The Cormorant Baker

I was given a pair of gloves. They were too small for me, despite being XL. I checked the label:

Usang Elucidation

Material:Pure sheepskin

1. This product is 100% pure sheepskin
2. this product meet snow, rain to use to fuck the towel to lightly, and dry by air,avoid thesunlight to directly bask in the cool place.
3. This product the surface meet to have the filth,and use the rubber to lightly wipe,and can’t use the water to directly roll to wash,and the in order to prevent transform.
4. This product can’t leave the fire too the near in order toprevent transform aging

I hate it when writers split infinitives.

So much fuss over the annual Ridvan message! Surely, it’s just a Christmas card? The House should try to keep the message within the space provided on the card, even if it has to write real small. And if a study guide is needed, then there’s something wrong. I’d like to see a Ridvan message like this:

Hello everyone,

We’re fine and still living in Haifa. The wisteria is looking particularly good this year. We’ve had lots of visitors, some staying three days and some staying nine. We haven’t done any more building on our big property, but we are renovating Bob’s place. We still aren’t allowed to sell door-to-door here in Israel (pesky regulations) so we’re relying on you to keep our downline profitable. Will post your presents soon. You’ll love Book 9 – there’s colouring-in, join-the dots, mazes, guess-the-word and everything.

Love, Auntie J.

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996
To: National Spiritual Assembly
From: Steve Marshall
Subject: Review of living works of art

Dear friends,

I’ve just read the item in New Zealand Baha’i News – “All Baha’i art works need approval from the national body”. I’ve been an artist and a Baha’i for many years but have only just realised that my art work needs to be reviewed.

I am a living work of art, engaged in a continuous performance with an ever-changing audience. I do, at times, mention and depict the Baha’i Faith as an integral part of my creative output, and this is why I can now see that I do need to seek a letter of approval from you. The main difficulty I have is that my artistry is not adequately represented by a cassette recording, a photocopy or a manuscript. My artistic efforts are largely situational, and are very reliant on spontaneous interaction with people who can be drawn into being co-creators of artistic experiences.

I’m sure a solution can be negotiated and that it can be done in quite a creative way. I look forward to interacting with you over this conundrum.

ka kite ano,
Steve

National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of New Zealand

24 October 1996

Steve Marshall
90 Blacks Road
Opoho Dunedin 9001

Dear Baha’i Friend

Review Process for Artistic Works

The National Spiritual assembly was very interested to receive your email dated 14 April and must apologise for not getting back to you sooner.

In order to give you constructive feedback the National Spiritual Assembly would need to know a little more about what you actually do and how you depict the Faith. At this stage your art work seems more along the lines of a personal teaching activity rather than something which needs review or approval. the approval mentioned in the National Newsletter relates more to the mass produced/commodity type of art rather than to one-off experiences.

If you need more help with this matter please tell us if this is the case and give us some more detail about your particular art work.

Warmest Baha’i love
National Spiritual Assembly
Suzanne Mahon
Secretary

A FaceBook friend of mine, Daniel Orey, got married a few years ago. He ran into some problems because a state-sanctioned, committed, same-sex marriage is not an acceptable lifestyle for Baha’is, according to his NSA:

“Your same sex marriage in 2008 and statements that you have made on the Internet in support of homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle for Baha’is shows that your position has changed. Such flagrant actions in violation of Baha’i law leave the National Spiritual Assembly with no choice but to remove your administrative rights.”
Let’s start with consulting about a letter

Which leaves me wondering how Daniel’s marriage differs from mine, if at all. I got married to Alison in 1991. She had a child, Zohar, from a previous relationship. Alison and I don’t have any children from our marriage. We live together, share most things, don’t have a lot of secrets, argue and make up, help each other out, put up with each other’s foibles and miss each other like crazy when we’re apart for extended periods.  I guess we’re just your typical flagrantly heterosexual couple.

From the outside, that sounds no different to Daniel and Milton’s relationship. I can’t be sure — maybe they have friends over for an orgy every Wednesday night. However,  I’m sure the NSA would have mentioned that in its letter to Daniel if it was better informed than me.

I see this as a human rights issue — the right to marry the person that you love and to whom you have made a commitment.

If a heterosexual lifestyle was banned by my religion, including the option of entering into a loving, committed, state-sanctioned marriage, then I wouldn’t have anywhere to turn, except to stay single. That seems unfair.

I’ve hung out with gay guys a lot, mainly through work, and I know for sure that I’m not attracted to guys. Maybe I didn’t meet the right one; maybe I just needed to be cured of my heterosexual bias through some medical intervention; or maybe I just needed to fake it until I could make it. But I’m pretty sure that conforming to a homosexual lifestyle when I’m actually straight would eventually have led to disaster. So “fitting in” wouldn’t really be an option for me.

I just got an email from Jesus. He seems a bit distant, but then he’s been away for a long time. He’s granting interviews and he seems to “get” the Internet, but he says questions need to be in “Yes or No” format only.

Jesus 1.0 seemed more open at question time:

• John the Baptist’s disciples questioned Jesus about why Jesus and His disciples weren’t fasting (Matthew 9:14).
• The chief priests and elders questioned Jesus about His authority (Matthew 21:23).
• The Sadducees questioned Jesus about the issue of a man’s brother marrying the man’s widow (Matthew 22:23-28).
• A Pharisee asked Jesus about the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36).
• The Pharisees asked Jesus about healing on the Sabbath (Mathew 12:10).
• Jesus’ disciples asked Him why He spoke in parables (Matthew 13:10).
• The Pharisees questioned Jesus on His disciples’ hand washing (Matthew 15:2).
• Jesus’ disciples asked Him why they weren’t able to drive out a certain demon (Matthew 17:19).
• Pilate asked Jesus if He was King of the Jews (Mark 15:2).

I don’t think the media will take kindly to those kinds of restrictions. He’s not Tiger Woods.

The Baha’is in Sikkim sure have Ruhi systematised. They’re managing to put people through the seven books of Ruhi at the astonishing rate of one book every three days.

21 days Winter camp organized by Denzong Baha’I Institute of Sikkim began from 20th December 2009 at Baha’I School, Tadong.

Each group has to go through systematic sequence of courses which is from level 1 to level 7.

Admittedly, there’s not a lot else to do in Denzong over winter, but that’s still pretty impressive.

Earlier, I compared Ruhi to a virus and criticised the Haifan form of Ruhi for not encouraging social awareness.

…the original pre-1994 Colombian Ruhi “strain” probably had a better chance of catching on because it was more grounded in social action and economic development projects, and thus had a better chance of lifting a community — socially, spiritually and economically. The current “strain” has moved towards the inherently unsustainable Amway pyramid scheme model, where the product — balanced development of a community — is much less important than the “two essential movements” — clusters moving from C to A and participants moving from Book 1 to Book 7.
Swine Flew?

Dr. Payman Mohajer

Well, it seems I’m wrong. Payman Mohajer, who is a  member of the Universal House of Justice, argues that the purpose of core activities is not to get converts but to serve society. He’s reported as saying:

…if someone were to ask us whether the purpose of our inviting them to join study circles is to make them Bahá’ís, we can confidently say ‘no’ and tell them that the purpose of our core activities is to assist in the transformation and betterment of society.
House member: Purpose of core activities to raise capacity to serve society, promote community development

Fantastic! I hope we’ll see a renewed emphasis on monitoring Ruhi’s positive effect on community development, rather than on counting study class participation levels and conversions.

In response to complaints from Baha’is that their pilgrimage has been disappointing, the Baha’i World Centre began a restoration project — the first stage of which has been completed. The results are stunning. Pilgrims and casual visitors alike are in awe of the improvements:

The Revelation will not Be Ruhi-ised.
You will not be able to home-visit, brother.
You will not be able to build a pyramid in your cluster.
You will not be able to lose yourself in paths of service,
Skip out for coffee during practicals,
Because the revolution will not be Ruhi-ised.

The Revelation will not be Ruhi-ised.
The revelation will not be brought to you by Palabra Press
In seven parts without commercial interruptions.
The revelation will not show you images of suns, lamps and mirrors.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revelation will not be right back after a message
about a political non-involvement, obedience, or unity in conformity.
You will not have to worry about the two essential movements, or exploiting the frameworks for action.
The revelation will not go better with accompaniment.
The revelation will not fight the apostates that may cause bad belief.
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.

The revelation will not be Ruhi-ised, will not be Ruhi-ised,
will not be Ruhi-ised, will not be Ruhi-ised.
The revelation will be no re-run, brothers;
The revelation will be live.

The way non-adversarial decision-making (a.k.a. “consultation”) seems to work within the Baha’i administration is for a Baha’i administrative body to consult privately about a problem, then to decide on an action that has maximum impact.

When the New Zealand National Spiritual Assembly was deciding how to deliver the news to Alison Marshall that she had been removed from membership in the Baha’i community, here’s what it was thinking.

From National Spiritual Assembly Baha’is New Zealand
Minutes No. 32/156 Telephone meeting of 18 March 2000:
… 3.1.3 The National Spiritual Assembly discussed the concept of hand-delivering the letter. Another option could be to post the letter, and then have Peter telephone a day or two later to talk to Steve Marshall. We do not want to undermine the potency of the letter by reducing its shock value to them.
Chronology of events leading to Alison’s expulsion

Clearly, “non-adversarial” has a special meaning within the Baha’i Faith.

Within sport, for example, it’s understood that non-adversarial sports encourage co-operation, competing with yourself and win-win, whereas adversarial sports encourage competition, competing with others and win-lose. But if sports bodies adopted the “Baha’i” non-adversarial method, the result might look a bit like this:

Maximum on-field shock value obtained