Transcript of: Speaking on coherence and community building, part 2
Garth Pollack
2011
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It's a pleasure to be with you again. It's been wonderful to get to begin to know some of you become re acquainted with old friends, old friends of my wife. I don't think the time was long enough. One of things I miss from the environment of Africa is that there you would see people regularly and the environment was much smaller, so regular you would see people you wouldn't feel like. Wow, I wonder what I'm gonna see them again. You know, you'd see them in a few months. I can't say that here. It has been wonderful, you know, can mentioned yesterday that how our vocabulary in Baha'i community is enriched by the message is the House of Justice and that when the house uses a particular word, it's always within a context. And what's amazing is that at the beginning, usually when a new message has come out, we begin with more or less a dictionary understanding of the word. And then as we move into the field of experience, um, the words take on greater and greater meaning until really you need a paragraph to describe a word, and there've been so many. But today we're gonna be looking a little bit about this word coherence and you know so often I say, at the beginning of plan we heard social enterprise and it's a beautiful word and a beautiful concept. But it was at the end of the plan, we began really seeing what an enterprise had emerged out of that plan. And, uh, in the last nine, also, we started talking about coherence. And again, it's It's not through thinking about the word, but actually experiencing coherence and learning about coherence in the community has taken on a much richer, much richer meaning for us all. And some of the things I'd like to touch upon today, in terms of coherence, are the coherence between teaching on community building, um, the coherence among the core activities, the coherence within the three lines of action of the institute with the children's classes that your youth program and study circles, then between the institute, the act activities of the institute and social action, and even the coherence, the new level of coherence that the institutions and agencies have found. But before we get into all that, I wanted to share my experience of becoming a bit high, you won't get the full version off them. It was in the 19 7 early 19 seventies, and I encountered the faith, and immediately I was amazed by the principles. And that's how I was taught the faith, primarily that there is these wonderful principles. And I was immediately taken with those principles, and I was amazed that one organization, one agency, one faith, could be thinking and putting emphasis in all these principles. I was overwhelmed, and, uh, I could feel my my allegiance growing. I had to learn about the person of Baha'i Allah and learn about the nature of revelation and the power of the manifestations and their authority to bring changed to the world. When I did that, then I could accept the faith, and it really opened an amazing sense of hope in me that really, through these principles, the Baha'i community would carry out programs in the community that would emphasize and illustrate and bring these principles into people's lives and has taken some time for this process to mature. It's it's relatively short, but right now we're on this on this moment where we can actually begin implementing these principles in the community, not just within the Baha'i community, but now taking it out into the larger community Yesterday and, uh, one of the breakout sessions somebody had asked about the emphasis on declaration and enrollments and how that's changing. I just wanted to share another aspect of that. I remember going to my very first behind meeting and, um, people talking about declaration and I didn't pay much attention to that at first. But then it's a became or in love with the teachings and began to know about Baha'i. Allah I thought, Well, at some point, I want to declare also, And I was actually very shy, and it seemed like everybody knew what this thing declaration Waas. So I was very embarrassed. Just try to ask What? What What is that? How do you do that? And, um well, I wasn't quite ready, so I wasn't that worried about it. But I would go to a fireside and that I'd miss a fireside and I'd hear that so and so declared. And that's hope. Darn, I missed it again, you know, I really got and somehow he got This is the early seventies. You have to remember the kind of thinking I was going on. They got into my mind that somehow you had to have permission from God, Kind of a light had to hit you inside to let you know that you are acceptable. And, um, again, as I wasn't quite ready to make that commitment, I hadn't expected the light. Once I finally overcame my issues and understood the person of the whole lot a zealous one could. At that point, I decided, you know, I have to declare they don't know how. And I don't know if the lights hit me yet and I didn't want to have a false experience, and I was really perplexed. But I was so convinced that, um, I needed to do this. I decided that. Okay, at the next fireside, somehow declare you and I hope the light hits me by them. Well, I went to the fireside and I got cold feet. And if the lights hadn't hit, nice is you know, it's gotta hit you some way, and you've gotta know. And, uh, well, there was one friend that was constantly asked me, Why aren't you a Baha'i yet? And I'd always come up with some answer. And now, when he asked me at that time after I've gotten cold feet, he said, We know Garth way, Why don't you become a Baha'i? And I said, Well, there's really no reason why I'm not a Baha'i. And as he deciphered the double negatives and came out, he jumps up, said Garth declared, And I felt a little bit robbed, you know, because I thought it was something you did proactively, not by accident, but anyway, um, that brought me into the faith. Everybody ran over and hugged me. And so I decided, Well, this this must be it. This is this is that light? I guess so. It's been an adventure ever since. But one of things I learned from that was that you know, the formal enrollment or that. But that that moment that moment of recognition is significant, and we need to be able to aid that process. That's what. But again, I suffered a lot because of not knowing how to declare. Well, that brings me back to this. This this promise now, and I think you know, one of the phrases the House of Justice talks about is that, um we have before us, and we're learning about the dynamics of an irrepressible movement. And that's an interesting thought, the dynamics of an irrepressible movement that the promise of the principles that we can now express them in community after community, in neighborhood after neighborhood. It's really amazing we've come to that day. You know what's interesting? Um, I think I look back at those seventies and we were involved in teaching campaigns and door to door teaching and going to different communities all over. And I lived in California at that time, and I don't think we really thought about what were what was going to be the outcome and how this New World order, how this divine civilization would come about. In fact, I think we were had kind of a magical approach to thinking about it, that we had this wonderful community. We have this wonderful body of teachings we had, you know, the man of twin manifestations, and brought a new spiritual force intothe world. And I think our vision was that somehow, as we talked the faith because the love and the unity and expression of these principles in the behind community, the community would be like a magnet. It would attract people into the community. And it's The community got larger, more people would become attracted into that. And we just get larger and larger. And then, well, that's all I think we thought about at that point. Really, we didn't know what? How bad interaction. How would this somehow would you just get bigger and bigger till everyone was included or would be kind of a capitulation of the governments of the world? And I see what you guys take over? Um, I don't know. Those are some of the thoughts I had at the time, and I think we had a lot of learning through that process of learning to teach the faith of meet, meeting diverse peoples, trying to engage them in the faith, bring them into the community. And it's interesting that, you know, for the last 15 years we've been talking about the process of entry by troops. In the last message, the December 28th message. Do you know that the house didn't mention into by troops once in that message? It's interesting, but they did use another phrase that I think shows an evolution of our understanding of growth and that is they talked about the movements of populations toward the vision of Baha'i, Allah for a just and peaceful world. And it's it's introduced. Think about that. Instead of attracting people into our community, they're saying, having outward looking orientation, let's take these teachings into the community and begin building community, neighborhood by neighborhood, village by village. And although that's a simple distinction, it's it's a very profound one and how we look at our service to humanity. So it's not just about being wonderful together and then trying to attract people into the community. It's finding a way of taking these teachings into the community and helping people learn about through through the practice of these principles to these activities, the dynamics of the safe and begin a movement of a population. And it's interesting. We can use the word through the straits, the movement of a population toward Baha'i, Lola's vision for humanity. But we would we would need in our efforts to begin thinking about what would this movement look like? Would it be all at once? Everyone would just begin moving. Would it be people would come into contact with the teachings engaged with us and some of the activities of community building and slowly come to understand this revelation and commit to serving it. Would they have to make that recognition to serve it? I think these are the things that we're learning about. Andi began learning about very intensely in this last plan. There's a quotation that was shared yesterday and I'd like to share it again. It's a It's an amazing reference of three sentences and what I find it talks about this structure and the outcomes, and each outcome builds upon the other. It says involvement in the life of society will flourish as the capacity of the community to promote its own growth and to maintain its vitality is gradually raised. It will achieve coherence with efforts to expand and consolidate the community to the extent that it draws on the elements of the conceptual framework which governs the current series of global's plans. And it will contribute to the movement of populations towards Baha'i, Lola's vision of a prosperous and peaceful world civilization to the degree that it employs these elements creatively in new areas of learning. So it's it's a short paragraph, three sentences. It's paragraph 32 of the Risen Message. But if we look at it just a little bit, our ability to become involved in the life of society will flourish commensurate to the capacity of the community to promote its own growth and vitality. Well, chief coherence to expand and consolidate the community. So to attend to these things, to the extent that we draw upon the elements of the framework for growth that we have and thieves, too, will contribute to the movement of population toward Baha'i decision of prosperous and peaceful world civilization. To the degree that we employ these elements, it's it's not a simple formula and there's lots of learning involved. But it really in those three sentences lays out something for us, of relationships, of our actions, coherence. When we, uh, my wife and I came back from Africa two years ago and we were very anxious to get involved in life of communities here and we've been away for a long time. My wife, 20 years outside the United States and myself, 35 years, and we knew the community we were coming back to is not the same. We were no longer Abbas it and wish it was. We're not in Kansas anymore. It was a whole new world of Baha'i community had changed completely. And we really approached coming back United States as pioneering that we would have no assumptions. We wanted to really learn about the community about the larger community. And so, uh, when we moved into the neighborhood as we were establishing ourselves again, um, we were so anxious to get into the neighborhood and we moved out into the neighborhood are we have two children, ages 12 and 10. So they were really helpful in helping us make connections with our neighbors. And very quickly we began children's classes, and that was very easy. That was particularly a neighborhood with lots of kids. And then, um, as my wife began meeting some of the moms in the neighborhood and working with them with the children's class, she come back and say, Oh, my gosh, Wow, you know, this one lady and many of our neighbors were single moms and they were working. Moms are going to school trying to, you know, improve their possibilities for employment. You know this one lady? She's got a restraining order because this guy's after her and she can't let anybody know where she is. And this other lady, her husband, abandoned her in this, and it was just all these stories and a little bit further down the street. She was told that there was this young couple that was selling drugs and it was just It's really messy out there. And it was frightening. It was frightening. And, um, well, one of the things that we learn or we don't learn, but it's an interesting observation when were involved in the community, our interior community. We don't see that messiness. We don't get involved with it. And it is scary because we don't understand it. And so, uh, I had to say that I said, You know, it's true. It's probably pretty messy out there, but that's why we're here, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. And one thing we have to learn is, as we engage outward, we can't expect people to act like behinds. Initially, they don't have that reference. They don't have that that source of strength because you're right. Okay. And so is she work out there, But this is the reality. This is the reality that many people are going through tremendous difficulties emotionally, psychologically, financially, um, physically. And this is this is who we need to. This is what we have to do is bring the faith, bring these teachings. But the question is, how do we begin this involvement with the society around us? What's our avenue of entrance? What's interesting? That the House of Justice in the December 28th message talks about how this action could begin with a single conversation. It said, That's a Justin said that conversation distinguished by the depth of understanding achieved and the nature of the relationships established. And to the extent that that conversation continues beyond the initial encounter and veritable friendships are formed, a direct teaching effort of this kind can become the catalyst for enduring process of spiritual transformation. And what I find interesting is that a conversation is not that hard to have. We have them every day, but I think what's interesting about this conversation is there some characteristics of it? It says, Um in another place. It talks about a conversation between two souls, Um, so it talks about the nature of the depth of understanding established and the nature of the relationship. The extent that the conversation continues beyond initial encounter and veritable friendships are formed. I think that's fascinating, I think very off. I looked back to our teaching efforts. Um, and I don't know if always, our goal was to establish a friendship and to think of it as a conversation between two souls and to think about what is the nature of friendship and the House of Justice calls it veritable friendships and veritable coming from Lightman's true friendships. So it's interesting to think about what, what are the requirements? A veritable friendship, that the person we're engaging in our neighborhood in our goals to make friends of them. There's a context, that friendship, it's about community building. And I think this is important. That is, we as a community, as individuals go into the neighborhood and begin to try to establish a veritable friendships in the context that it could be in the context of community building, not about home improvement or sports are recipes or whatever the conversations might be. But we start those conversations. We have those conversations in the context of building community, and it's interesting to think if we think about what are the requirements of that kind of friendship, a veritable friendship. How much time does that take to establish a friendship? More or less probably. And we generally say more. And what? What what are the commitments we make when we make a friendship like that? So how much time would have taken our lives to maintain these friendships and developed them? I think we'll find that it may not be possible to to to have all that many friendships of that nature. But that's what the House of Justice is asking us to do is to have this kind of friendship. So I think it has a dimension for our thinking about teaching. Is that as we step out again, if you want to know you each happen neighborhood wherever you live, you have a neighborhood, and you can begin this process. But you know how many of these Francis will be able to establish? How much time will it be in this kind of harkens back to? I think some of the assumptions we have about teaching the faith in a direct way, and that is that we will be able to teach many people in a relatively short period of time And once you've taught the faith in a relatively short apart, a short period of time, you move on to the next community, the next village, and I think again we're having to re analyze how we carry out our teaching. It's a commitment you're making to build that community, but I think it becomes very attractive. And there's a co parents between wanting to offer these amazing teachings and establish a friendship. There's coherence there well beyond establishing these initial friendships and being being sincere, them being shared understanding between two souls. That's important. Too often times when we taught we were sharing our understanding, I don't know, we were developing shared understanding between those we were teaching or engaging with making friendships with. Well, where could these work of these conversations lead in the context of community building? And the House of Justice says they lead very quickly, too. The core activities, those who served in this is a reference from again. There is one message. Those who serve in these settings Uh, well, I'm sorry. That's not the, um Where did it go? I guess it's this one. The activities that drive this process, in which newly found. Friends are invited to engage meetings to strengthen the devotional character of the community. Classes that nurtured tender hearts and minds of children, groups that channel the surging energies of junior youth and steady circles, Circles of study open to all. So those were the initial activities that weaken begin building community with. After we've established and begun this friendship, and it's interesting to think about how we approached establishing these core activities in the last plan, I think oftentimes we thought if we could just get this many activities going and we even had formulas, maybe it's this many activities and then you know, this many of this one, this one, this one that's something will happen in that community. And we thought that that was the end. If we could establish those activities, we're done. Our work is finished. But what's interesting is the House of Justice says that those who serve in these settings both the local inhabitants and the visiting teachers would rightly view their work in terms of community building. And what is that? What is the outcome of this? And it says it's a process that seeks to raise capacity within a population to take charge of its own spiritual, social and intellectual development. So there's a beginning of coherence. There between are teaching the faith, establishing community and social action. And again, the activities and themselves are wonderful, you know, teaching children helping with the junior youth, having devotional meetings. But maybe the larger outcome that the House of Justice is asking you to think about is the capacity that is being developed in the community through those activities and naturally the outcome so that in villages throughout the world, neighborhoods in urban areas, in social spaces, people realize that these activities are very important to their life and that now that we've started them in our neighborhood, in our village, we won't ever let that stop. So it's really the core activities in their essence, or about bringing about and raising up with capacity of those people were engaged with. And I think it would be very interesting to to think about what are the capacities that emerge from those core activities through that process of being involved in them and going through the sequence, Of course, is it was interesting. In the December 28th message, the House of Justice um in the second paragraph talked about the vista that the distant that they're seeing from the vantage point that they have. And they said that the vista from this vantage point is stupendous indeed. And they began talking about how some of the achievements in terms of some of the new miracle achievements of related to the core activity. So they said, with more than 350,000 souls worldwide who have completed the first incident course, a capacity to shape a pattern of life distinguished for the devotional character has risen perceptively. It was almost easy to be overwhelmed by the numbers and not see what was sort of behind. It wasn't that we established or had the potential establishing 350,000 devotional meetings, but it was the capacity to shape a pattern of life distinguished for its devotional character. That's that's an amazing capacity. If you think about it, it's not just that I have the capacity to pray, but we're able to shape a pattern of life in these neighborhoods and villages that has this devotional character. That and again, it's much more than having a devotion. It's it's this ability to consciously draw on the spiritual forces to serve our community and that the community begins to learn to consciously call upon these forces. It goes beyond the occasional devotional meeting. But when you encounter a neighbor and they say My son is sick today he's not going to school an optician, let's say a prayer for him and share prayers. So all those activities, those practices that we hadn't book one of sharing writings and caring person. It's leading to building that capacity of beginning to shape a life. And can you imagine building a community if you if you had your erased the blackboard so well, what would you want to build that community upon and wouldn't being able to consciously drawn the spiritual forces available to us to be one of those capacities? I think we would agree. So the second. The second thing they talk about here is how, um, some 130,000. Um, this is a near doubling of the reserve of the high children's class teachers in a five year period, bringing the total sum 130,000 again Amazing number. But what was the capacity? What was the capacity it was developed there, it said it. It made it possible so capacity for the community to respond wholeheartedly to the spiritual aspirations of the young. And I think my first initial Rezaei I didn't pick up on this, but it was really helped me understand the nature of children's classes much more profoundly again. Chills Custer. Wonderful. They teach virtues. They help children develop their character. But he was talking about something else. I think, more profound process. It was the ability to respond wholeheartedly to the spiritual aspirations of the young. There's assumption there that these children have spirituals aspirations, and that the capacity we're gaining is to respond to those spiritual aspirations. Then I start thinking about how you know we have wonderful school systems and through Baha'i list teaching that become universal. School systems are emerging everywhere in the world to some degree, and our children go to school for at least 12 years and spend anywhere from 6 to 8 hours a day in these environments. And the primary focus of that education is to develop the intellectual capacity. And I guess there's some attention, too sports and developing the physical health. But how much of those 12 years in those eight hours a day of those 12 years is dedicated to the spiritual aspirations of the not very many. So if we could think about building community, wouldn't we want to provide that ability to to respond to their spiritual aspirations? And that would be something every community they consciously sat down thought about would be one of the activities they would want to to carry out in the community. And then I get talked about, um yeah, a six fold increase over the same period to assist junior youth in navigating through such a crucial stage of their lives. And I will just take a informal survey here. How many of you have had an opportunity to study book five? The course that kind of gives you? Oh, wow, this is very impressive. Isn't it A marvelous book. When I read that, I said, This house, every parent or every perspective parent has to read this book. You have to understand who these beings are and what their potentials are, what the capacities are there, different parts of their life and what an amazing activity the June youth program is. You know, I think sometimes we think of it is, you know, a program of texts, and the kids study a text, but it's much more than that. It's a program that creates a peer group of the youth. They become a peer group from themselves as they explore topics and issues vital to their development at that age, within a spiritual context, they developed the capacity to stand within that pair of group and resist the larger, unconscious peer group outside. They have an animator who you can think of is a mentor, a big brother, big sister who they can take their questions, too. I know there were so many questions when I was growing up. I had no intention of taking to my parents. But I sure would like some answers. I would sure like to been able to discuss this with someone, and that's the possibility of the animated to be that person that nonjudgmental Lea listens and helps the youth explore these issues. Now what an amazing program wouldn't every parent wants their child to be part of something like that? Well, that's another tremendous capacity. And when we look at society, this age group is almost completely for gotten in terms of its attention. It's either treated children or troublesome. They have so many problems at this age, anyway. That's an amazing capacity to give a community and to build a community, another capacity that the House of Justice highlights in this one paragraph. And it's an amazing one, too, it says. What is more everywhere? A notable number of friends find themselves ready to enter into conversation with people of varied backgrounds and interest and to undertake with them an exploration of reality that gives rise to shared understanding of the ex agencies of this period in human history and the means for addressing them. Toe pretty big mouthful but enter into conversation with people from very backgrounds and engage in exploration of reality, which explores the time in which we're living the issues and not only that, but also means of addressing them. And I think we have many way all have many of these conversations and we look at the world. We look at that, the news, we hear about things and we we talk about this period of history. We talk about G, isn't it a shame? What's the world coming to? But unfortunately generally our conversations. Stop there. We stopped with It's a big problem. What are we gonna do? We know we were not always able to take it to that level of the means of addressing them. But again, wouldn't a community that was consciously trying to address the issues station have to have discussions about reality and explore these things deeply and not just leave it? How terrible it ISS, Isn't it a shame? But how can we begin to address these things? So I hope from from understanding the capacities that the institute can bring to a community, it's much more than just the outcome of the activities, their capacities that allow the community begin looking beyond those immediate issues, but built on a very strong foundation of ensuring the spiritual education of the children, helping the June youth trend transition through that age and get the most out of that potential of that period of their life. I also wanna mention about the youth program It. What we've seen is that it has the capacity to imbue the June youth with a commitment to their own transformation and contributing to the transformation of society. Amazing things really? Okay. One of the interesting I I wanted to make a little aside here. You know, we've begun to see from our experiences in Zambia, where communities began introducing these two processes and the community took it up. They would begin other activities. They would see a need for something. They would start community schools. They would build a high center. They would carry out other activities for women and all spontaneously, but based on their ability to begin serving their community and seeing that this is a pattern that we can take into other endeavors. And it may not be so easy to think about some of the social ills that we can address through this process. You know, again, I'm sure, as we were thinking about how social action will emerge through our efforts in the community, in our neighborhoods, as we have abundant resource is, then we'll begin to look at some of the some of the problems. But think about one of the pervasive social ills that that, particularly in urban centers in America, we're facing, and that's the crushing sense of isolation that people have. You know, we live amongst many people, but how many of us know our neighbors. I mean, hopefully way d'oh. But I think many of us they will. I don't know my neighbors, you know? I see them. I know what car they drive. I wave, but I don't know them. And isn't it interesting that this is a culture that prides itself on being neighborly? Isn't that interesting? We have a strong commitment, and it's a you know, it's a It's a profound belief that we have that were very neighborly, but our actions wouldn't show that and their many forces bringing us apart, isolating us. But just to the act of working in your neighborhood, you would begin to re establish that that commitment to being neighbors and also thinking about, um, relieving people of isolation that they can engage in activities on a regular basis. I know it was very fascinating for us again back to our neighborhood when we first moved back here. As we began engaging the neighborhood with all those messy activities going on and had the children class, we found so many opportunities, especially during the summer, not so many in the winter when the snow was out, but during the summer, too. Just go out in the street talk with the talk with the neighbors, and what was interesting was the more interaction we had. Although none of our neighbors reached the point of identifying themselves with Baha'i list cause it felt like that was our Baha'i community that the interactions we were having well, what we would call the high interaction. We were talking about the children's classes and supporting this and some of the issues in the neighborhood, and it really changed our focus to understand that the whole community at large really is our behind community, and it allowed us begin interacting in a new way. Well, one of the things I wanted to talk about was the coherence of these activities, the House of Justice, about these core activities as we begin in the community, starting with the conversation, I'm talking about the issues of the day and talking about some possibilities for addressing them. There's a coherence between those activities. What we've noticed is that in some of our communities, some of our clusters, some closures, have quite a few activities, but they're kind of scattered all over the cluster. So there's a study circle over here, children class here junior growth over there. Some devotion ings here. But what we're also seeing is when these activities are concentrated and that there's several a study circle chilled glass Gin Youth group in one neighborhood. Greater coherence happens. There's more possibilities for more conversations about the nature of the activities were engaged in. So that's one level of coherence of these activities. They begin having interplay with each other. Another aspect of this coherence of these activities, these foundational activities for building community and social action is how one activity extends itself to the others. So, for example, if we had a children's class, well, we could just see it as a Childress last and attending to those children. And hopefully one day one of the parents will become a teacher and it becomes part of the community. But what about the conversations we could have with each of the parents of those children? And I remember asking someone Well, what would be the nature of that conversation and one person and his presentation? We said, Well, maybe, But maybe there's other conversations that would also be significant and meaningful conversations and would have to do with their particular interest. So for example, you've just finished the children's class and during the week you want to visit some of the parents and you go. And this one, the parents you say, You know, we're really enjoying your child's participation. And one of the principles that we've organized these children's classes is around this quotation that we should regard. Man has a mind rich and gems of inestimable value. We would share that quotation with them and explain what we what we take from that and that is that we see that each child has thes gems inside, and it's through education that we bring these gems to light and offered them to the service of humanity. And we're seeing these particular gems in your child. What gems do you see in your child? And then you'd have a whole wonderful conversation very engaging to that parent. And again, I think, throughout all of the if you remember Book three, the Unit one has all these wonderful spiritual principles about education that we could explore the parents so we would be engaging those parents in that conversation, and if we did it regularly enough, we would become friends. It would be in the context of building and serving that population, but we would become friends, comes easy to say. Can you come in on Saturday and help out just a bit? Thank you so much and then parents, beginning of all but the other thing, I'll be a little bit facetious about this. Is that the parent after you know how many visits? Six or seven or eight visits? Who knows? They say, You know, every time we meet, we have significant and meaningful conversations. Where is this coming from? And then that opens up another level of conversation and exploration. But again it's it's establishing veritable friendships with the families and becoming trusted. Was it? Then there's activities to your other children. There's activities for you. Can we learn about prayer? It opens up these conversations, open up and help us begin to integrate these activities in the community. There's another component to the current coherence of the activities is that if we can start Maurin, it would we begin to see the process of community building. Not is isolated activities but a za process and the friends that we're engaged. We also see this is a process now within the Institute within an instant, working in a cluster. There's also the coherence of the three activities, and oftentimes, you know, the House of Justice been talking about this is being one educational, processed, one educational system, but the way we've sort of looked at it, there's one children's class process over here and one in youth process here and study circles over here in the kind of independent from each other. Where's actually it's a continuum. If we thought about if we started children, they would go through a number years of children's classes. They would enter into the junior youth activities for three years, and then they would be able to enter into the the study circles and learn about doing all those activities. What we've been finding, interestingly, is that the children that shows classes start having the aspiration that someday if if the junior youth programs in the neighborhood, they say, Oh, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna I'm gonna go there, Jr. I'm gonna go in the juniors program. What happens to the June youth program is if they've coming out. Childress passes as Junior. If you think I'm gonna be a children's class teacher, they start seeing the possibilities of their service and in many places in the world. Now, um, the kids that move into the gin youth program are so focused on service becomes so in love with serving that they begin children, spouses even before they finish the sequence of the three years of June youth activities. What's also interesting is I asked, how many of you have had the opportunity to study, but but how many have had the chance to be an animator? See that again? A bit fewer? Well, the reason I asked this question is, How did thinking about the quality of the actions that we have in the Gin Youth program? There's there's there's study of materials, but their social activities, their service activities. How do you think that compares the activities that the junior youth are used to and a study circle? Well, I'm not really expecting a response here from you, but what most people who have been animators realized that going from a junior youth program into a study circle will be kind of a calm down because it's not his dynamic. We don't have all that service component again. It's not just a service In the study, sickles were looking to practice certain elements of what we're learning. But in the June youth program, the kids actually got out in the neighborhood and do service not just about a few themes. So as as our instant process advances, we're going to see the capacity and the quality of the city sickles growing as well as these junior youth come into that that program and what it means. Um, I don't want to go in too much detail here, but another aspect of this make sure not overstepping. Another aspect of this is how do we accompany each other, Um, in the institute process. And I You can remember when you studied Book one and you came to the time to share a prayer with someone in study of prayer with someone, and depending on your tutor and where we were and cluster advancement and things like that. What was your activity? Oftentimes, he said, we'll share a prayer with your your husband or wife or share it with a friend. But what we could really d'oh is if we're working in our neighborhoods and we've made contacts with people and we're working with communities When a book one reaches that point, we could ask the participants of Book 12 to share a prayer with the neighbourhood that we're working with, particularly in the populations that we've engaged in terms of teaching the faith directly and we could go. So what would happen in this case would be that the tutor would say, It's about two weeks before we're going to study this prayer. I better contact the coordinator So they have a meeting. The tutor in the coordinator says, Oh, I'm glad you I'm glad you let me know at least two weeks and bats because it's gonna take a little bit to coordinate this. So the coordinator would then contact the area teaching comedian say which neighborhoods would be ready to have a visit for people to share prayers with them. So the A. T. C. Knowing which neighborhoods they're working with would identify that neighborhood and some of the families that could be visited and the teachers working and work in the friends attending and working and then in that neighbourhood would go and visit the people that might be visited and say, you know, we have some friends studying book one, and they're getting to a point where they like to share a prayer. And that's their practice. Would it be all right for them to come and visit you? Oh, yeah, I'd love that. So the day comes when the study circles gonna go out and share prayers. They don't do it alone. They go with some of the teachers from the community. They go with their coordinator and they go out and are introduced in a very loving way in a very respectful way to the people that were teaching the prayer, too. So, you know, we told you these friends would be coming and I went into you. Swan. And this thing, this is Mary and Tom's. Warren's gonna share a prayer with us. Oh, thank you. A wonderful encounter ensues. Now what's interesting about that is we could think of of the outcome of just learning how to share a prayer. But much more was was learned there. There was this sense of home. Visiting there was strengthening the connections there was seeing they were seeing how the whole system into interacts. And that element of coordination is something that we've been trying to learn more and more about. And that new message begins to talk with the new message of December 12th begins to talk about that now for some things about accompaniment. Well, I want to come back before I go to accompaniment and we're talking about, you know, again, as we opened the doors of our house, there's the neighborhood. And how easy is it for us to walk out into the neighborhood and begin those conversations? I'm guessing not that busy. Um, I remember one friend. We were talking about this and we said, We said, You know, this is this is the direction the House of Justice wants us to be in because this is where where we meet people. It's an opportunity for building community and interact and show how the faith can change people's lives and move the population toward this vision. But one friend said, You know, I've lived in my neighborhood for 20 years and I don't know my neighbors. What won't they think it really strange that all of a sudden, after 20 years, I go out and try to meet them and start these conversations. When you think about it? Yes, it could seem strange But we posed another question to hear. We said What would be the worst that could happen? And we thought about the worst that could happen is that you wouldn't talk to them for another 20 years. That's the worst. But what? What we've been finding actually is that people are really willing, are thirsty, the sense of isolation. And if we do it respectfully, on the basis of friendship, of being willing to give time to building these friendships, people are very willing to open up to this. I was doing some consultancy for an NGO in the town where we live. I was just sharing that, You know, it's a family. We would be gun three projects in our neighborhood and one was a devotional meeting. The other was a chilled glass. And then we're going to start the juniors program, and I just wanted to see how you know someone in the NGO field would would perceive that. And they said, Really, that's wonderful. Every neighborhood should do that. There was no resistance, but it was interesting, too. The second question that followed up. Aren't you afraid again? It's messy out there. We don't know our neighbors we don't know their life situations. No way. Subsequently moved. I used my wife because I learned so much from here. Um, and we were starting another children's class, getting ready to, and she kept saying, Well, you know, you've got to get out in the neighborhood and meet the parents again and go on invite and then a week would pass and she hadn't done it, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I just I don't know. I just I don't get around to it And I said, Well, you have inertia. She is inertia. Okay, I'll pray about that. And it was as if she was doing something wrong. And inertia is just a natural state. When something is immovable or it's not moving, it takes a lot of energy to get it moving. Think about the times you've had to get a car started by pushing it. You could never start it by yourself. You could never get it pushing. There's so much inertia. It takes a concentrated expenditure of energy, and usually you need three or four friends to get the car moving. Once it's moving, then it's easier to get started and you could actually keep it going by yourself. And we're all faced with inertia in our lives, these air activities we haven't done before, and we may not be particularly comfortable. We're none of us are particularly comfortable in doing things we've never done before. There's always a bit of anxiety about these things, but this is where accompaniment comes in. And I said, Well, you know, your aunts, my wife's aunt lives a few bucks. Why don't you get your and you go out together? Well, that's a great idea. And so that week they did it. It was so much easier. And it's interesting about accompaniment, the House of Justice again, in the risk on message in the early in the message that talked about, um, one of the attainments at the level of culture. And it was said that delighted the House of Justice, and that was our ability to engage people and begin talking about the person of Baha'i Allah in a clear and forthright manner. And then I kept running well, that's one attainment of the level culture. It seemed like they were gonna the way they said it seemed like there would be more and you had to go quite a bit further into the message, actually where they mentioned a second attainment and they said, um, that this second, don't listen, Where's where's that one story? Well, I thought I brought that one. Oh, yes, you hear this? It's in the developments we have mentioned so thus far are all reinforced in no small measure by yet another advance at the level of culture, the implications of which are far reaching. Indeed, this evolution and collective consciousness is discernible in the growing frequency with which the word accompany appears in conversation among the friends, a word that is endowed with new meaning as it is integrated into the common vocabulary of the Baha'i community. It signals the significant strengthening of the culture in which learning is the mode of operation, a mode that fosters informed participation of more and more people in a united effort to apply Baha'i list teachings to the construction of a divine civilization. So this accompaniment Houses says it's evolving, and I think our initial okay, thank you. I had a timer. That's great. Um, that's to collect my thoughts. I think our initial understanding accompaniment was somewhat like, well, I already have the experience, and you don't so all company you and help you. And when we were talking to some of the cluster coordinators said, Well, do you accompany the tutors? Well, we try and, um, what happened? But they don't like it very much. Tutors don't like it very much. Why? Well, they think they're not doing well because when we accompany them, they think, Cos when they're not doing well and they're having problems. So basically, when I show up to accompany them, it's because there's a problem and we have to emerge from this. That accompaniment is not one person who knows or has more experience helping others. It's really how we're going to raise the capacity of the faith to work in Maur and more neighborhoods throughout the world if we think about thing evolution of the faith and get with the analogy of the tree. But looking at the structure that's been evolving 15 years ago, if we look at the structure of the faith 15 years ago, there was the National Spirit Assembly and local spiritual Cem, please and counselors, and actually board members and assistance. All the things that were actually dealing with now in our day to day interactions are structures that emerge since them. So we have the institute. It was just a little bit of light on the horizon. 15 years ago, regional councils did not exist. Um, the agency of clusters, Even this structure of clusters was 10 years ago. Then we began having area teaching committees, coordinators. All of these structures emerged and generally because we didn't have any experience, we would say, Well, this is a wonderful Baha'i. Let's make them the coordinator. It didn't matter if we had any experience in the institute yet Here's a devoted friend will put them on the A T. C. And again the friends made tremendous efforts to learn. But now that we have the system up and running, we can see how accompaniment can become The way we raised human resource is on. Before I talk more about that, I'd like to read another quote about accompaniment. As an increasing number of believers participate in the teaching and administrative work undertaken with the humble attitude of learning, they should come to view every task, every interaction as an occasion to join hands in pursuit of progress and to accompany one another in their efforts to serve the costs in that part, didn't mention about one who knows and one who doesn't. It says that every every occasion they should do every task, every interaction as an occasion to join hands in the pursuit of progress and to accompany one another in their efforts to serve the cause. And then it talks about how, in this way, through accompaniment will overcome the impulse to over instruct to try to reduce things to an instruction manual. Now, just imagine that if I was a cluster coordinator on a TC member, and I'm thinking about how to build capacity in the community apart from the instant courses. But let's say we realizing that our efforts are actually rather successful and now on the cluster, we're working with five different neighborhoods, and things were really perking up, and it's it's too much for me is coordinated. Do all that I need to do in that expanded concept of accompaniment of practice of the efforts. So every time I go out to accompany a tutor, I would invite another tutor to come with me, and we would accompany that class company, the participants in that action, and then I'd ask him to come again. And then I'd say, You know, I don't have I'm not available that we can Would you be able to accompany that tutor in the practice of those things? So every action we do, it's not about one who knows and doesn't know we're learning together. We build the capacity in every action that we take, and we just know that it's so much more fun to do things together. You'll take a big effort now. Here's another reference to this idea of accompaniment to extend the learning process to more and more believers in an expanding number of clusters. It will be necessary for them to create an environment conducive but wants to universal participation and to mutual support and assistance. This entails the ability to foster inclusiveness, not just exhorting the few at the forefront, but also enlisting the energies of the many striving defying to path of service. The success of the next five year plan depends to a great degree on our efforts to greatly expand the number of souls consciously striving to make Baha'i Lola's vision for humanity a reality, and again the new message that just came out helps us explore this idea of a path of service. And it's one. We're not gonna go into that now and again. We were talking about understanding that our efforts of teaching, really it's I'm gonna be working with five or six families. My family, we're gonna about these friendships in our neighborhood and begin these activities. And we have to help our help the friends overcome this inertia. And the way to do it is to be willing to accompany. So if in your cluster, you're, let's see, you have your activities going to your neighborhood. But you see another friend having that inertia, it was offered to accompany them going out. I really would like to start it chills class, but I really don't know how to talk to my neighbors. Okay, well, how about if I company? How about we do that together? Um, I I I I don't have trouble inviting fighting. The parents are talking to the parents about it, but I need some help with the children's class. And so again, we do these things together. I know what happened in our neighborhood when we started the chillers class again. You know the reality that we're facing. There were several kids with some behavior difficulties. 80 th another with autism. Our son has ah syndrome. So we had three kids that were really very hard to control. My wife had a hard time managing a chilled glass of 10. So we invited another behi down the road about a mile away, who was an excellent show starts teacher but didn't have anything going in her neighborhood to join us. And so we had the capacity than of reinforcing this activity. So I get in this this this accompaniment is not about one Who knows? And doesn't we actually, but it's someone in this case, you knew a lot to accompany us in this process. I think I'm getting close to the end, Um, again, just to tie all of this, that our efforts at building community through understanding of growing our community and maintaining vitality, our community and the guidance the House of Justice that once we've began working in these neighborhoods and have worked long enough with these neighborhoods to build up an abundance of resource is in that neighborhood. We sustained these. It's not like now We'll start having conversations about social moment. We would be having those conversations all along. It would be at a point where we could direct our energies toward that. There's another reference about our work, and it says, in every cluster, once a pattern, a consistent pattern of action is in place. Attention needs to be given to extending it more broadly through a network of coworkers and acquaintances, while energies at the same time are focused on smaller pockets of the population, each of which had become a center of intense activity. Again, I think what we can see and begin to see is that as we start in one neighborhood and build up a level of activity that will take some time. Even if you had study circles from day one to reach, get through that whole cycle to book seven, that would take about two years. So we were talking about having sustained commitment, and so that effort, once consistent pattern, is developed in one night. We have to been extend it in neighborhood after neighborhood and those that have gained experience in a neighborhood with then accompany those others. Um, it's interesting. The House of Justice I'm turning, which was one message that Waas. I think it was 97 97. It might have been, they said. Building a new world order is no easy task. I think that's an understatement. But I hope today discussion has shown how all of our actions now have coherence, one with the other and it's It's a one unfolding process that the House of Justice talks about, Um, offer 11 where Analogy and this is the component that we could think about our own neighborhoods. But we could also think about the neighborhoods of greater receptivity that have been identified as maybe having greater receptivity. And again the House of Justice asked us to look at the process. We're engaged in his one process, but sometimes there's different starting points. And so in our neighborhoods where we live, if we extend our activities into our own neighborhoods, it's like chicken and eggs, and we're the chickens and our duty is to lay eggs in our community in our neighborhood and then hatch these eggs so the activities and the capacities emerged there. So so, in one sense, are challenging. Our Baha'i communities is getting each of arch each of us who are chickens to start laying eggs in our neighborhood. I doubt there's other neighborhoods that air so receptive that the eggs are already there. There's just no chickens toe hatch them, and that's where we begin working in those receptive neighborhoods and begin working and hatching those eggs and raising them. And eventually both processes become the same thing. In the neighborhoods where we're trying to lay eggs and establish contact, those eggs will hatch grow, and then that cycle becomes chicken, egg, chicken, egg. In the other neighborhoods where we start, we find the eggs and way incubate them. We help them grow anything, and after a few cycles, then that becomes the same process of chickens laying eggs and it expands. I hope that doesn't trivialize it, but it helps us maybe see how it's different in different neighborhoods and how well our approach will be different. Well again, Um, it is no easy task, but the house just said, but it is unbelievably rewarding to engage in this, and I guess the 31 leaves that way really way having this amazing guidance. And if we try to look and see it under any clusters in the world that have achieved what? What sort of I've expressed here in a kind of idyllic way? Not yet. And it's not about about just going out and doing it. It's really about going out and learning how to do it and have the freedom to say I'm learning. So I'm not gonna worry about making mistakes. I'm just gonna learn. But I'm gonna do it with my friends. I'm gonna do with my community. Well, I wish you well in your endeavors and building community. Thank you very much.
