The Cormorant Baker

I had a quick look through the new document from the International Teaching Centre:

It makes various bold claims, and I’d like to focus on this one:

“In this way, over a span of many cycles, there is a steady increase in the number of new believers, of core activities and participants, and of those who, when accompanied by others, are able to extend the scope and complexity of the work of expansion and consolidation.”

However, here’s the reality check. Out in the field, even the very best clusters are failing to achieve steady growth for more than six cycles.

My booth outside the Haifa International Convention Centre.

I’m off to Haifa for a week to be part of the activities surrounding the 11th International Bahá’í Convention in Haifa. No, I won’t be one of the more than 1000 delegates, but I will be assisting them carry out their sacred responsibilities.

Those delegates come from all over the world and my job will be to remind them of the important stuff, so that their vote counts. That’s got to be pretty important, right?

A diversity of tomatoes. They’re all the fruits of one growing tunnel.

Except that little green one. It’s off a potato plant and is pure poison.

C5 Bahai Djinn

It’s amazing what you can buy on the Internet:

Up for auction is a C5 Bahai Djinn. Female, 9,321 yrs old. Housed in a Rose Quartz gemstone.

All Sales Final, No Returns.

“We welcome everyone”

“Except gays”

“Oh no. We welcome gays… …except as members”

“And obese people.”

“No, I’m sure that’s not right.”

“Well, I read a blog entry where…”

“Oh yes, I read that too. But we do welcome obese people who want to be thin.”

“Yeah, we welcome everyone, But you’ve got to want to be straight, and thin…”

“…and apolitical, and…”

“This is getting complicated. How about: ‘We welcome everyone, but you’ve got to want to be just like us.’”

“That’s right, and we call it ‘unity in diversity’”

“Yes, we take diversity and turn it into unity.”

The Baha’i world community is in the midst of a vast, global process of systematic learning, growth and expansion. For a period of 25 years (1996 to 2021) the Baha’i world will focus on a single overarching purpose: to “advance the process of entry by troops.”
Sharing Baha’i Beliefs

But not me. I’ve opted out of the vast process that doesn’t seem to have a catchy name. (So I’ll call it Ruhi.) 25 years seems like a long time to opt out, but the Baha’i Cycle is apparently 500,000 years, so 25 years is a blink of the eye in the grand scheme of things. And the first 16 years have flown by.

It’s not like I’ve been doing nothing. I just haven’t been doing it Ruhi-style.

And here’s the funny thing: I didn’t even know I’d opted out until today. A friend pointed out that Ruhi had a 25-year lifetime, and I figured 1996 was around the time I opted out. I might be back in the fold in 2021, depending on the menu, and whether they’ll have me.

Hi Xxxx and Xxxx,

I think it takes great courage to speak up on this list, when it’s a local Baha’i list and you don’t know who’s on it. I’ve been speaking up on Talisman, and it feels safer there, despite the likelihood that Alison was expelled from the Baha’i Community as a result of expressing herself there.

I’m getting used to expressing myself within my local community because it has begun to have meetings where the 7 April Letter is discussed and where Alison’s expulsion is a topic. Until then, my Internet Baha’i life and my Dunedin Baha’i life have co-existed relatively harmoniously. In fact, the community and the local and national Baha’i administrative bodies have tolerated me remarkably well.

As you say, Xxxx, Alison’s expulsion has come from the top. It appears that the National Spiritual Assembly was just the messenger boy. Unless Alison has been hiding letters from me, she’s had no warning of the House’s 2-3 year period of concern. Given Mina’s assurances and the Dunedin assembly’s assurances that the 7 April letter wasn’t directed at anything going on in Dunedin, it appears that the institutions weren’t involved in any investigation/counselling.

As Xxxx has commented, the rules seem to have changed. Except there don’t seem to be any written rules for this stuff. When Michael McKenny of Canada was expelled a few years ago I sought answers and all I got was something from Counsellor Heather Simpson indicating that the action was rarely used and the cases generally turned on their own facts (whatever that means).

Well, there are plenty of questions to be asked and it’s pretty unsafe to be asking them, but my opinion of late 20th century Baha’i administrative culture has been eroded so much over the years that I really don’t care what it comes up with. In my opinion, the administration has asked for a greater devotional life, for transformation and for initiative. It’s got it, but it doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. People will just go off on a tangent if they’re not accommodated, and I think we’re seeing that.

The local community has been a good model, I think, of accommodating diversity. We have open assembly meetings, the fortnightly study runs as a self-managing group, and there’s generally a vibrant youth thing going. I’m sure there’s other stuff too. I hope this co-existence and accommodation doesn’t fall apart as a result of Alison being freed from having a relationship with the Baha’i administration by the House. There’s no need for Dunedin’s harmony to be upset. Nothing really needs to change.

I predict we’ll see a growth in the category of Baha’is-who-opt-out-of-the-administration. …Although it’s always been with us, so perhaps it’s just that it’s now more visible because of the Internet. Yes, I realise that the administration is a key part of Baha’i life, but there are other key parts and the administration is a means, not an end in itself.

I reckon Alison’s release (I like that better than expulsion) is a major event in Dunedin’s Baha’i history. I guess it’s good that people are holding off talking about it until they get a bit more information, but I don’t think there’s much more information to know, unless the Dunedin assembly got told more than Alison herself did.

One thing I really like is that the House said in its 7 April letter that Baha’is weren’t to be concerned about the “problems” the House had identified, because it was going to sort them out systematically (I’m paraphrasing). Well my strategy with the local assembly over the last 6 years or so, when I’ve wanted to do something that involves it, has been to say, “This is what I propose to do, take it or leave it”. I haven’t done any consulting; I’ve just presented my offer as a finished product. This strategy has worked very well for me, and I reckon I’m the shining example of a systematic Baha’i, as defined by the House in its own dealings. Yeah! Consultation is so… Twentieth Century. To recap: the new way goes like this. You make a decision and you tell ‘em. They can take it or leave it. I wonder how many will take it and how many will leave.

ka kite
Steve

Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000 14:55:59
To: Dunedin Assembly
From: Steve Marshall <forumbahai@xx.xx.xx>
Subject: Assembly feast letter

I’ve read the assembly’s latest feast letter and would like to assist
you in keeping tabs on violations of Baha’i law. I occasionally
masturbate, even though I realise that it is in violation of Baha’i
law. I want to assure you that my masturbation is not blatant or
flagrant, and I don’t think it directly harms the interests of the
Faith — but you do say that the Assembly is reliant on members of the
community to keep it informed of any cases of misconduct.

ka kite
Steve

As I recall, the defining characteristic of Moojan Momen’s so-called Baha’i apostates was that they carried out a prolonged/sustained campaign of “attacks” upon the Bahá’í community. Did it not occur to him that the folks he chose to give this title to were no more tireless and committed as “apostates” than they were when they were inside the fold? Did it also not occur to him that, with the stultifying effects of administratium no longer weighing them down, they became much more efficient in their activities?

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“The humanist theorists of the ideal city designed numerous planned cities that look intriguing on paper but were not especially successful as livable spaces. Along the northeastern frontier of their mainland empire, the Venetians began to build in 1593 the best example of a Renaissance planned town: Palmanova, a fortress city designed to defend against attacks from the Ottomans in Bosnia. Built ex nihilo according to humanist and military specifications, Palmanova was supposed to be inhabited by self-sustaining merchants, craftsmen, and farmers. However, despite the pristine conditions and elegant layout of the new city, no one chose to move there, and by 1622 Venice was forced to pardon criminals and offer them free building lots and materials if they would agree to settle the town. Thus began the forced settlement of this magnificent planned space, which remains lifeless to this day and is visited only by curious scholars of Renaissance cities and bored soldiers who are still posted there to guard the Italian frontier.” Edward Wallace Muir Jr.