9th day of Ridvan

Happy celebration to u all

The Daily Beast has a niece piece about the new comedy, "The Infidel" starring British Baha'i comedian/actor Omid Djalili. Here's a taste of it:

The screenwriter of The Infidel, in which a British Muslim discovers he's actually Jewish, talks to Venetia Thompson about the "unifying response" of laughter.

David Baddiel is anxious. Not because he’s written a highly controversial comedy about a Muslim who discovers he was born a Jew, and could be facing a fatwa at any moment, but because of a certain ash cloud that is currently separating him from the U.S. premiere of The Infidel this coming Sunday at theTribeca Film Festival (the first of five screenings that sold out in three hours).

“It’s really a body swap movie,” says screenwriter David Baddiel. “People always think of Muslims and Jews as opposites, but this is a false polarization…we are actually very similar…culturally, domestically and even theologically.”

His only hope is Omid Djalili, the British-Iranian star of the film that’s currently outselling many big budget U.S. films here and has been constantly hitting the headlines since its U.K. release. “He’s en route to Israel, to pray at the Ba’hai center in order to life the cloud,” Baddiel reveals.

With friends in high places, if anyone can shift an ash cloud, Djalili can. “He’s much loved,” Baddiel says. Which is fortunate, because Djalili is also planning on trying to appease the Dubai board of censors, who have banned the film despite 62 other countries (including Iran) jumping at it.

Djalili plays Mahmud Nasir, who Baddiel describes as being the “klutzy, likeable, Everyman” British Muslim who drinks the odd beer, swears, and doesn’t pray as often as he should—a “Homer Simpson Muslim, or rather a Homer Simpson who just happens to be a Muslim.” When Mahmud’s mother dies, he discovers that he was adopted, and actually born Jewish: his real name is Solly Shimshillewitz. (The name prompts Lenny Goldberg—Mahmud’s cynical, self-hating, borderline alcoholic Jewish neighbor, played by Richard Schiff of The West Wing—to ask, “Why didn’t they just call you Jewy Jew Jew Jew and be done with it?”). (Read the whole thing here)

Joyous Ridvan

The greatest of Bahá'í festivals, the Festival of Ridván, is here. For a period of 12 days starting on April 21st, Bahá'ís around the world will celebrate Bahá'u'lláh's public declaration of His mission, an event which took place on the eve of His departure from Baghdád for Constantinople. No less than three Holy Days are celebrated in the course of this time period, and elections for Local and National Spiritual Assemblies take place.

The significance of Ridván for Bahá'ís can't be overstated. In 1844, the Báb had arisen to proclaim the coming of a great Messenger from God, the Promised One of all religions. During His six-year ministry, which culminated in His public execution on July 9, 1850, the Báb called the people of Persia to purify themselves in preparation for the arrival of "He whom God shall make manifest." Bahá'u'lláh, one of the Báb's foremost followers, was imprisoned in 1853 on false charges. While in prison, He experienced a revelation from God in which He learned that He was to be that Promised One. But upon His release from prison a few months later, He told no one of this experience. Indeed, for ten years, the entire duration of His exile in Baghdád, He kept silent on this matter. Even so, His character, wisdom, and deep spiritual insight affected all who came into contact with Him.

His growing influence prompted the authorities to seek to move Him to another place. Baghdád was an important crossroads at that time, and it was feared that the new religion might be spread far and wide if He were permitted to stay there, coming into contact with travelers from all quarters. Arrangements were therefore made to transfer Bahá'u'lláh and His party to Constantinople.

On the eve of His departure, Bahá'u'lláh took up residence in a garden which has since become known to Bahá'ís as the Garden of Ridván. (Just to confuse matters, there is also a Garden of Ridván near Mazra'ih and Bahjí, where Bahá'u'lláh spent His last days.) He spent 12 days there in preparation for the long journey ahead. Guests flowed into the garden, rich and poor, powerful and lowly, all paying respects to the great Personage whose influence had touched them all. Sometime during the midst of all this activity, Bahá'u'lláh declared to the gathered Bábís that He was the Promised One spoken of by the Báb.

"Ridván" means "Paradise", from which we can gather something of what the atmosphere must have felt like during that 12-day period. In God Passes By, Shoghi Effendi recounts the tale thus:

Of the exact circumstances attending that epoch-making Declaration we, alas, are but scantily informed. The words Bahá'u'lláh actually uttered on that occasion, the manner of His Declaration, the reaction it produced, its impact on Mirzá Yahyá [Bahá'u'lláh's half-brother, who later tried to usurp His position and made several attempts on His life], the identity of those who were privileged to hear Him, are shrouded in an obscurity which future historians will find it difficult to penetrate. The fragmentary description left to posterity by His chronicler Nabíl is one of the very few authentic records we possess of the memorable days He spent in that garden. "Every day," Nabíl has related, "ere the hour of dawn, the gardeners would pick the roses which lined the four avenues of the garden, and would pile them in the center of the floor of His blessed tent. So great would be the heap that when His companions gathered to drink their morning tea in His presence, they would be unable to see each other across it. All these roses Bahá'u'lláh would, with His own hands, entrust to those whom He dismissed from His presence every morning to be delivered, on His behalf, to His Arab and Persian friends in the city." "One night," he continues, "the ninth night of the waxing moon, I happened to be one of those who watched beside His blessed tent. As the hour of midnight approached, I saw Him issue from His tent, pass by the places where some of His companions were sleeping, and begin to pace up and down the moonlit, flower-bordered avenues of the garden. So loud was the singing of the nightingales on every side that only those who were near Him could hear distinctly His voice. He continued to walk until, pausing in the midst of one of these avenues, He observed: 'Consider these nightingales. So great is their love for these roses, that sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their melodies and commune with burning passion with the object of their adoration. How then can those who claim to be afire with the rose-like beauty of the Beloved choose to sleep?' For three successive nights I watched and circled round His blessed tent. Every time I passed by the couch whereon He lay, I would find Him wakeful, and every day, from morn till eventide, I would see Him ceaselessly engaged in conversing with the stream of visitors who kept flowing in from Baghdád. Not once could I discover in the words He spoke any trace of dissimulation."

(Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 153)

Many years later, Bahá'u'lláh would designate the Festival of Ridván "the Most Great Festival" and specify that the first, ninth, and twelfth days should be celebrated as Holy Days. The Bahá'í administrative year now begins on the First Day of Ridván with the election of Local and National Spiritual Assemblies as prescribed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. This is not accidental. The elections that renew the administrative order become part of the festivities.

Have a very happy Ridván!

words had consequence

"Sanctify your ears from the idle talk of them that are the symbols of denial and the exponents of violence and anger." (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 72) 

How good and pleasant it is when the people of God live together in unity.—Psalm 133:1

As Christian pastors and leaders with diverse theological and political beliefs, we have come together to make this covenant with each other, and to commend it to the church, faith-based organizations, and individuals, so that together we can contribute to a more civil national discourse. The church in the United States can offer a message of hope and reconciliation to a nation that is deeply divided by political and cultural differences. Too often, however, we have reflected the political divisions of our culture rather than the unity we have in the body of Christ. We come together to urge those who claim the name of Christ to “ put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32). (Read the whole thing here)

The Covenant for Civility and similar efforts such as the Charter for Compassion are examples of what the Baha'i Writings describe as the constructive role faith can play in public life:
"Religious teachers should not invade the realm of politics; they should concern themselves with the spiritual education of the people; they should ever give good counsel to men, trying to serve God and human kind; they should endeavour to awaken spiritual aspiration, and strive to enlarge the understanding and knowledge of humanity, to improve morals, and to increase the love for justice." (Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 158)


Ultimately, when a bomb goes off it does not discriminate among believers or non-believers, black or white, male or female, Republican or Democrat. We all have a stake in the consequences of what we say to and about each other. I pray more of us will recognize this before it's too late.
As Baha'u'llah has warned, "...the tongue is a smoldering fire, and excess of speech a deadly poison. Material fire consumeth the body, whereas the fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and soul. The force of the former lasteth but for a time, whilst the effects of the latter endureth a century."(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 264)

ource: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11dowd.html?th&emc=th

April 11, 2010
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Worlds Without Women

By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women.

I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women's rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men's club than a modern nation. They told me, somewhat defensively, that the kingdom was moving at its own pace, glacial as that seemed to outsiders.

How could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?

I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.

I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men's club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.

I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.

I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women's brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity.

To circumscribe women, Saudi Arabia took Islam's moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Muhammad; the Catholic Church took its moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus is surrounded by strong women and never advocates that any woman - whether she's his mother or a prostitute - be treated as a second-class citizen.

Negating women is at the heart of the church's hideous - and criminal - indifference to the welfare of boys and girls in its priests' care. Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek's cover story about the danger of continuing to marginalize women in a disgraced church that has Mary at the center of its founding story:

"In the Roman Catholic corporation, the senior executives live and work, as they have for a thousand years, eschewing not just marriage, but intimacy with women ... not to mention any chance to familiarize themselves with the earthy, primal messiness of families and children." No wonder that, having closed themselves off from women and everything maternal, they treated children as collateral damage, a necessary sacrifice to save face for Mother Church.

And the sins of the fathers just keep coming. On Friday, The Associated Press broke the latest story pointing the finger of blame directly at Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, quoting from a letter written in Latin in which he resisted pleas to defrock a California priest who had sexually molested children.

As the longtime Vatican enforcer, the archconservative Ratzinger - now Pope Benedict XVI - moved avidly to persecute dissenters. But with molesters, he was plodding and even merciful.

As the A.P. reported, the Oakland diocese recommended defrocking Father Stephen Kiesle in 1981. The priest had pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years' probation in 1978 in a case in which he was accused of tying up and molesting two boys in a church rectory.

In 1982, the Oakland diocese got what it termed a "rather curt" response from the Vatican. It wasn't until 1985 that "God's Rottweiler" finally got around to addressing the California bishop's concern. He sent his letter urging the diocese to give the 38-year-old pedophile "as much paternal care as possible" and to consider "his young age." Ratzinger should have been more alarmed by the young age of the priest's victims; that's what maternal care would have entailed.

As in so many other cases, the primary concern seemed to be shielding the church from scandal. Chillingly, outrageously, the future pope told the Oakland bishop to consider the "good of the universal church" before granting the priest's own request to give up the collar - even though the bishop had advised Rome that the scandal would likely be greater if the priest were not punished.

While the Vatican sat on the case - asking the diocese to resubmit the files, saying they might have been lost - Kiesle volunteered as a youth minister at a church north of Oakland. The A.P. also reported that even after the priest was finally defrocked in 1987, he continued to volunteer with children in the Oakland diocese; repeated warnings to church officials were ignored.

The Vatican must realize that the church's belligerent, resentful and paranoid response to the global scandal is not working because it now says it will cooperate with secular justice systems and that the pope will have more meetings with victims. It is too little, too late.

The church that through the ages taught me and other children right from wrong did not know right from wrong when it came to children. Crimes were swept under the rectory rug, and molesters were protected to molest again for the "good of the universal church." And that is bad, very bad - a mortal sin.

The church has had theological schisms. This is an emotional schism. The pope is morally compromised. Take it from a sister.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company