity of conspiracy theories as a sort of medical symptom, an illness of a sick body politic. Conspiracy theories start to take over when people are shut out (or shut themselves out) of consultation and practical political involvement. Now that I think of it, maybe Niccolo Machiavelli was the one who wrote about conspiracies. He was one of the first to talk about checks and balances in government, and that became the foundation of the American system. Machiavelli wrote,

"In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check." (Machiavelli, Discourses, Book I, Chapter II)

Conspiracy theories, then, take over when there is checking but not balancing. Watching goes out of whack, and the checking is not reciprocal checking. The exact equivalent happens in family life when blaming others gets out of hand. Accusation is habitual. In theory just about anything you or I do or neglect to do in daily life can be held up for criticism. Any happenstance by one family member can be interpreted by the others as an intentional plot to mess them up. Blame, then, is a symptom of spiritual illness, failure of faith in others. A unified, harmonious, non-bickering home is the result of a contract where each member offers others the benefit of the doubt, stops the blaming and rises above conspiracy theories.

That is why I find Adolph Nobody a useful person to invoke when I want to blame. Adolph is the only one that it is safe to blame. He is born when everybody is so busy blaming that they become culpable for a general deterioration of the situation, then the best way to blame everybody is to blame nobody, Adolph Nobody. He is at the core, he is the real source of our present failure to act on the crises that threaten.

The real danger that threatens the world right now is not some dark plot to commit any single evil deed, however compelling and satisfying it may feel to think it so. No, it is a failure of all, world disorder, an illness of the whole set-up that makes our body politic too clumsy to respond to basic survival needs. We all fiddle while the environment degrades and the climate de-stabilizes. We all have to get over the blame game, experts complaining about lay, people blaming politicians, and, as Machiavelli points out, leaders vis-a-vis the masses,

"Let not princes complain of the faults committed by the people subjected to their authority, for they result entirely from their own negligence or bad example." (Discourses, Book III, Chapter XXIX)

Adolph Nobody and his expanding no-man's land are taking over. He is the wildcat pulling our carriage. He makes us all victims of ourselves; his plots embroil us all in a huge, conspiracy-in-the-breach, a conspiracy of silence, a total failure to cast aside imitations and work out common presuppositions on which to act on our actual situation. Seek truth, do not blame, do not set up scapegoats, trust in your fellows, love, act... Only then will our body politic be mature enough to join into a world confederation capable of addressing the dangers looming before us all.

Know Your Master

Interview with Adolph Nobody

By John Taylor; 2007 October 31, 16 Ilm, 164 BE

I am happy to share the news that a major celebrity has consented to an interview exclusively here on the Badi' list. That VIP is none other than Adolph Nobody, the de facto king of the world and the inspiration for, well, pretty much you name it, globalization, democracy, capitalism, nationalism, the list goes on. So without further ado, here is the first installment of our recent exchange of wit and soul.

JET: First off, it is "Nobody" isn't it? I have heard you called "No Man" a few times. Do you prefer that name?

Adolph: They both work. Just don't call me late for dinner, heh, heh.

JET: So if it does not matter what they call you what I would like to know -- to get out of these interviews -- is an insight into the person behind the name, the face behind the mask. I hope you can help me out with that. Who are you, really?

Adolph: Well, you know how Jesus said, "Ask and ye shall receive?" Well, I am the guy who stands by you and whispers in your hear and says, `Don't ask. It is a lot simpler not to. Why bother?' What is so bad about that? Just do not rock the boat, is all I say.

JET: Now a lot of people have been painting you as a bad guy, the ultimate bad guy, as Satan's alter ego. Are you as bad as they say?

Adolph: Of course not. People do not realize this but I am really a nice guy deep down. I go to parties, I exchange gifts with my friends at Christmas, I even went out trick or treating for Halloween. And don't forget, poets write about me. I do not mean grisly street poets, either, but nice ones, lady poets. My favorite is Emily Dickenson. She wrote,

"I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know."

You know, when she wrote that I liked the sentiment so much I memorized her little verse. I like the idea that I am frail and delicate because, well, I am. I am a sensitive thing, an airy nothing, an ephemerality. I have needs, deep down, like anybody else. All it takes to get rid of me is a little organization, a little planning and I am out of there. Banished, as she says. If there is no breathable anarchy to fill my lungs I am out of there.

JET: Now I know you made your first appearance on the Badi' list last year but of course you have been around a lot longer than that. When did you first make it into the English language?

Adolph: I am glad you asked that. Not very many people know it but I started out as a property owner. My estate on the outside of London edged into English back in the 1300's. English back then hardly existed, it was a motley hodgepodge of Anglo, Saxon and French words at the time but my property worked its way in there regardless.

JET: You owned land? How can nobody own land?

Adolph: Well, it started out as a dump, but then things started getting out of hand when somebody got the bright idea of executing criminals there. Leave the bodies there to rot, they said, that way people will look on this wasteland and think twice about doing wrong. Being tough on crime was as popular then as it is today. Soon enough the whole area was empty. People were afraid to go near the place. It had been a long time since I could breathe as easy as I when I first visited there.

JET: >From what I have read such "unsanitary dumps" were quite common in antiquity. The one outside of Jerusalem they called Gahanna and it became proverbial for hell.

Adolph: Yeah, the difference was that this time they called a spade a spade. They named it after me. They called it "no-man's-land." I was quite touched when they did that. I felt so welcome that I moved right in and I must say that I have never regretted that decision. The English speaking peoples and I have been like this ever since.

JET: Next you are going to say that you knew William Shakespeare.

Adolph: No. Well, it would be more accurate to say that he knew me. He had his villain Iago invoke me when he working Othello into a jealous rage. "If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes near nobody." Then in Henry VI you hear a version of the old saying, "Ill blows the wind that profits nobody." I was a little upset when the version of the saying that manages not to mention me became current in English, "Tis an ill wind that blows no good." On the other hand, the second version implies that somebody always profits no matter how ill the wind, but Shakespeare's proverb warns directly against me, personally.

JET: You are not going to tell me that you were a stranger to literature before English came along.

Adolph: Oh my, no! I go as far back as Homer.

JET: Pray tell.

Adolph: I was the first slippery stone that Odysseus fell over when he turned his ship homewards. You remember the story, how he cleverly told the cyclops that his name was Noman, and when he was hurt and complained to his people, they responded:

"'What ails you, Polyphemus,' said they, 'that you make such a noise, breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?' But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, 'Noman is killing me by fraud; no man is killing me by force.'

Odysseus took my name in vain and gained a technical knockout. But then as he was getting away he could not resist shouting out his real name to Polyphemus. Naturally, the cyclops tore off the mountain top, heaved it into the sea and when that did not sink the ship, he complained to his protector, Poseidon. The sea god was angry and made it a lot worse for Odysseus after that. That little act of hubris drew out his time away to almost 19 years.

JET: So it was an ill wind that profits nobody!

Adolph: Hey, I got nothing out of that. All I am saying is that he could have made it a good wind if only he had used my name and left it at that. But no, people are always giving me other names, like democracy, nationalism, globalization. Why don't they just use my name and have an end of it? And besides, 19 is the number of unity for you Baha'is, isn't it? So his being banished for 19 years must have been a good thing in the end.

JET: Baha'u'llah was banished for forty years, twice that time, and His banishment was redemptive. He was exiled so that we could all come home, home to one planet, one people, thank you very much.

Adolph: But you people cannot even suffer if I am not right there with you. Do you remember the spiritual, "Nobody know de trouble I seen, Nobody know de sorrow..."? Well, it means what it says, if you do not suffer alone with me you are not really suffering. You think I was not with the Holy Ones? I went with them into the wilderness. They all met me and know me better than any one of you. You all need me at one point in life’s journey. I am there with you all your lives, ready to be used as Odysseus used me. It is no coincidence that Tennyson’s poem about Odysseus says at one point, “…all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravel'd world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move.” What better description of no-man’s-land could you ask for?