p14 two 2006 essays on the days of the Badi' Week

Friday, July 14, 2006

Seven Days and Seven Valleys, Part I

By John Taylor; 2006 July 14

Every day I try to be as physically active as I can, often struggling against waves of turpitude that strike with the overwhelming force of an ocean surf. My cornerstone exercise is practicing table tennis by hitting the ball against a wall and trying to return it. 

The harder I smash it the harder it is to return. This is the least boring of exercises, but it is still tedious, so I relieve the boredom of the repetition by listening to books on tape on a stereo that I hooked for our garage. The latest acquisition is a compilation of inspiring essays about spirituality by self-help gurus that I picked up at the Haldimand Library's annual summer book sale. 

The best of the essays is by the author of "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," Kushner I think his name is.

Kushner describes in loving detail his ideal daily routine, a set of slow, relaxing rituals such as reading scripture morning and evening, holding hands with his wife and telling her that he loves her before they sit down to break bread, ending his day with reading something funny, that kind of thing. These he tries to work into his week at least four out of the seven days of the week. Most inspiring is to hear how taking the Sabbath seriously revives his soul. He takes his Sundays off work completely and does only soul-refreshing activities; since he is no longer a minister, he attends worship services at a variety of local church denominations, including the Greek Orthodox, whose rituals in a foreign language liturgy he finds relaxing. I was impressed by how his observance salves his week. I have decided, therefore, if I ever get over this anemia, that I will observe the Baha'i Sabbath, which of course is Friday, or Istiqlal (Independence).

In the meantime my compromise will be to spend Fridays writing about the Badi' calendar, starting today. As I went over my collected material on the Baha'i week this morning a strange speculation popped into my mind. How do the seven days compare with Baha'u'llah's Haft Wadi, or Seven Valleys? Let us juxtapose them:

1. Jalal - Glory (Saturday)  Valley one: search
2. Jamal - Beauty (Sunday)  Valley two: love
3. Kamal - Perfection (Monday)  Valley three: knowledge
4. Fidal - Grace (Tuesday)  Valley four: unity
5. 'Idal - Justice (Wednesday)  Valley five: contentment
6. Istijlal - Majesty (Thursday)  Valley six: wonderment
7. Istiqlal - Independence (Friday)  Valley seven: true poverty and absolute nothingness

The questions then arises, are there any scriptural connections between these virtues? Can states of the soul be connected with the virtues of the week by any kind of natural logic? Let us give her, as one of my teachers used to say, the "old college try."

The first day of the Baha'i week is Saturday, Jalal, or Glory, and the first valley is search. One rides through this valley on a "steed" of patience, we are told in the Haft Vadi. Certainly the quest for glory is never one of ease and relaxation. Nobody puts up statues for generals who won easy battles, and even the most skillful artists who live lives of ease never seem to be able to produce paintings worth more than a pittance. Patience in adversity seems by some iron law of the universe to be the prime requisite for success for every seeker after truth. Consider how Baha'u'llah Himself connects His own suffering and patience with the antipathy of those who are "the manifestations of My glory":

"Hearken unto My voice that calleth from My prison, that it may acquaint thee with the things that have befallen My Beauty, at the hands of them that are the manifestations of My glory, and that thou mayest perceive how great hath been My patience, notwithstanding My might..." (Baha'u'llah, Summons, 84, Epistle, 58, http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/SLH/slh-7.html)

Sunday is beauty day, Jamal, and the above citation from Baha'u'llah illuminates this tie as well. The connection between beauty and the valley of love could not be any more natural. If I love a woman, even should she appear to the world a snake-haired hag who transforms all beholders into stone statues, still my loving eyes will find beauty in her face. As in the ancient Greek myth, such a lover would say, 

"Your face transfixes everybody, my love, they are paralyzed by admiration. I would be too, except that I look into your reflection in my shield." And so it is with God, He is a sun that blinds all who behold directly His Godhead, for finite beings are not constructed for direct linkage with the Supreme Love. All that we can bear of the divine must be virtual, indirect, reflected love. Even at a hint of the direct Face we cry in the words of the Kaddosh, "He is other, other, other!" and are turned to stone. Consider the imagery in the first paragraph of the Haft Vadi's love valley,

"In this city the heaven of ecstasy is upraised and the world-illuming sun of yearning shineth, and the fire of love is ablaze; and when the fire of love is ablaze, it burneth to ashes the harvest of reason." (SVFV, 7)

This is why I get all riled up when people talk about "Baha'i theology," which I consider an oxymoron. Theology is the practice of theologians, theoreticians serving a professional clergy. There is no professional Baha'i clergy precisely for this reason: divine knowledge is not knowledge in the sense of any other knowledge. 

It knows us, we do not, we can not know it. It cannot be professionalized or exclusivized or be said to be here rather than there. Baha'i theology is an oxymoron, and the word "theology" is a paradox, at least it is as soon as you accept that God is an unknowable essence. In that sense Baha'is are much closer in their beliefs to atheists than to theologians, for arrogant ignorance is built into the very word "theology." Divine knowledge is for none and it is for all, but never for some rather than others. The shame of professional theology is that it is first, rather than last, to persecute the prophets and Manifestations. History demonstrates this, if we look at her victims, men turned to statues arrayed around Medusa, theologians are always in the first rank. So says Baha'u'llah, in almost as many words:

"From time immemorial the clay clods of the world have, wholly by reason of their love of leadership, perpetrated such acts as have caused men to err." (Epistle, 87)

Immanuel Kant, with uncanny prescience foresaw the division in Baha'u'llah's Order between administrators and the learned. In his peace sketch he added that while theology (I would say "knowledge of God," as opposed to professionalized theology) always leads and conditions lower forms of knowledge, it is not clear exactly how its primacy operates:

"The philosophical faculty occupies a very low rank against this allied power. Thus it is said of philosophy, for example, that she is the handmaiden to theology, and the other faculties claim as much. But one does not see distinctly whether she precedes her mistress with a flambeau or follows bearing her train." (Kant, Sketch of Perpetual Peace)

Next Friday I will turn from day two's love and beauty to day three, Monday, the day of perfection and knowledge.

Friday Essay on the Days of the Badi' Week

By John Taylor; 2006 October 13

"Each day He is upon some task." (Qu'ran 55:29)

Today is Friday the 13th, an unlucky day according to old superstitions. This day motorcycle clubs, in their contrarian, outlaw spirit, have taken for their own. They regularly congregate at this time at Port Dover, several dozen clicks down the road from Dunnville. 

In summer months whenever a Friday falls on the thirteenth of the month, the roaring of motorcycles travelling in packs towards Port Dover is heard all day long. So Friday the 13th is the day of periodic roaring around here.

Friday, the thirteenth or otherwise, we are told will someday be the day of rest for Baha'is, as it already is for Muslims. In preparation for that, I have taken on the project on Fridays (Fridays when I remember and have leisure to do so) of discussing the Badi' calendar virtues assigned to each of the days of the week.

The first question that springs to mind is, why is Friday our day of rest? Most often the explanation is that given in Genesis, where God created the world in six days and took a break on the seventh. Less often do we hear this explication, given in Exodus:

"And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud." (Ex 24:16)

Thus the first day of our Badi' week is just that, Baha, Glory, which like a cloud covers over the mount where the Law of God, the Ten Commandments, are about to to be revealed. Clouds behave strangely over mountains, forming wierd and beautiful plumes that have been photographed by cloud fanciers clubs. Their shots of these unusual formations have been given broad media attention lately. Thus veiled by mist on the mountain top, Moses waits six days until before on the seventh day the cloud of Glory passes and the revelation of the Law, the meeting with Yahweh unveiled, takes place -- from this brief meeting with the unveiled Godhead, Moses seated, Yahweh walking away, we get the expression "God Passes By."

Parallels and allusions to this primal revelatory event are common in the Writings of Baha'u'llah. For example the Tablet "Tajalliyat," translated "Effulgences," uses a root, Tajalli, which means "self-disclosure," or "God's unveiling Himself to His creatures." 

The allusion seems to be to the traditional Jewish marriage ceremony, where the bride after the ancient ceremony used to hand over her veil (in the Muslim version she is completely veiled beforehand, even to the husband-to-be), symbolizing their entry into a new household.

The revelation of the law of God, then, is no ordinary lifting of the fog, it is a marriage ceremony entailing a complete change of lifestyle for the creature, who must show eternal love, a lifelong commitment extending through this life and all the worlds of God. This may be why in the fourth and last Tajalli, about "Divinity, Godhead and the like," Baha'u'llah promises that turning to the Lote tree there would so enrich the "man of insight" as to make him "independent of aught else and to acknowledge his belief in that which the Speaker on Sinai hath uttered from the throne of Revelation." Hence the last day's virtue, Istiqlal, Independence. One is the condition of being totally married to the Law and instituting a new household independent of the ideas, culture, family and history that engendered that creature.

This outlines some of the meaning of the first and last days of the Badi week, but what about the days in between? How do their virtues fit in between Glory and Independence? Are they completely veiled? We could try using the Seven Valleys as crib notes, in which case Friday, Independence Day, would fit with valley seven, that of true poverty and absolute nothingness. This certainly underlines the fact that marriage with God is not anything like the equal arrangement that is marriage between a man and a woman. God is everything and the soul nothing, absolutely nothing.

This combination of the Seven Valleys with the image of Moses veiled in clouds awaiting a revelation of the Law on Mount Sinai above can fit with each day and its virtue. Each day is a descent into the valley of conscious life, rounded by sleep in the unknowable mists above. Here is how such a virtue week would look, combined with its corresponding valley:

1. Jalal - Glory (Saturday); search
2. Jamal - Beauty (Sunday); love
3. Kamal - Perfection (Monday); knowledge
4. Fidal - Grace (Tuesday); unity
5. 'Idal - Justice (Wednesday); contentment
6. Istijlal - Majesty (Thursday); wonderment
7. Istiqlal - Independence (Friday); true poverty and absolute nothingness

As the Qu'ran notes at the beginning, God reveals something new each day, and each week. A week is seven days of new revelation, sitting in a valley looking up to see what the Law reveals from its mystic cloud. Each day is a virtue, and each virtue has an opposite, a vice to avoid. Consider the seven virtues and seven deadly sins, as laid out by Cameron:

"Man can acquire the `seven virtues' of faith, hope, charity, justice, fortitude, prudence and temperance or he can fall into the grip of the "seven deadly" or "capital sins" of pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, avarice and sloth." (Cameron - Disconnected Letters of the Qur'an, p. 40, https://bahai-library.com/cameron_disconnected_letters_nineteen)

Accordingly, with minor changes in order could you chart these virtues and vices together, and juxtapose them with the days of the week and the seven valleys mentioned above? Here is the best I can do with that idea. Let me know if it makes any sense.

1. Glory (Saturday); valley of search, faith vs. pride
2. Jamal - Beauty (Sunday); valley of love, charity vs. wrath
3. Kamal - Perfection (Monday); valley of knowledge, prudence vs. lust
4. Fidal - Grace (Tuesday); valley of unity, fortitude vs. sloth
5. 'Idal - Justice (Wednesday); valley of contentment, justice vs. avarice
6. Istijlal - Majesty (Thursday); valley of wonderment, hope vs. envy
7. Istiqlal - Independence (Friday); valley of true poverty and absolute nothingness, temperance vs. gluttony

Note: 12 March, 2019

The new translation of the Seven Valleys is here: 

https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/call-divine-beloved/4#436109186

It is even preceded by a Tablet named Rashh-i-'Ama, or The Clouds of the Realms Above.

p01 Investigation of Reality; Tablet of the Hague

One of my favourite statements of the principle of search for truth is this, which Abdu'l-Baha wrote to the post-Great War peace conference at The Hague.

"Among these teachings was the independent investigation of reality so that the world of humanity may be saved from the darkness of imitation and attain to the truth; may tear off and cast away this ragged and outgrown garment of a thousand years ago and may put on the robe woven in the utmost purity and holiness in the loom of reality. As reality is one and cannot admit of multiplicity, therefore different opinions must ultimately become fused into one." (SWA 298; Hague 2 of 14)


Why do I like it so much? For one thing, He uses the word "investigation" here, rather than search, indicating that this principle involves a lifelong devotion. Investigation is a search that never ends, never ceases to advance, more like what a detective or prosecutor does than, say, a casual glance or a single session in the library or at a search engine.


Most crucially, this phrasing of the principle avoids the casual and insidious presupposition that humans are permanently mired in the mud of dissension. Never having encountered the power of faith and true religion, most think that we will always be irreconcilably mired in multiple, contradictory opinions, and there is nothing we can do about it. 


No.


If there is such a thing as truth, we must believe that it is far stronger than human weakness and ignorance, great as they admittedly often are. If we hold true to the universal duty to investigate reality, separately and together, with all due rigour and persistence, the entire spectrum of diverse viewpoints can instantly be fused into one. Just as a prism can divide the spectrum of light, it can unite multicoloured light passing through it just as well. If we live up to the investigation that God created us to undertake, everone of all backgrounds can unite in one, divine enlightenment.

p03 The Principle that Religion's Goal is Benefit and Unity; Non-Baha'i Sources

2018 July, 31

The Principle that Religion is for Benefit, Love and Unity; Non-Baha'i Sources

Here is a brief, quick compilation that I just drew up in answer to a question on facebook about interfaith harmony and its basis in non-Baha'i sources. The Baha'i Writings often assert that all religions in their pure form aim at love and unity, but this is not delved into in detail. For that reason I have collected these quotes, which can be taken as skeletal evidence for the principle that "religion is for unity," or at least for benefit, is a more or less universal goal. I have put the quotes inchronological order, under the following categories: Philosophy (Plato), India and China, Judaism, Christianity and the Qur'an.


Philosophy (Plato)

"...what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred. (Plato Rep V p. 179)

"Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign? Or any greater good than the bond of unity? [-he goes on to define unity as wherever sorrows and joys are the same] (Plato, Republic, Book V, p. 184)


India and China

"When a feudal lord endangers the alters to the gods of earth and grain, he should be replaced. When the sacrificial animals are sleek, the offerings are clean and the sacrifices are observed at due times, and yet floods and droughts come, then the alters should be replaced." (Mencius VII, B. 14, also cf. Mencius, Intro 37)

"He who knows My glory and power, he has the oneness of unwavering harmony. This is My truth." (Bhagavad Gita 10:7)


Judaism


"For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased." (Prov 9:11)


"Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife." (Prov 17:1)


"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Isa 11:9)


"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee." [ie city of peace] (Ps 122:6)



Christianity



"...whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." (Rom 15:4)



Addressing followers who wanted to call down fire...


"Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." (Luke 9:55-6)



The teacher of God proves expertise by going to wherever the need is greatest:


"The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" He heard this and said,

"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' I did not come to call the righteous but sinners." (Matthew 9:11-13)
"But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." (I Cor 12:7)


"...the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." (John 6:63)



An example of the principle that the purpose of religion is to build unity, and that therefore if there is disputation both sides are wrong.


"Every kingdom divided against itself goes to ruin." (Matt 12:25)


The Qur'an


"Turn to Allah and fear Him. Be steadfast in prayer and serve no other god besides Him. Do not split up your religion into sects, each exulting in its own beliefs." (Q30:29)



"(This is) a Scripture which We have revealed unto thee (Muhammad) that thereby thou mayst bring forth mankind from darkness unto light, by the permission of their Lord, unto the path of the Mighty, the Owner of Praise." (Quran 14:1, https://quran.com/14/1)

My Online TED Talk Bike Coaches

My Online TED Talk Bike Coaches
This spring I got the bike out of the shed, filled the tires with air, got everything operational, but I found that I have just fallen out of the bike riding habit over the winter. Whatever my good intentions, I could not get myself to ride. The car is just too convenient. Weeks turned into months, and still I was taking the car every time.
The kicker was this election day, where I turned up at the polls three times, once for each member of our household. The voting station is a mere one kilometre drive from our house, but still I had to drive each family member there and back. Our shed is full of bicycles that have not been used for years. Clearly, something had to be done to save myself, if not my family, so when Kornelius came over last night, together we watched the TED talks of bicycle advocates, one after the next. It worked, I accompanied him on his trip home to the edge of town on my bike.
Anyways, if you need similar prompting, here is a summary of what we saw, which is only a small part of what seems to be available at ted.com.
One bike activist talks about how the bicycle cured him of Crohn's Disease, and how the twin cities where he lives exemplify how bike planning makes one of them a paradise, and the other highway hell. Another fellow, in Copenhagen, founded a group called Bicycles Without Age, which takes out the inmates of nursing homes, AKA long term care facilities, for excursions in electric assist rickshaws, powered by young volunteers. This gives the oldsters a chance to feel the wind in their hair while riding a bicycle through their old stomping grounds while sharing their experience with a young person.
In another video, a coach for professional bike racers laments his inability to bicycle because he is constantly travelling with the team, going to events like the Tour de France. He demonstrates his solution, a nifty folding bike that breaks down into a suitcase, which in turn folds out into a trailer that holds his other suitcase -- which must save him a great deal in taxi fare to and from the airport and hotels.
Another talk is a how-to on finding low budget adventure travelling on a bicycle camping tour. He used a "tall bicycle," a contraption that I would call a double decker bike. Everywhere he goes, he is asked, "How do you get down off that thing?" His wheels are so outrageous, he found, that they worked to his advantage as he voyaged his way across desert and mountains. Drivers were so surprised to see it in traffic that they gave him a wide berth, and fellow travellers were happy to supply him with whatever he wrote on a whiteboard sign, including food and lodging, so much so that he rarely had to use his tent and sleeping bag.
Other talks emphasized the many health benefits of biking. Many who take up biking literally are enabled to throw away their pills. The advantages are especially well documented for commuters, who arrive at work happier, stronger and more relaxed than those who come and go by motorized vehicles. After all that inspiration, how could I not get out on my bicycle?

Betty Frost, In Memoriam

All are invited to Betty Frost's funeral on Monday. The where and the when are below. If any wish to volunteer for the readings or some other service, please contact her son, Eric Frost, at: efrost@videotron.ca 

From the LSA of the Baha'is of Hamilton:

On Thursday February 16, Betty Frost passed away peacefully from this world to the Abha Kingdom at the Dunnville Memorial Hospital.

Betty Frost offered a life of devoted services here in Canada and at the World Centre where she served as the aide to Universal House of Justice member Mr Hushmand Fatheazam for many years.

Her funeral service:

Date: Monday February 20
Location: JW Hart Funeral Home, 113 Lock St, Dunnville 905-774-6335

Arrangements: Visitation at 12:00 pm followed by funeral service at 1:00 PM followed immediately by interment at Woodlawn Cemetery in Dunnville. A reception with refreshments will follow at the funeral home.

With loving Baha'i greetings

The Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Hamilton

This is Betty and the LSA of Haldimand in probably the last group picture of that institution ever taken.

Peter, one of the leading lights of the Niagara Woodturners' Group, explains the "board to bowl" method of making a bowl at the meeting yesterday.

Marv Ens shows how to make a mushroom shaped box with lid out of a tree branch, specifically, juniper or aromatic cedar. Here, he is cutting off the lid of the mushroom.

I did not get this guy's name, but here he is demonstrating his apparently well known five minute bowl. A few seconds later he put the tool in the wrong place, there was a catch, and the stock flew across the room to wild applause from the turners, who had seen bowls being made before but less often been put in danger by the process.

The meeting closed with a show and tell. The only continuance of that kindergarten custom into adult life that I have seen. They passed around some of these examples of the wonderful works of art that these turners turn out. How I envy the artful, the handy and the crafty!

In Defense of Food, and our Health

In Defense of Food, and our Health
Article for the Dunnville Free Press
by John Taylor, 2 December, 2016


The DREAM “Raising Awareness” series held its November meeting at the Minga Restaurant, featuring the documentary, "In Defense of Food," by Michael Pollan. The meeting was emceed by youth DREAM team members Vicky Rafter, 15 years old, and Alex Hyne, 14 years old. 

In the film, Pollan, who is famous for his books on agriculture and diet, tells how after decades of researching what we should eat, he has simplified and encapsulated the implications into only seven words, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." He points out that we make about 200 food decisions each day, all influenced by advertising claims and counter claims. Bad choices are leading to poor health, chronic diseases and an epidemic of obesity. Most do not realise that really healthful food does not come from factories. It is to be found in produce aisles and farmer's markets. Their benefits are not advertised, but they are the best for our bodies.

As a society, we are in thrall to a corrupt ideology that Pollan calls "nutritionism," a quasi-science that makes technical advances into ways to increase profit while worsening our diet. For example, the invention of roller milling separated bran from the germ in wheat, which makes the flour for white bread. Worse, sugar went from a rare treat to a cheap commodity put into virtually every factory product. As a result, our intake of sugar now is 1000 times greater. Sixty percent of what we eat is processed food. 

The results are unnerving. Studies of the Hadza tribe in Africa, who still have a traditional diet, found that the "useless" bulk in their food, which passes through our digestive system, actually feeds the beneficial bacteria that protect our health. Studies comparing the Hadza to African Americans, whose genome is closest to the Hadza in Chicago, found that by simply adding bulk, that is, following Pollan's seven word prescription instead of the factory produced, "edible food-like substances" we call food, cured them of the chronic ills in only two weeks. 

The discussion after the film was led by Kevin Hamilton, the young farmer who runs Shared Harvest Farm, whose organic produce is featured in the Minga Restaurant. He explained how a commitment of 25 dollars a week brings in a bushel full of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables throughout the growing season, which is most of the year. I myself have subscribed to this program for years, and I can attest that it regularly challenges you to cook in ways that I never would have in any other way.

Kevin Hamilton reports that the fund goals for the new farmer's market are almost complete, and that construction will begin by spring.

Vicky Rafter, 15 years old, and Alex Hyne, 14 years old, Dream Team members, introduce the evening's program.

Marie Taylor deposits a ticket for an item in the Penny Sale.

Penny Sale Items

Kevin Hamilton and Kornelius Neudorf discussing local farming issues

DDHS presents: "WW1: The Boys Come Home"

The Dunnville District Heritage Association finished off its popular Great War commemoration series on November 23rd at Grandview Lodge auditorium. The presentation began  with this quote, "When war begins, nobody wins." Indeed, for Dunnville, as everywhere else, there were great losses a century ago in that great but not so good war. It was a contest where the side who lost the least was declared the winner. Entitled "WW1: The Boys Come Home," the slide show was written by DDHA researcher, Judy, and read by April Cormaci. The period covered the last year of the war, starting where the previous presentation in the series had left off, just after the battles of Passchendaele and Vimy Ridge. The Canadian army helped end the war with a series of successful but costly offensives that persuaded the Germans that continuing to fight was pointless. As well, the talk covered the return of Canadian troops from Europe and the elevation of the Canadian military to the seventh strongest in the world.

The bittersweet story of Arthur Currie was also recounted, a man who went from a small time businessman in Vancouver to probably the best general of the war. The shameful treatment of Currie by his own government is both tragic and shameful.

There was a local angle too. The history focused on the fortunes of local soldier James Morley Bennet, who survived the war, died in 1956 and is buried in Dunnville's Riverside Cemetery. The war, sanguinary as it was, was overshadowed by an epidemic of influenza that killed far more than the hostilities. On the bright side, Dunnville seems to have largely escaped the contagion.
Unfortunately, the return home after the armistice was slow and frustrating, partly because German submarines had sunk most of the troop carriers, but mostly because of the order of their leaving. Higher ups had decided upon what accountants call a LIFO approach, last in, first out. The freshest troops got to return home first, while veterans who had suffered most were left to stew in isolated camps in Europe.

Canada was profoundly changed by this war, summed up by the slogan that moved many in WWI, "King and Empire," whereas the byword of the second world war was, "King and Country."
Upcoming presentations by the DDHS are, Welland Canal: Memorial to Fallen Workers
on Wednesday, January 25, 2017, and Selkirk Heritage Day, on Monday, February 20, 2017

April Cormaci reads Judy's research report.

Official Poster for the DDHS presentation

Mementos on display included a lighter made from a round fired in anger during that war.

Lunacy, Serious and Non-serious, essay posted 30 November, 2004

Lunacy, Serious and Non-serious

originally written 30 November, 2004
At the time, my two kids were 10 (Silvie) and 5 (Tomaso)


I must be getting quite a reputation in this town and not as the author of the "Open Secret." It is hard to miss us coming. Each time I walk down the street with the kids lately they insist upon playing this stupid "ghost" hiding game; it was amusing for a while but now they play so frequently that it has become an annoyance. They will trail behind me hiding behind my back and every time I turn around to find them, they rush to keep behind my back, unseen. I pretend to be perplexed.

"I have lost them, where are they? Hmm," I say as if to myself, "what became of those kids? I can hear their laughter but every time I turn around to find out who it is, all I see is a blur. What is going on here?"

Strangers looking on cannot help but smile. Sometimes, when I reach around my back quickly enough and grab at the air, I catch hold of one of their coats. That became the biggest thrill of all, since they love to shed the coat and disappear behind my back, leaving me wondering how I got a hold of a ghost kid's coat. After practising so long both Silvie and Thomas have become adept at rushing out of view but since their tactic is to walk in a row with little Thomas the third in line, the five year old ends up doing the hardest running to keep out of view. I have to watch myself as it can turn into a game of crack the whip; I especially have to be careful as I come near walls, poles and parking meters, lest one of my ghostly companions is done an injury.



Let us go on to more serious lunacy. Rufus T. Firefly rose to the presidency of Fredonia through the pressure of a wealthy female admirer. Unless they installed him as president she refused to tender a loan to keep its bankrupt treasury afloat. Once inaugurated, Firefly immediately declared war on a neighbouring country because of an imagined slight from its ambassador who also happened to be his rival for that woman's affections. So it was that Firefly led his nation into war for a personal whim. Not so far fetched, considering that Kaiser Wilhelm II's childish inferiority complex prompted the naval arms race that brought on the First World War and Hitler pushed his war to get it over with while he was still young and vigorous.

The only unbelievable aspect of this story is that in the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, President Rufus T. Firefly of Fredonia fought actual battles in the front lines. Real politicians and members of the elite never get their hands dirty like that, they stand back and let the ignorant Hoi Polloi fight and die. But otherwise, this farce is an accurate appraisal of how war comes about even today. Towards the end of the Master's stay in California, someone asked Him about war (we do not have the specific question, only the answer) and this is what He said,

"A great war and commotion shall inevitably take place in the world. Things will come to such a pass that the generality of mankind will rise against the statesmen of the world and say, `You sit in your palaces in perfect comfort; you eat and drink sumptuously; you sleep blissfully; you eat delicious food and relax in gardens with beautiful views. But for the sake of your name and worldly fame, you throw us, your subjects, into war, shed our blood and tear our bodies to pieces. But no thorn ever pricks your hands and not for a moment do you leave your rest and comfort.'" (Mahmud, 344)

We cannot allow a few cheats to take away our democratic rights. The general strike in Kiev over the past week reflects the increasing desire on the part of the masses to be free of petty tyrants and their arbitrary measures. Observers have noticed that the majority in these demonstrations are youth, many of whom were not yet born when the Berlin Wall fell.

How long will it be before we can be sure that justice will come before privilege? How can we be certain of true security? What system will assure that dependable leaders will rise to the top, rather than the Lucas T. Fireflies of the world? One thing I believe ever more firmly as I get older is that there can never be an adequate answer to the old Roman question, "Who will guard the guardians?" As long as individuals rule over law, as long as anyone is allowed to take a position of absolute power, nobody can act in time to check the abuse, corruption and loss of trust. Rule of law may seem slow and clumsy but demonstrations and protest movements are even slower and clumsier. We must ever bear in mind that progress comes from agreement, not strife and conflict.

In this vein, one of the most hopeful signs of progress in the political realm occurred during the last election in the United States. In the face of the bitter contention and disunity of that election, the Philosopher's Cafe movement held an "anti-demonstration," a mass walk in the streets of New York during the Republican Party's Convention, led by philosophers rather than politicos. This was not a demonstration because instead of taking a stand for or against anything or anyone the order of the day was to ask this simple question: "What makes a good politician?" As they walked, participants tried to answer that question in an atmosphere of civility and sincere enquiry.

And indeed, what better question could you ask before a vote? If you haven't asked yourself that, what good is your vote in the first place? If those who are elected have not asked that question sincerely, why are they serving? What are they serving? How, for gosh sakes, are they going to do their job? To me, `Abdu'l-Baha anticipated the Philosopher Cafe March's question, "What makes a good politician?" when He was visiting Pleasanton, California. On this occasion He made the following comments upon the presidential election current at the time.

"The president must be a man who does not insistently seek the presidency. He should be a person free from all thoughts of name and rank; rather, he should say, `I am unworthy and incapable of this position and cannot bear this great burden.' Such persons deserve the presidency. If the object is to promote the public good, then the president must be a well-wisher of all and not a self-seeking person. If the object, however, is to promote personal interests, then such a position will be injurious to humanity and not beneficial to the public." (Mahmud, 327)

The Master describes here a surprised person with an unwanted, unwonted duty thrust upon her, not one who has spent years on the campaign trail to qualify for the job. Whatever tests and trials distinguished this leader from others have still not prepared her to slip smoothly into her commission. Indeed the very inner condition or spiritual state that qualifies her seems also at the same time to make her emotionally unprepared for it. It is like seeing your own eyeball, or trying to find someone hiding behind your back.

Such an elected leader must have a deep humility rather like that of the Master Himself, Who always attributed His success and confirmations to the power of Baha'u'llah and His Covenant, and to nothing else. Perhaps more difficult, the electorate must have an almost impossibly high level of discernment in order to elevate only those with the right stuff, stuff that the elected themselves cannot observe in themselves. The only way that such great powers of perception on the part of so many people could come about would be if backbiting were completely eliminated, if the waves of gossip were stilled.

I do not suppose that complete elimination of cruel tongues and personal interplay would be impossible. If you want to see a film about the evils of gossip, especially among young girls, go and see "Bad Girls," in a video store near you. This film is just as if someone had given a Baha'i an assignment in film making school to write a story with backbiting as the real enemy of humanity, not violence, not the usual suspects, just gossip. It is not a superhero story at all, but having seen it I wonder how a superhero would fight the gossip and backbiting so clearly seen in this film.

A superhero would be helpless to stop it because backbiting, like my kids' "ghost" game, goes on between individuals, in private and behind your back, by definition. But one thing you may notice as you watch the movie is this: the enemy is never named. Non-Baha'is are like the Inuit in the ever warmer Arctic, forced to deal with species that could never exist there before; they do not even have a name for it. At least we Baha'is have a set of names for the enemy: gossip, backbiting, calumny.

What election could allow such an attitude and sense of self to come to the attention of the electorate? One possibility might be for each of us to think about it for a while, then try to hold forth on question, "What makes a good leader?" "What kind of person do we need to represent us?" Having expressed my own answer, I then might see among those others trying to answer that question someone worthy of consideration. But the problem is that words are not sufficient; words are cheap. This is a quality that comes in the sum of his or her whole life. This is a huge challenge. An entirely different set of rituals, or indeed an absence of rituals, might be needed in order for the electorate to ask and answer such questions before an election.

A recent Reader's Digest recorded an interview with Donald Trump. Judging by what he says, this is clearly an intelligent man with integrity and great competence as a super-landlord and developer. His argument defending why he worked out his reputation as "The Trump," as the consummate self-aggrandiser, touches upon the very question that voters have to deal with before an election. Trump's unapologetic apology is this: in the present business climate you have no choice but to toot your own horn; if you want to succeed there is no choice, you have to be self confident to the point of arrogance. Only the most egotistical bombast can carry across the noisy void and if you are competent you have to tell everybody that you are the best because nobody is going to come over and uphold your cause for you. It has to be you, and you first, in promoting your cause. Trump's problem is hardly unique to this age. This is the human condition. It was a feverish concern twenty centuries ago. It will be a vexed issue twenty centuries from now.

Ours is a philosophical failure that results from neglecting to ask the right questions, from imagining ourselves too "busy" to think about what most matters in life, who we really are and Who God is. Plato makes this point in the Sophist,

Stranger: "When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know, this appears to be the great source of all errors of the intellect."

Theaetetus: "True."

Stranger: "And this, if I am not mistaken, is the kind of ignorance which specially earns the title of stupidity."

Theaetetus: "True."

Stranger: "What name, then, shall be given to the sort of instruction which gets rid of this?"

Theaetetus: "The instruction which you mean, Stranger, is, I should imagine, not the teaching of handicraft arts, but what, thanks to us, has been termed education in this part of the world." 

(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 972)


Not having asked the right questions we allow ourselves to think we know, which leads to unworthy, stupid, lunatic attitudes. Only when we more secure in asking the deeper questions, when we are used to trying and failing to answer them will we be ready to find good questioners to put in the most perplexing positions of all, those that must ask on our behalf: "What are we to do next?"