World Order/Series2/Volume 38/Issue 1/Text

←Volume 38 Index

World Order, Series 2 Volume 38 - Issue 1

Issue 2→

Return to PDF view Proofread once

[Page -1]

Religion • Society • Polity • Arts

WORLD
ORDER

Consultation, Peace, and Poetry

In this issue. . .

Consultation
Seeking a Common Purpose
Editorial

Seated on Pebbles
in the Shade of
Glorious Heights
at the Foot of
the Tomb of
Bahíyyih Khánum,
the Greatest Holy Leaf
a poem by Mary Lucas

A Forum:
The Bahá’ís as a
Mystic Community
Jack McLean and Moojan Momen

The Bahá’í Chair
for World Peace—
The Second Phase
an interview with
John A. Grayzel

The Music of Poetry
an anthology of poems
selected and introduced by
Herbert Woodward Martin

Volume 38, No. 1

[Page 0]

Religion • Society • Polity • Arts

WORLD
ORDER

2006 VOLUME 38, NUMBER 1

WORLD ORDER AIMS TO
STIMULATE, INSPIRE, AND SERVE
ITS READERS IN THEIR SEARCH
TO UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND
CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS
AND PHILOSOPHY.

EDITORIAL BOARD

Betty J. Fisher

Arash Abizadeh

Monireh Kazemzadeh

Diane Lotfi

Kevin Morrison

Robert H. Stockman

Jim Stokes

CONSULTANT IN POETRY

Herbert Woodward Martin

INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS

World Order is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 536 Sheridan Road, Wilmette, IL 60091-1811. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher or of the Editorial Board.

Peer review: Submissions to the journal will be subject to external blind peer review if they fall outside the expertise of the Editorial Board or upon request by the author.

Submissions and other editorial correspondence should be addressed to the Editor, World Order, 7311 Quail Springs Place NE, Albuquerque, NM 87113-1780 or emailed to <worldorder@usbnc.org>. Detailed information for contributors may be requested in writing or by e-mail.

Manuscripts may be typewritten or computer generated; manuscripts accepted for publication are requested on computer disk (Microsoft Word or WordPerfect preferred) or by electronic submission. Article and review manuscripts must be double-spaced throughout and prepared in a 12-point Courier font; the footnotes must be at the end of the text and not attached electronically to the text. Each manuscript should list on the first page the article title, the author(s), and addresses, including telephone, fax, and e-mail.

Articles may range in length from some 3,750 to 6,250 words.

Reviews vary in length. Review Notes run from some 500 words; Mini-Reviews run from some 1,000 to 2,500 words, and Review Essays, from some 3,750 to 6,250 words.

Poems should be single spaced with clearly marked stanza breaks.

World Order is indexed in the Index of American Periodical Verse, the ATLA Religion Database, and Humanities International Complete and is a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS

Subscription Rates: U.S.A. and surface to all other countries, 1 year, US $25; 2 years, US $48. Airmail to all other countries, 1 year, US $30, 2 years, US $58. Single copies US $7 plus shipping and handling. Make checks or money orders payable to Bahá’í Distribution Service. Send address changes to and order subscriptions from the Bahá’í Distribution Service, 4703 Fulton Industrial Boulevard, Atlanta, GA 30336-2017. Telephone: 1-800-999-9019, United States and Canada; 404-472-9019, all other countries. Or, please e-mail :<subscription@usbnc.org>.

Back issues still in print may be obtained from the Bahá’í Distribution Service at the mailing address above or by e-mail at <bds@usbnc.org>. Orders for back issues on microfilm or microfiche can be obtained from National Archive Publishing Company, 300 North Zeeb Road, P.O. Box 998, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-0998 USA. Telephone: 1-800-420-6272. E-mail: <info@napubco.com>.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2007 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States; all rights reserved. World Order is protected through trademark registration in the U.S. Patent Office. Printed in the U.S.A. ISSN 0043—8804.

ART CREDITS

Cover design by Ric Doering; cover photograph of Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona, USA, Sourav Chowdhury; p. 6, photograph, courtesy National Bahá’í Archives, United States; p. 10, photograph, courtesy Steve Garrigues; p. 17, photograph, courtesy Shari Meyer; pp. 28, 48, photographs, courtesy Steve Garrigues.

[Page 1]

2006 VOLUME 38, NUMBER 1

CONTENTS

2   Consultation:

Seeking a Common Purpose

Editorial

4   Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

7   Seated on Pebbles in the Shade of Glorious

Heights at the Foot of the Tomb of Bahíyyih

Khánum, The Greatest Holy Leaf

a poem by Mary Lucas

11   A Forum: The Bahá’ís as a

Mystic Community

Jack McLean and Moojan Momen

18   The Bahá’í Chair for World Peace—

The Second Phase

an interview with John A. Grayzel

29   The Music of Poetry

an anthology of poems selected and introduced by

Herbert Woodward Martin

[Page 2]

Editorial

Consultation: Seeking a Common Purpose

As we consider the current conflicts that rage around the world, from the smallest interpersonal disputes to violent skirmishes and wars, it appears that belligerence is a defining characteristic of the human race. We dispute the placement of boundaries, the ownership of lands, the status of religious and ethnic minorities, the rights of women, and on and on. The causes of these disputes are innumerable, they are rarely simple, and they are often hopelessly intertwined. They may simmer in the background until a catalyst causes them to flare into violence or open warfare, and often they do not permanently disappear.

This is not to say that humanity has not made some progress in how it seeks to resolve conflicts among people with disparate and conflicting needs and desires. In theory, at least, we are moving away from acceptance of brute force as the inevitable method of solving disputes: Witness the creation of numerous regional and international organizations (the United Nations being the most obvious example) designed to avoid future conflagrations.

New forms of resolving conflicts have also evolved. In the last decades of the twentieth century, for example, mediation became popular as a means of settling disputes. In many ways this was an enormous step forward for disputants because mediation allows greater access to “justice” for more people, and it seeks to find reasonable solutions; it is not a “winner-take-all” system. Bilateral and multilateral talks and summits have also become fairly standard means of opening dialogue and attempting to head off potentially bloody situations.

Although compromise is preferable to fighting, it is nonetheless based on a premise of opposition: Each party to a compromise may give up something it wants—but only in exchange for a concession from the other party. Furthermore, as the current state of the world clearly demonstrates, settlements and negotiated truces tend to be fragile and to fail as soon as one party begins to feel that the balance of “fairness” so hard won may have started to tip in favor of the other party.

Conflict exists and will likely always exist because there is no perfect agreement between even two people, much less among and between diverse groups. The Bahá’í teachings clearly recognize this fact, but they also exhort humanity to move not only beyond force but beyond mere compromise. Shoghi Effendi stated that we “must learn to forget personalities and to overcome the desire—so natural in people— to take sides and fight about it” and “must also learn to really make use of the great principle of consultation.”

Consultation starts with listening to the views of others. Whereas the point of [Page 3] dialogue, as we generally know it, is to allow people to air their opinions and then try to persuade others to agree, consultation in the Bahá’í view “must have for its object the investigation of truth.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains that the person who “expresses an opinion should not voice it as correct and right but set it forth as a contribution to the consensus of opinion. . . .” Furthermore, He insists that every person “should carefully consider the views already advanced by others” and, further still, if “he finds that a previously expressed opinion is more true and worthy, he should accept it immediately and not willfully hold to an opinion of his own.”

True consultation is not easy. It requires people “to regard themselves as the guardians appointed of God for all that dwell on earth.” In that light, people are obliged, when making any decision, to consider the well-being of humanity. In consultation, each party must freely express his opinion, inasmuch as “the shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions”—but the parties are required to “proceed with the utmost devotion, courtesy, dignity, care and moderation to express their views.”

The purpose of consultation is thus twofold: It leads all parties to a better understanding of an issue or problem (which in turn allows a better-informed decision), and it serves to unite people in a common undertaking. It encourages the voicing of opinions but “depersonalizes” them—every idea expressed in consultation is considered by all the parties but without regard to its origin, and parties to a consultation must be willing to alter their positions if reason so requires.

There is no requirement or even expectation that every decision reached by consultation be right or true in an absolute sense. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains that, if consulting parties

agree upon a subject, even though it be wrong, it is better than to disagree and be in the right. . . . Though one of the parties may be in the right and they disagree that will be the cause of a thousand wrongs, but if they agree and both parties are in the wrong, as it is in unity the truth will be revealed and the wrong made right.

Thus the outcome of a genuinely consultative process will by definition always be a success because the very process of agreeing to agree is beneficial to all parties involved.

In an interview included in this issue, John Grayzel, who holds the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland, observes that even today most conflict resolution techniques “are based on the presumption that people are fundamentally motivated only by their own interests. Rarely do they accept the idea that people can truly rise above their own interests and find a common, higher purpose.” But, as Grayzel asks, “Why isn’t there a way in which we can look at our common purposes and find common solutions?”

To many people, Grayzel’s View may seem hopelessly idealistic. But at a time when genocide rages, when ethnic and religious conflicts flare, when the rights of women and minorities are denied, when negotiated settlements crumble in the blink of an eye, what is so unrealistic about asking people to look at solutions that involve a greater good for a wider circle of people?

What choice do we have?

[Page 4]

Interchange

Letters from and to the Editor

Editorials are generally thought of as one-time comments on a current or special event. But the editorial in this issue completes a trilogy of editorials aimed at encouraging us to look at our troubled world and at some of the qualities needed for bringing unity of thought and action to the problems facing humankind.

“Never Again? The Genocide in Darfur” (Vol. 37, No. 3) focused on the situation in Darfur as “symptomatic” of the response of the “‘community’ of nations” to “massive suffering and injustice.” The editorial situated the cause of war and violence in prejudice, despite the fact that “all humanity comes from one God, Who favors no person or race or nation above another.” It ends with a plea that we “address the underlying issues that plague humanity: prejudice, poverty, hunger, ignorance, and lack of education.” The plea is based on an assertion in the Bahá’í writings that we must constantly strive to give human beings a complete education that will cause all peoples “to progress and to increase in science and knowledge, to acquire virtues, to gain good morals and to avoid vices, so that crimes will not occur.”

The second editorial, “Civility, Society, and Individual Freedom” (Vol. 37, No. 4), explored the true meaning of civility, which is “rooted in the concept of citizenship, of belonging to a political community,” and involves the individuals being a “‘source of social good.’” Expanding on the Darfur example in the first editorial, this one noted that “As long as people continue to divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ as long as they feel threatened or excluded, civility will not be extended beyond ‘our’ world.” To stop in its tracks the kind of confrontation of which Darfur is a horrific example, we need to redefine “who belongs to our community.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá exhorts us to “behold no man as different from ourselves.” When we make “that change in our thinking,” the editorial concludes, “should we see every human being as part of our community and not as an outsider, we would find civility far easier to practice.”

“Consultation: Seeking a Common Purpose,” the editorial in this issue, completes the trilogy by positing consultation as the vocabulary and process for a new type of communication about peoples and nations. While recognizing changes in how human beings solve problems (brute force has been replaced with conflict resolution, mediation, bilateral and multilateral talks and summits), most, if not all, methods are still based on compromise. The Bahá’í writings offer consultation as the means to problem solving in this age—a method that teaches us “to forget personalities and to overcome the desire . . . to take sides and fight about it.” Consultation involves listening to each other, encouraging the voicing of opinions but depersonalizing them, investigating truth, considering the well-being of humanity.

The editorial ends with a question that draws together the themes of the [Page 5] three editorials: “at a time when genocide rages, when ethnic and religious conflicts flare, when the rights of women and minorities are denied, when negotiated settlements crumble in the blink of an eye, what is so unrealistic about asking people to look at solutions that involve a greater good for a wider circle of people?”

* * *

A jewel in this issue is a photograph of the monument marking the grave of Bahíyyih Khánum, known as the Greatest Holy Leaf. The daughter of Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, she was His constant companion and helper. He bestowed on her the “rank of one of the most distinguished among thy sex” and granted her a “station such as none other woman hath surpassed.” After the passing of her father in 1892, Bahíyyih Khánum devoted herself to helping her brother ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Whom Bahá’u’lláh had appointed the Center of His Covenant. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá referred to her with terms of affection and endearment: “O my well-beloved, deeply spiritual sister!”; “O thou my affectionate sister!”; “My honored and distinguished sister”; “Oh my well-beloved sister, O Most Exalted Leaf.” After ‘Abdu’l-Bahá passed away in 1921, Bahíyyih Khánum, then seventy-five, rendered great services to Shoghi Effendi, Bahá’u’lláh’s great-grandson and her great-nephew, whom ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had appointed in His Will and Testament the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith. When the Greatest Holy Leaf passed away in 1932, Shoghi Effendi, in a July 17, 1932, letter addressed to the “Brethren and fellow-mourners in the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh” (published in Bahá’í Administration, pp. 187-96) penned his tribute to “the well-beloved and treasured Remnant of Bahá’u’lláh entrusted to our frail and unworthy hands by her departed Master [‘Abdu’l-Bahá].” We offer the photograph and a poem written by Mary Lucas as a tribute on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf.

* * *

This issue is rounded out by three disparate pieces. The first is a forum, including Jack McLean and Moojan Momen, in which a reader and the author discuss aspects of Momen’s article “The Bahá’ís as a Mystic Community” (Vol. 37, No. 4).

Second, we offer an interview with John A. Grayzel, the second holder of the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland. Grayzel discusses the challenges and opportunities the Bahá’í Chair faces as it moves into its second phase of development.

Third, we present “The Music of Poetry,” an anthology of poems selected and introduced by Herbert Woodward Martin, World Order’s poetry editor. The anthology, the seventh in World Order’s history, includes thirteen poems by eleven poets, all devoted to creating and enhancing the music of poetry.

* * *

Finally, we draw your attention to the informative Faith and the Arts Web site, www.faithandthearts.com. The site explains that “Faith and the Arts was developed to keep arts professionals and educators informed about relevant issues related to religion in their work.” It “provides access to research papers, editorials, opinion, news coverage, case studies and event listings exploring the relationship between art and faith” and “easy-to-read information on the following religions: Bahá’í, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jain, Judaism, Rastafari and Sikhism.”

[Page 6]

In Commemoration of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Passing of

BAHÍYYIH KHÁNUM,
THE GREATEST HOLY LEAF
1846-1932

[Page 7]

Seated on Pebbles in the Shade of Glorious Heights
at the Foot of the Tomb of
Bahíyyih Khánum,
the Greatest Holy Leaf

Radiant Leaf
Like a ray of sun
A fountain of pillars
Spilling upwards into a
Resplendent Ark
Of World Order

I.

The kings have begun to become humble,

Samoa’s speaking of rocky slopes of humanity,

Like Carmel, becoming transformed.

I wish i could become humble

Like the rocks, sliding down under the pilgrims’ feet

To be pulled back by the

Tide of a service volunteer’s rake,

So they can fall down again

In their servitude around the

Tomb in the shadow of

God’s Holy Arc.

This morning, envoy from each nation

First to walk up Terraces devoted to

The Báb,

Herald of Bahá’u’lláh, the

Promised One of All the Ages

Sounded trumpet blast!

Wake up, humanity, wake up!

Seek out solutions to your turmoil

By turning to Mt. Carmel in

The city of Haifa.

Direct your steps towards the terraces and

Ascend, world leaders, rulers,

Statesmen.

Drop the cloak of nationalism and

Conceit, and step into your

New attire of working for all

The peoples of the world’s good.

[Page 8] II.

Rubbing two rocks together in her path,

Worth more than a ruby, a diamond,

Whatever the jewel,

Holding one pebble from her path

In one’s palm,

More precious than a pearl created

In largest of cream colored shells

Oh, thy spirit!
Greatest Holy Leaf.
Oh, thy heart!
Greatest Holy Leaf.
Oh, Beloved of Bahá,
Oh, thy soul!
Oh, Light of all women!

How was it possible for you to bear the odious behavior of

Mírzá Yaḥyá?

How was it possible to hear, your baby brother’s body

Wrapped in a shroud and delivered into strangers’ hands

To be buried no one knew where?

How was it possible to bear separation from Bahá’u’lláh?

How was it possible to bear illness, stench and

All the pain, the shame of the faithless

garbed as the good? . . .

Oh, thou solace of the eyes
Of our Beloved Guardian,
Sweetness forever,
Strength forever,
Fortitude

Upon the Master’s death, you took the

Keys

Of the Master’s house,

And when the Covenant breakers came,

They found that this threshold, and

Therefore all the rest,

Were not theirs, but the youthful

Guardian’s.

[Page 9]

Your acts, acts for all women to follow;

Your circumspective vision born of

Long-suffering, compassion for the

Weak, compassion for the wronged,

And in propitious moments, action

Swift and sure.

III.

Many beaten women

Follow you

Into eternity, like birds migrating into

A setting sun that will dawn into

A New Day.

Two stones rubbed together in thy path,

Now the one warm with the heat of

The palm of my hand,

The other fresh and cool, here in the pines

Oh Bahíyyih Khánum!
Oh Greatest Holy Leaf!
Lift this suffering from womankind!
Awaken us, women and men!

A fountain of rock
Pillars of strength

Make us servants of His New World-
Embracing Order!

—MARY LUCAS

Copyright © 2007 by Mary Lucas.

MARY LUCAS, a teacher and translator, teaches English as a second language at Ave Maria College of the Americas in San Marcos, Carazo, Nicaragua.

[Page 10]

[Page 11]

A Forum: The Bahá’ís as a Mystic Community

Occasionally World Order publishes an article that prompts considerable response. Moojan Momen’s “The Bahá’ís as a Mystic Community,” printed in Vol. 37, No. 4, is one such article. Ordinarily, we publish letters to the editor in our Interchange feature. Because of the length of the letter and of the response, we are departing from our usual format and are publishing the exchange as a forum.

THE EDITORS

JACK MCLEAN, Ottawa, Canada

I was very interested to read Dr. Moojan Momen’s “The Bahá’ís as a Mystic Community” in the 2006 (37:4) issue of World Order. Dr. Momen has employed a multifaceted approach to elucidate aspects of Islamic mysticism, world religions, and Bahá’í spirituality to make his argument. His article has the added feature of two provisional translations from Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet of Unity. The paper offers a radical redefinition of mysticism by which the traditional understanding of mysticism as a personal individual quest has been superseded by the entire Bahá’í community as “mystic.” He rightly argues that Bahá’u’lláh has largely discredited the lifestyle of certain mystics and/or mystical practices—his example is a degenerate Sufism, although not exclusively—and that Bahá’u’lláh’s laws, teachings, and administrative order have largely replaced the need for mystical and spiritual practices as they have existed previously in the world’s religions. Instead, Momen argues (on page 38 in his article) that mysticism is “not so much a state to be achieved as a process of acquiring divine attributes that aids one in the process of becoming more God-like.” If the paper intends this new model to be a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, the old model, this position has not been made Clear, at least to this reader. The basic thrust of the paper is to make a major shift from the individual to the community.

Although Dr. Momen’s paper is well-researched and instructive, its basic thesis is not, in my view, convincing. But before I register my reservations about the novelty of the argument he makes, I will first indicate those points with which one may wholeheartedly agree. It is, of course, beyond dispute that Bahá’u’lláh has abolished both priesthood and monasticism, which have been the traditional locus of mystical practices. This consequential reorientation in religious life has had the major consequences that Dr. Momen discusses in turn: the abolition of hierarchical structures and with it the master-disciple relationship; private, oral, sometimes esoteric or secret teaching by a master to a student; total submission to the authority of a religious leader; practices that induce altered states of consciousness; antiworldliness, antisocial, bizarre or degenerate behavior; mendicancy, asceticism, and confession of sins.

[Page 12] However, Dr. Momen writes that “Bahá’u’lláh did give His qualified assent to a number of practices used by mystics” (p. 33). He gives the example of dhikr or mantras: the gathering together to chant sacred verses to remember the Divine. Prayer and meditation also figure into these practices. Their use is given full endorsement, within the bonds of moderation. In the past, he argues, mysticism has been confined to organized minorities in religious orders, but today Bahá’u’lláh “has brought mysticism forward to a central role”; “the communal aspect of mysticism, the organization of the Bahá’ís as a mystic community, is where Bahá’u’lláh sets a direction that is radically different from existing mystical systems” (p. 16).

As I see it, there are at least three problems with this argument: (1) the novelty of the definition of community mysticism itself; (2) the downgrading, whether intentional or not, of the individual’s mystical experiences; and (3) the neglect of the synergistic relationship that must exist between the individual and the community, whether this relates to the new community mysticism he proposes, or other questions. By focusing on community experience, individual experience has been neglected by default, whereas it should be an essential feature of the discussion.

I will consider these points globally. It seems to me that one cannot subsume mysticism, as it has been understood for centuries, to an ill-defined mystical community experience that comes with consultation and study circles or even with the development of essential spiritual virtues. One may be spiritual without being in the least mystical, at least as the word is normally understood. However necessary it is to practice consultation, to develop Bahá’í spirituality, and to participate in study circles, and however inspiring these activities may prove to be, one cannot qualify these elements of religious life as being fundamentally mystical, unless one redefines the word in a way that makes it practically unrecognizable.

After rereading Dr. Momen’s paper carefully, I am still haunted by this question: Did Bahá’u’lláh intend to create a worldwide mystical community at all? His writings advocate, rather, the manifestation of essential spiritual virtues, not essential mystical virtues such as self-abstraction, absorption in the Divine, the death of self, ecstasy, and so on. This is not mere semantical hairsplitting. While certain elements of mysticism, such as universal divine love, prayer, and meditation help to constitute faith and spirituality, it does not follow that mysticism is at the heart of Bahá’í community experience. By definition, mysticism is a type of peak experience. It is not a steady state, whereas faith and spirituality may, and should be, lived as constants. In this sense, practical spirituality trumps rarefied mysticism, whether one refers to the individual or the community.

In retaining the basic connection between meditation and prayer and “‘that mystical feeling that unites man with God,’” as being at the heart of the faith-state, it seems to me that Shoghi Effendi has validated the essential tools that may lead to individual mystical experience (p. 16). The link between faith and mysticism given by Shoghi Effendi through his secretary is not actually new. It retains the perennial elements of the mystical quest. This essential quote has been cited in part by Dr. Momen but it needs revisiting in full:

For the core of religious faith is that mystical feeling which unites man with God. This state of spiritual communion can be brought about and maintained by [Page 13] means of meditation and prayer. And this is the reason why Bahá’u’lláh has so much stressed the importance of worship. It is not sufficient for a believer merely to accept and observe the teachings. He should, in addition, cultivate the sense of spirituality which he can acquire chiefly by means of prayer (letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to a Bahá’í, December 8, 1935, in Compilation of Compilations No. 1704).

The passage is, of course, a definition of faith, not of mysticism. And it needs to be stressed that the mention of “mystical feeling” refers to the individual’s spiritual life, not to collective worship. It points to mysticism, more exactly, mystical feeling along with prayer and meditation, as being at the heart of religious faith. Thus mysticism has to be seen within the larger context of both faith and spirituality.

Bahá’ís would generally agree that one should not attempt to force, outside the prescribed means, a self-generated mystical happening. True mystical experiences, as Shoghi Effendi has written through his secretary, are essentially God-originated, not self-generated: “If we are going to have some deeply spiritual experience we can rest assured God will vouchsafe it to us without our having to look for it” (letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to a Bahá’í, October 25, 1942, in Compilation of Compilations No. 1742). Theistic varieties of mysticism also assert that true mystical experience originates with God and not with the mystic. This is virtually identical With Shoghi Effendi’s statement. While great varieties clearly exist in the types of mystical experience, the mysticism of the heart, as elucidated in Bahá’í scripture, and which is closest to the Abrahamic religions, and to Sufism in particular, remains a profound, life-altering sui generis experience, whether it happens in the dream or meditation state, or as a result of a transformation in mundane consciousness.

Bahá’u’lláh has made His readers/believers aware that this largely uncharted, inner universe of the heart does exist and that the ‘áríf (mystic knower) is capable of attaining ‘irfán (mystic knowledge) directly, rather than through a process of rational discourse. But it is understood that today, in view of the dire straits in which a divided humanity finds itself, Bahá’ís should not make the experience of this private, inner universe of the heart the whole quest of spiritual life. The Bahá’í writings, and the guidance of Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice, have established other priorities.

Another point should be made here regarding the unattainable or rare nature of mystical experience. This is perhaps one reason that has prompted Dr. Momen to democratize, so to speak, mystical experience to include the whole community. It is true that the real mystical experience is relatively rare. But if I have read Him correctly, Bahá’u’lláh also reveals that God or the mystical experience is not always unattainable, hidden and far away. He/It is close at hand: “This most great, this fathomless and surging Ocean is near, astonishingly near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you than your life-vein!” (Gleanings no. 153: 326).

We also read in a Bahá’í prayer the paradoxical statement that God is “the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden” (Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations No. 155: 248). (Paradoxical language is typical of mystical expression.) The Divine is found in the faces of our loved ones, in our ordinary, most [Page 14] mundane experiences that are perpetually entrancing, and within the deeper recesses of our own and others’ hearts. The greatest mystical poet of them all, Jalálu’d-Dín Rúmí, wrote that the light of God could shine forth from a pile of ashes. Bahá’u’lláh has made similar affirmations. God is found in the humble grain of sand or blade of grass, since every created thing enshrines one of the names and attributes of God: “Gazing with the eye of God, he will perceive within every atom a door that leadeth him to the stations of absolute certitude. He will discover in all things the mysteries of divine Revelation and the evidences of an everlasting manifestation” (Kitáb-i-Íqán par. 217: 181).

Another point needs to be considered. Some of the greatest mystics have always understood that the mystical life must lead to service of others. The Bahá’ís did not invent this truth for it is an ancient one. To cite but two examples: St. Francis of Assisi practiced what we would call today “peaceful conflict resolution” by mediating between feuding Italian noble families and bringing them to reconciliation. St. Vincent de Paul, who was admired even by the atheist Voltaire, directed his missionaries to ransom some twelve hundred mainly Christian slaves who had been seized by Ottoman privateers from the Barbary coast (North Africa) after they were abducted from their Mediterranean coastal towns. In doing so, he helped to clear the Mediterranean of pirates. Historically, mystics have established hospitals and schools and have counseled troubled souls. Dr. Momen’s article leans too heavily on the objectionable or negative aspects of the mystic’s life.

It stands to reason that this experience of the mystical community that Dr. Momen advocates can be no more nor less mystical than the individual members who comprise it. While this line of reasoning cannot be developed within these limits, one may safely assert that the existence of a mystical community demands the presence of individual members who are themselves “mystical,” however one chooses to define that term. These two poles—the individual and the community— are, in fact, inseparable. In making an argument in favor of the newly defined, mystical community, Dr. Momen has, by default, minimized the importance of the individual’s experience that must contribute to the experience of the community. For, if it is true that Bahá’u’lláh has given us a new definition of community mysticism, it should follow that He has, at the same time, given a new definition of the individual’s mystical quest, rather than abolishing it. This new definition is found, of course, in The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys and in other mystical writings that He has revealed. Yet, we are still far from attaining even a basic understanding of these writings of Bahá’u’lláh, as the scholarly literature attests.

In closing, let me say that I agree with Dr. Momen that the Bahá’í community may experience, at special times, certain forms of “mystical” experience, through the dynamics of consultation, by participating in the sacred moment of listening to the holy utterances at the Nineteen Day Feast, at momentous conventions and conferences, and perhaps even in the study circles that he mentions. At these rareified moments, the individual feels at one with his coreligionists. To be at one—with God, with self, with one’s fellows, with one’s universe is the essence of mysticism. Dean William Ralph Inge of St. Paul’s cathedral in London wrote in his Mysticism in Religion: “Mysticism is the immediate feeling of the unity of the self with God” [Page 15] (p. 25). But I struggle with the notion that this definition may be applied to a community experience, however desirable that may be.

MOOJAN MOMEN, Northill, England

I would like to thank Jack McLean for taking an interest in my article “The Bahá’ís as a Mystic Community.” I apologize if there was any ambiguity in what I wrote. I had not meant to imply in my article that I thought that the individual aspect of Bahá’í mysticism was unimportant and certainly not that somehow the communal aspects “superseded” individual mysticism. I could have written about individual mysticism as well as the communal aspects of mysticism, but that would have expanded the article into a book.

As I have indicated in the article, however, I think it would be difficult to find anything in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh on mystical themes that has not been presaged in the writings of the mystics of the past. This statement is entirely in accord with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s division of religion into two aspects: the spiritual and the social. The spiritual does not change from age to age and from religion to religion, while the social changes from one religion to the next on account of human social development. No human activity is carried out in a social vacuum, and all of the mystics of the past have developed some way of organizing themselves and their communities so that they are better able to engage in their quest. It is here, in the social organization of mystical communities, that Bahá’u’lláh differs radically from the mystics of the past (as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statement would predict), and it is the delineation of the features of this aspect on which I have concentrated in my article. The fact that I have concentrated on this innovative aspect of the Bahá’í Faith in this article in no way diminishes the importance of the individual aspect of mysticism—and I refer to this individual aspect both at the beginning and end of the paper—but it is simply not the subject of the article. That I have not written about individual mysticism does not imply that I think it is unimportant; it only implies that I have chosen to focus on something else.

The article is certainly not advocating the replacement of individual mystical experience with “an ill-defined mystical community experience.” While I do not deny that gathering together in a spirit of unity might lead to a mystical experience, that is not what my article was about. Far from the article’s advocating the creation of a communal experience, it is, in fact, talking about the functioning of the community as an aid to the individual’s personal mystical progress. The article does not suggest, for example, that the activities of consultation lead directly to mystical experience (although they may do so) but that the dynamics of the process assist in developing spiritual and mystical qualities in the individual.

With regard to “dhikr or mantras: the gathering together to chant sacred verses to remember the Divine,” McLean implies that I have said that “Their use is given [Page 16] full endorsement, within the bonds of moderation.” I did not intend to give this impression. I think that, if Bahá’u’lláh had thought that such activities are conducive to human spiritual progress, he would have made participation in them a law. Instead he has merely said that those who wish to may engage in them. Thus I would describe Bahá’u’lláh’s endorsement as “half-hearted” rather than “full.”

McLean makes a distinction between spiritual virtues and mystical virtues, describing the latter thus: “essential mystical virtues such as self-abstraction, absorption in the Divine, the death of self, ecstasy, and so on.” I would rather say that the quest of the true mystic, which he describes as “the death of the self” or “self-abstraction” is identical to the spiritual goal, laid out by Bahá’u’lláh, of detachment from earthly things, while the mystic goal of “absorption in the Divine” can only be achieved by acquiring the spiritual attributes that Bahá’u’lláh urges upon us. Other ways of achieving this goal (such as chanting mantras or dhikr) may produce altered states of consciousness, but this is actually a physiologically produced mental state, not a drawing closer to God. The only way of drawing closer to God is to become more God-like by acquiring the divine attributes.

McLean also defines mystical experience as a type of “peak experience” and writes of “the unattainable or rare nature of mystical experience.” In fact one survey of 487 cultures and societies found that 90 percent of them had one or more institutionalized, culturally patterned forms of producing an altered state of consciousness, and these were usually interpreted in a religious or mystical manner. Thus I see religious experience as a spectrum, at one end of which are the “peak experiences” and visions of the saints and mystics and then a gradual gradation of less intense experiences along the spectrum.

Perhaps the main underlying difference between Jack McLean’s approach to mysticism and mine revolves around a conceptual issue. He regards mystical experience as a specific event that occurs one or more times in a person’s life. It is entirely unsought and occurs only by the grace of God. I tend to regard mysticism more as a process, a path that is traveled by the mystic. Progress along the path requires the active acquisition of the divine qualities that increase our capacity to be a receptacle of the grace that God continually pours on all humankind. Thus progress along the path is a joint and interactive process involving action by both the Divinity and the individual. These two points of view are not mutually exclusive. I am sure that McLean will admit that mystical progress is also a valid concept, and I certainly do not deny that mystical “peak experiences” occur. The difference is that which one regards as being of prime importance. While most mysticisms of the past, especially in Christianity, have concentrated on the “peak experiences,” I would suggest that the model of mysticism advocated by Bahá’u’lláh concentrates on the concept of mystical progress (being the acquisition of Divine qualities that draw one ever closer to the Divinity).

[Page 17]

[Page 18]

BETTY J. FISHER, MONIREH KAZEMZADEH, ROBERT H. STOCKMAN

The Bahá’í Chair for World Peace—
The Second Phase: An Interview with
John A. Grayzel

On January 8, 2006, John A. Grayzel became the second person to hold the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland. Established in 1993, the Bahá’í Chair is the first such Chair in the world, and a part of the University’s Center for International Development and Conflict Management. Grayzel brings to it a rich and varied background that includes a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in anthropology (Columbia University and the University of Oregon); a degree in Oriental studies (Columbia University); a law degree with associated studies in psychiatry (Stanford University); teaching international development, applied anthropology, and African studies at several universities in the United States and abroad; publications on conflict, ethnic identity, land tenure, and resource management; and U.S. Senior Foreign Service responsibilities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a number of other countries worldwide. Three of World Order’s editors sat down with Grayzel during the 2006 annual meeting of the Association for Bahá’í Studies in San Francisco, California, to talk about his vision for the work of the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace as it enters its second phase.

—THE EDITORS

Copyright © 2007 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States.

BETTY J. FISHER
The Managing Editor of World Order, holds a Ph.D. in medieval English literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and has taught at several universities. The General Editor of the Bahá’í Publishing Trust from 1971 Through 1995, she serves on the Editorial Board of the Bahá’í Encyclopedia Project and has been a member of World Order’s Editorial Board since 1968.

MONIREH KAZEMZADEH
is an editor for CTB/McGraw Hill and a member of the Editorial Board of World Order. She holds a degree in history from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has worked in the international law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton.

ROBERT H. STOCKMAN
an instructor of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago, is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Bahá’í Encyclopedia Project and of World Order. He has published three books on the history of the Bahá’í Faith in North America.

[Page 19] You are the second person to occupy the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace. What, exactly, is the Bahá’í Chair?

The Bahá’í Chair for World Peace is an academic chair that was established by the University of Maryland but with funds contributed from various Bahá’í sources. The Chair serves three purposes: one, it brings Bahá’í ideas and Bahá’í models into the dialogue on peace and conflict resolution; two, it provides Bahá’ís with a venue for contributing to the area of academically based peace studies; and, three, it brings a spiritual dimension to seeking solutions both for preventing and resolving conflict. The uniqueness of the Chair is that it was established by a non-Bahá’í institution and thus represents a recognition of the Bahá’í Faith and its teachings as being worthy of consideration as a phenomenon of our times, not just as a perspective of the Faith itself.

What kind of courses has the Bahá’í Chair offered?

Dr. Suheil Bushrui, the first person to hold the Bahá’í Chair, gave quite a number of courses. Perhaps the key course he gave was on the common spiritual heritage of the human race. He continues to teach that course with the Chair’s support. That course, to me, represents the first generation of what the Chair brings that is different from most university communities. If you go to most universities and take a course on a religion, the closest you will come to an ecumenical course is comparative religion —how is Hinduism different from Judaism and so on. But Dr. Bushrui does not explore how religions are different; rather, he looks below the veneer to see how they are similar, how they are all part of a common spiritual quest and a fundamental and enduring need.

What kinds of new courses or new directions are you planning?

I am very concerned about humanity’s systematically applying its accumulated spiritual—and empirical—insights, Bahá’í and non-Bahá’í, in action. This is something the Bahá’í Faith tells us we must do. I have developed and will teach two new courses at the university. One is a foundation course on international development, and one is a course called “Creating Alternative Futures.”

The second course looks at how individuals and groups across many cultures have purposely tried to create new societies. It looks beyond utopian ideas to real-world experience, studying not only examples of such societies but also creating proposed criteria for measuring and distilling those factors that seem to correlate with short- and long-term success and sustainability. Students are then challenged to propose alternative futures, taking each of the lessons learned and showing in their proposals how they would deal with them. What the Bahá’í Chair brings to all these courses is a deep belief that we can build a positive alternative future that goes beyond conflict management. Where I see the Chair making its mark is in preventing serious conflict. Certainly we need to try to stop people from killing each other [Page 20] and to reduce the damage from conflicts. But that is not the solution. The solution is ensuring that serious conflict does not arise in the first place. For such a change to happen in the world today, one has to believe that it is possible to create an alternative future. Unfortunately, much of the world does not believe that is possible.

Even many Bahá’ís who say that they believe in an alternative future are torn between adjusting to immediate realities and living for a future they themselves may not experience in their lifetimes. What the Bahá’í Faith brings is a belief that we can build such a future. I think the Chair is challenged to demonstrate, in the course on “Creating Alternative Futures,” that it can be done, it has been done, and it can be done much more quickly than most people would think. But to make it happen, one has to believe, to have faith, that an alternate future can occur. In fact, the empirical examples support the key role of faith in the process.

How many students are involved in the Bahá’í Chair’s program?

For the Bahá’í Chair’s international development foundation course, the University allows a maximum of forty students. The figure forty is interesting because Moses Maimonides, the great twelfth-century Jewish philosopher and teacher, wrote that forty students is the maximum one should have in a class. Maybe having only forty students can be thought of as a minor universal law of education. In any case, the foundation course will have forty students. The “Creating Alternative Futures” course and Dr. Bushrui’s “Spiritual Heritage” course are both part of the University of Maryland’s Honors program and are limited to twenty students each.

How does the Bahá’í Chair fit into the life of the University of Maryland?

During the Chair’s first generation from 1995 through 2005, Dr. Bushrui represented an emerging beacon of the appropriateness for considering spiritual issues across a spectrum of pragmatic human concerns. I hope to continue that spirit. But, again, because of my different background, I hope to increase the emphasis on expressing this in collaborative programs for socioeconomic development.

Does the University of Maryland have a religious studies department?

The University has no religious studies department, which amazed me because I studied at Columbia and Stanford and taught at Boston University where there was a direct connectivity to the religious beliefs of their founders. The University of Maryland does have a Jewish Studies program, but it is very much a cultural and historic program rather than a religious one. A contribution that the Bahá’í Chair has made during the twelve years of Dr. Bushrui’s tenure was to prod the University to recognize that spirituality is a legitimate area of inquiry. Dr. Bushrui was very conscientious in trying to find a variety of opportunities to bring spiritual matters to the table. For example, he gave many lectures in other courses to bring spiritual issues to other areas of study. As a result, quite a number of people at the University of Maryland appreciate what Dr. Bushrui has done. Now that the Bahá’í Chair is entering a second phase, I see it beginning to serve as a mechanism for bringing together [Page 21] the disparate elements of the University in spiritual and empirical collaborations that focus on real-world problems.

What I bring from my past professional background is an awareness of the enormous amount of knowledge that has been generated by people who are solving problems around the world. But frequently the knowledge is not captured. Rather tragically it is lost, and learning is repeated over and over again. Individuals have solved almost all types of world problems many times over. It is the world that has not solved its problems, due, I would say, to a lack of unity. The solving has been done one by one by individuals, and the actions have not coalesced into something unified. It is like a flower that sprouts, blooms, and dies but does not produce seeds for the next generation. Similarly, the academic world is filled with immense amounts of information and repositories of knowledge that are never translated into action. There is a real shortage of bridges between knowledge and the real world. I hope that in its second phase of existence the Bahá’í Chair can serve as a venue where individuals will begin to share and work together on crafting common understandings and common approaches to solving some of the major problems that face humanity.

What do you see the Bahá’í Chair contributing to the field of development?

Let me begin concretely rather than theoretically. If the Chair is to succeed, it has to do enough to be significant while being careful not to try so much that it dissipates its energies. The Bahá’í Chair is considering areas on which to focus. One possible area is education. As you look at education in the world today, it tends to be associated with reading, writing, and perhaps vocational training. The idea of moral and spiritual education, in terms of the major, official international initiatives in play, is almost totally lacking. As soon as you mention spirituality and religion, the fear of the politics of religions arises, and people withdraw.

But you do not have to consider education complete without a spiritual perspective. In any society, in any culture in the world, the ages of early youth— ten, eleven to fifteen—are the ages of socialization. Historically, traditional cultures have handled socialization far better than most modern ones. In what are often called traditional societies, meaning societies in which established practices are seen as an adequate guide for the future, and change is seen as either something to be avoided or as a process that occurs slowly through gradual adaptation, people have had a sense of where they were and what they wanted their young people to be. Today we live in a world where few of us really know quite where our children are and even less where they are going. Not knowing that, we escape the problem by not dealing with it.

One thing the Bahá’í Faith brings is a renewed belief in the fundamental necessity of moral education as an integral part of education and the sense that, if we do not make it an integral part, it is almost better in certain cases not to educate children, in the sense of not giving them tools that will be used for nefarious practices. Thus I think the question of moral education, and particularly the education of youth, which is very problematic in our own society, is very important. Junior high school is probably the worst educational experience [Page 22] of most American children. This is partially because schools do not treat it for what it is—the critical period of socialization. Educators either treat junior high school as leftover elementary school or pre-high school. I want the Bahá’í Chair to focus on this need for positive socialization and moral education, particularly for junior youth.

By socialization I mean the processes whereby the individual is led to merge a sense of being a part of a great whole in relation to others—friends, family, community, humanity—into his or her identity. During this process individuals also internalize behaviors in accordance with the beliefs, norms, expectations, and values of their group. I purposely use the term “group” rather than society because it is the real entity of interaction. It is also why during adolescence peer relations are such powerful determinants of socialization.

Moral education is an aspect of socialization. It teaches the highest standard against which expressions of behavior are to be judged as either good or bad. Thus courage is a virtue in the sense that it is an expression of a capacity that is generally seen as desirable and to be valued. However, courage can be applied for both moral and immoral purposes. Moral education needs to engender both the capacity to act virtuously and the ability to judge the appropriateness of exercising that capacity in specific situations.

In addition to moral education for youth, what other contributions do you envision the Bahá’í Chair contributing to the field of development?

Another contribution of the Chair will be the concept of approaching problems through consultation. Even at the University of Maryland’s Center for International Development and Conflict Management, where people are dealing with conflict management, the reigning paradigm is negotiation, or perhaps sometimes arbitration, or maybe, occasionally, remediation. But all of these are binary models. It is always about somebody versus somebody else, and the object is to balance out interests so each party can walk away without beating the other up.

Or compromise?

That is right. The idea the Bahá’í Chair would like to explore is this: “How do we all come out better by working together, perhaps through something that neither of us even imagined when we started?” The nearest we get to this involves techniques called principle-based negotiation. But even when you analyze such techniques, you find that they are based on the presumption that people are fundamentally motivated only by their own interests. Rarely do they accept the idea that people can truly rise above their own interests and find a common, higher purpose. Deep consultation is another area that I hope the Chair will explore. Consultation is something that can be used in conflict resolution. It can also be useful in other arenas. For example, [Page 23] how can business work with civil society so that common goals, not differences, are stressed? It is not helpful to say: “Business is there to make a profit, and government is there to control it.” Why isn’t there a way in which we can look at our common purposes and find common solutions? Hence the idea of using consultation as the basic approach to problem solving is another area on which the Chair will focus.

Are there other areas the Bahá’í Chair might pursue?

A third area the Bahá’í Chair is interested in pursuing is the idea of spiritual indicators of development. My own experience has shown me that almost all successful development activities succeeded because they contained a spiritual aspect. I have not seen a development activity succeed where some sacrifice was not involved. Somebody, some group, just by the nature of the way human society and bureaucracy works, at some point had to say, “I am going to sacrifice my interest,” or “I am going to put my hand in my pocket and pay for it.” Unfortunately, we do not capture in our reports and assessments those spiritual acts as something that contributed to the project’s success. As a result, we do not really understand why some development projects work and why many development activities fail. To capture this moral component in action, we have to develop a systematic methodology to demonstrate that it is at play. That is something on which I hope to work. I see that not only as a contribution of the Bahá’í model of development to non-Bahá’ís but also as a contribution the Chair can make to Bahá’ís—something on which the Chair can help the Bahá’ís work among themselves. The fact is that, if we are to demonstrate the value of Bahá’í models, we have to be more disciplined and more systematic in being able to show exactly what Bahá’ís do. This is something we have been too weak in doing. There are fabulous Bahá’ís with development experiences about which people tell stories, but most Bahá’ís cannot explain the stories in a way that would enable someone else to take the project and create even a rough blueprint of it, and replicate its success.

I also think Bahá’ís need to be a little less egocentric. We need to accept that, in addition to things that Bahá’ís do, there is a Bahá’í way of doing things that can be done by non-Bahá’ís. Bahá’í models can be and are being implemented by non-Bahá’ís. We should be ready to recognize those as well. I think that is a challenge for organizations such as the Association for Bahá’í Studies. Should the Association for Bahá’í Studies exist only so that Bahá’í scholars may talk to each other, or should it exist so that people—Bahá’ís and non-Bahá’ís—can begin to look more deeply at the Bahá’í way of doing things?

It sounds as if, in part, you hope to realize the goals of the Bahá’í Chair in future course offerings. What other approaches will he used?

I am going to try to avoid preparing a smorgasbord. In the activities, such as spiritual indicators, the Chair will try to create a program of serious academic study. It will have a teaching function, including the courses already mentioned. It will also have a facilitating function, helping in areas of common interests to put Bahá’í principles into effect, especially in applied activities. Subject to consultation with others, I would welcome [Page 24] the Chair’s becoming part of a network of Bahá’í Chairs around the world. There is a Bahá’í Chair at the University of Indore in India, and I have been talking to individuals there about its collaborating with the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland. At this Association for Bahá’í Studies conference we are also talking about opportunities in Africa. It would be very interesting if we could actually create a world situation where there were several Bahá’í Chairs or Bahá’í-inspired programs that could collaborate. The Chair in Maryland might play a central role in the sense that Maryland is a well-recognized university that could serve as the organizing core of a larger network.

What other kinds of programs are you considering for the Bahá’í Chair?

In the past the Chair has had a series of annual lectures, which have been an important part of its programs. We are looking at the possibility of changing the annual lecture into an annual dialogue. Rather than having someone come and give a presentation, we think it might be good to focus on an issue and possibly have some activities, such as a workshop focusing on the issue. Then we will have the event culminate in a dialogue, not by one speaker, but maybe two, three, or four people. We need to move beyond listening to speakers. We have to get to exchanges of ideas, to listening as well as speaking, and out of such exchanges we must create a united synthesis of the type that consultation is supposed to create. Hence one idea we are considering is making the Chair a venue for dialogue. That is what the world so desperately needs—true dialogue in search of deeper meanings.

The real challenge in academia, though, is arranging an annual dialogue in a way that will bring in all the critical actors to solve problems. There are many “dialogues” where academics talk among themselves as well as forums for practitioners to talk among themselves. But it is essential to have the academics and the practitioners—who do not talk the same language, who do not always understand one another, who frequently do not understand the people who are affected—talk to each other. Therefore, I think that the creation of consultation —the Bahá’í model of consultation that begins at the community level—is essential for a true dialogue. It does not matter what the participants’ status is or what their job is. They must learn to speak in a language everyone can understand. They must put all their ideas on the table and judge the ideas on their merit. That would be something that I would like the Bahá’í Chair to begin contributing to the academic setting. It would represent a dramatic change in the hierarchical academic model.

What else would you like to add about the Bahá’í Chair and its new directions?

I hope to practice more than preach. The Bahá’í Chair is in a period of transition, and I think there must be a fair amount of consultation about its direction. But in a year or a year and a half from now, I hope to see the program of the Bahá’í Chair representing something that is the result not only of my thoughts, the advice of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, and the desires of the University of Maryland but the product of consultation with a wide variety of people. The Chair is open to ideas about the [Page 25] participation of others, but it is a Chair, not a center. Hence, in the end it must have its clear, delineated focus and purpose. At the same time, I encourage people to look at the Chair very carefully and to share ideas and thoughts. I do hope, in the end, that the Chair can play a role in helping redefine not only Bahá’í scholarship but scholarship per se in a global world as envisioned by the Bahá’í model. The academic world is in crisis. We have had several presentations at this annual meeting of the Association for Bahá’í Studies about such problems. But sometimes I think Bahá’ís overbrand themselves. The ideas we glean from the Bahá’í writings do not always have to have the word Bahá’í in front of them. Sometimes, if Bahá’ís do not put the word Bahá’í in front of their ideas, they will find that people will be quicker to take them up. Then let them backtrack and say, “Where did that idea come from?” and find the origin. The most powerful concepts for me are the concepts of unity and consultation.

The concept of genuine dialogue is a beginning, a very exciting beginning.

Another thing I should mention is that, while the Chair depends on the financial support of the Bahá’ís, I think that Bahá’ís need to understand that their support is one of the reasons the Chair has the support of the University of Maryland. Precisely because the Chair has the respect and the support of the larger Bahá’í community, individuals at the University said, “There is no other program at this University where such a wide group of people supports a focused program apparently remote from their individual interests or immediate circumstances.” It is obvious why the state of Maryland supports the University of Maryland; and it is obvious why local companies support the University’s technology programs. But why are Bahá’ís in California giving money for a Bahá’í Chair in Maryland? Why does the U.S. National Spiritual Assembly provide support? That, to the University of Maryland, says there is something there that other programs do not have. There is a commitment and a vision rarely seen. From a Bahá’í perspective, I would call this a certitude of purpose. Hence one of the things I hope to do is to encourage the Bahá’ís to support the Bahá’í Chair. That does not always mean money. I mean that Bahá’ís need to participate in the activities of the Chair. It has an amazing effect on people. Recently I have been revisiting Roman history. As you probably know, Shoghi Effendi avidly studied Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The most interesting thing I have learned is that, if you study the Roman Empire before it became Christian —through the documents of commentators on the Christian religion that were written at the time—increasingly you see comments about the Romans noticing that the most notable thing about the Christians was their certitude in their faith. Even as the Romans were persecuting the Christians, this phenomenon of certitude of faith fascinated them. I think that we, as Bahá’ís, have to realize that how we act, how we support our activities, how dedicated we are to our beliefs are actions that people watch closely. Such actions may be the one [Page 26] “teacher” that is more important than any other. It is in this spirit that I hope that people will support the Chair.

Does the Bahá’í Chair have a Web site where one can find information on the programs?

Web sites always take much longer than one anticipates. I am hoping we will have our new Web site (http://www.bahaipeacechair.org) up by September [2006]. It will be dramatically different from the current site. It is being designed not just to publicize the Chair but to be very dynamic, to bring people to the Chair and to invite their interaction with it. It will have a calendar of events and a section for engaging the Chair. Our goal is to make the Web site one that teaches and explains, that helps one understand what the Bahá’í Chair is doing.

At some point, since the Chair was created to share Bahá’í experience, we hope to have a section on the Web site where there could be a standardized presentation and a synthesis of Bahá’í development project experiences. What type of activity shaped the project? Why is it considered to be successful—or not? What were the lessons learned?

Since we are conducting this interview during the 2006 annual meeting of the Association for Bahá’í Studies, it seems appropriate to ask what role you see the Bahá’í Chair playing in the development of Bahá’í scholarship.

The Bahá’í Chair’s contribution to the development of Bahá’í scholarship is a delicate and sensitive matter because the University of Maryland is a state university. The Chair is not a Chair in faith-based Bahá’í studies, nor is it a Chair in faith-based Bahá’í scholarship. In fact, the holder of the Chair does not have to be a Bahá’í in terms of his or her own religious convictions. But, by logic and agreement, the holder of the Chair has to be someone with a deep understanding of the Bahá’í Faith, its teachings and activities. Thus one carefully tries to avoid making a direct connection between the activities of the Bahá’í Chair and Bahá’í scholarship. The Bahá’í aspect of the Chair is to bring the Bahá’í experience, together with Bahá’í philosophy and Bahá’í insights, to play in working with others of all persuasions. That, I feel, is one of the powers of the Chair—a link to the non-Bahá’í world and a link to the non-Bahá’í academic world in general. As far as is possible, the Chair seeks to translate concepts and understandings of the Bahá’í Faith expressed in Bahá’í terms into concepts and understandings that are understandable to the non-Bahá’í community.

This is precisely the contribution to Bahá’í scholarship the Chair can make. For example, the Editors of World Order frequently find that Bahá’í authors are unable to find a bridge between Bahá’í concepts and their chosen disciplines. If you can occasionally, as a part of the Chair’s programs, invite Bahá’ís to give talks that are not directly on the Faith but that relate Bahá’í principles to secular topics, such presentations would help Bahá’ís develop a new consciousness of serious scholarship that would bring the Bahá’í teachings to the larger community.

That is certainly a possibility and a challenge for Bahá’ís. That is where the Chair represents something unique by providing an opportunity for the non-Bahá’í [Page 27] world to say, “This is something worthy of our consideration because it makes logical and empirical sense.” Of course, that means the Chair does, in some sense, bring them in to study the Faith, but that is an ancillary consequence. There is a certain irony to this. I first heard about the Bahá’í Faith in Mauritania where I was working as an anthropologist. I became interested in the Bahá’í Faith as a social phenomenon through Richard and Mona Grieser, a Bahá’í couple who were living there. “Every major change in human civilization,” I observed, “corresponds to a major reconfiguration of spiritual understanding or religious organization.” Then I noted: “There is something about this Faith that seems to have the functional components that are needed at this time. This could be a real opportunity.” For example, we do not really have any extensive records about Christianity until a century or two after Jesus’ passing. For the older religions we have even fewer records. For Islam we have more, but they were still written largely after the act or are more highly “edited.” Therefore, I became interested in the Faith, saying, “Maybe I will study this Faith because it would be interesting to see if I could identify the embryonic emergence of the new religion, of a new world order.” Then I became interested in the Faith per se. And I said to myself: “I can’t become a Bahá’í because, if I become a Bahá’í, I will no longer be able to write anything as an anthropologist on the functionality of the Bahá’í Faith because scholars will say, ‘You’re just a Bahá’í. So . . . you’re rationalizing the religion to preach it.” I actually considered, “Maybe I shouldn’t become a Bahá’í until I write this book.” But I did become a Bahá’í . . .

Did you ever write the book?

No, precisely for that reason. I didn’t think it would have independent objectivity. But one of the purposes of the Chair is to get scholars who are not Bahá’ís and scholars from other religions interested in looking at what the Bahá’í Faith is talking about—scholars from other religions, I am hoping. I think that a large number of Bahá’ís have all experienced the amazing phenomenon that, once you become a Bahá’í, you suddenly learn more about your past religion than you ever knew when you were a member of that religion. I think that would be true of those from other faiths who studied the Bahá’í writings with an open mind, even if only to reflect on their understanding of their own faith.

In summary, what do you want us to remember about this second phase of the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace?

During this second phase I hope to make the Chair an enduring presence with the capacity for bringing unity to disparate efforts in the search for deeper meaning and to have this work contribute directly to furthering a new, more just world order.

Thank you, Dr. Grayzel, for sharing your vision for the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace. We very much hope that we can interview you again in a year or year and a half to hear how your programs are developing and how the Chair is changing in the second phase of its development.

[Page 28]

[Page 29]

The Music of Poetry

Poetry is a stepchild to which few in the West want to tender affection, and yet, despite its generally being dismissed, it still flourishes. Sometimes, in practice, it is poorly executed, but then there are those rare moments when inspiration and persistence produce works of unimaginable brilliance. That is what has taken place with this gathering of eleven poets with eleven differing visions.

Poetry has the enormous ability to move each of us away from our human errors and frailty, and in so doing, to repair our damaged spirits. Although we do not always embrace or love poetry, no matter in what medium it appears, and it is generally the last thing we purchase and the last thing we borrow from the local library, yet it is the first thing that occurs to us when we experience despair or a deeper loss.

Contemporary English poetry reminds us of its two important abilities: the natural syntactical use of language as it is employed by present-day speakers and its ability to make song. Ultimately, I think that the poets chosen for this collection have lifted their senses toward song. Song is that element, in poetry, toward which all poets aim. It is at once joyous and mysterious; it is commonplace and sacred. Most readers recognize it when they encounter it, and yet they cannot always tell you what the component parts are or what the sacred combination is that makes a good or excellent poem. No one seems to possess the formula that would allow a poet to order, mix, and combine his or her words in a way that would result in effortless and continual music. Nevertheless, what the readers of this issue will discover is that the poets here have not given up experimenting with their craft. They are like the ancient alchemists who steadiiy attempted mixture after mixture, but, instead of producing gold, these poets give us music that moves heart, mind, and spirit. It is quite simply what poets have done in the past, what they are doing today, and what, I dare say, they will do in the future: They create songs.

——HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN

[Page 30]

ALBINO CARRILLO

One victory later, Huitzilopochtli regains his composure

1.

Flying over the desert twice made Huitzilopochtli think he wasn’t free—

whatever gifts he brought his sister went untouched.

You see, she couldn’t keep their father from drifting fretfully into the afterlife.

On a flat highway leading to Mixtlan, father wanted

to meet his dead wife, let her heal his bruises and scars,

show him the stars she’d found in his absence.

It’s like this—his utterly inaccessible body wouldn’t

yield to surgery or baths,

and he who waited nodding for Mictlantecuhtli to enter the room

slept dreaming of the sea, heard the voices of his ancestors

calling to him to shed his corporeal existence.

Fighting this way and that, caught against a current,

even the male nurses who emptied bag after bag of technological

potions into thickened veins couldn’t stop the old man aging—

the witches had all gone away, the switches had been turned off.

This world spinning on a thread, H. reported panic-stricken

when waking, even when seeing the sunlight push back

the hotel room’s rubber curtains—what’s anything, he’d say,

when waiting for a call to confirm this morning’s lack of progress?

For from the obsessive world of the dead

he had dreamed a retinue of doctors

waving their hoary flags in his summer windows the week before.

Frequently in the honeyed, boreal summer he’d sleep

all day to escape these bright gray clouds locking out the sun.

But at night the stars swirled in his command.

And from the pictures he made there, from the bright

discoveries he made, one was of a comet slicing heaven

like a sharp fruit knife sinking into a black plum. Free of stupidity,

this magic couldn’t heal but revealed his father’s nearing

death on a map of thick black strokes and metal roads.

You see, there is no system for understanding the singular space

between this world and the next, unless you count the spirit

hovering above us all, watching us from the world

of intricate symmetries Vibrating now in Albuquerque,

next in Las Cruces, every little rancho we’d lived in all our lives,

the furniture stacked, the oven red hot and waiting.

[Page 31] 2.

He rose to meet the weather. The only gray

hid in the vines and dry cacti tracing the hills.

As thick vowels filled his throat, as the world swept

his planetary wishes against the tinny radio voice

telling him about the end of the world,

outgrown, we’ll all go back

to the hearth, our artworks desperately needing

some fine fire to purify the vision of the serotonin-soaked.

He wanted to speak volumes. But in books

the Buddhists had taught him to be silent. He wanted to tell

how her voice that afternoon in the dark Chinese restaurant by the river

must’ve been made of star-stuff, the glittery, fantastic ultra-molecules

of life that made her to him like platinum in the sun.

Then the beast was speaking, then the beast was reeking of cold

hallways where they’d parted like awkward lovers

between two hearts, there in the hallway, surrounded by mirrors

and cheap prints of Confucius and a fat Buddha blowing smoke.

O, traveler of scared rivers, there’s a wind gusting from the north tonight that’s winter’s first!

The violent strands of summer have left us looking for new constellations to claim.

So chopping the tough hide of reality free from your true

essence is no gift. And what of father?

He met his wife in the sun-warm kitchen of the afterlife,

and gathered we who wanted nothing but the hot coffee

to fill us with bravery for the morning now rising uncontrollably

beyond us, always out of reach.

—ALBINO CARRILLO

Copyright © 2007 by Albino Carrillo.

ALBINO CARRILLO, a native New Mexican, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Mexico and a Master of Fine Arts from Arizona State University. He teaches poetry at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio.

[Page 32]

SHAHBAZ FATHEAZAM WITH GUITTY EJTEMAI

Cypress Sentinel

An English translation of the Persian poem “Sarvenaz,” written by Hushmand Fatheazam, in memory of Jinus Mahmoodi and her fellow martyrs, January 9, 1981

There you stand, cypress sentinel,

amidst perdition, forlorn,

forsaken in a foreign land.

A garden, too, its blossoms bowed,

your wayside stream once kept time, irrupt,

now swept away in barren land.

How silent the nightingale song, the cooing of mystic dove,

Only the strain of the night owl beckons,

O dweller of the wasteland.

Tree by tree courted thee,

majestic foliage regaling. And now,

dost thou kneel, huddled in golden sand.

Count upon the silver rain, arresting,

giver of life, but with no patter of drops

cloud fractions flare the homeland.

Your friends are missed in worlds elsewhere

Why persist, scion, rootless beneath the

canopy of a castaway island?

Today your legs of timber are spared

the pillage of time, yet future’s disrepair

shall unveil you bare in the woodland.

The cypress’ boughs fold as pages in reading

and sighs its counsel in measured pleading:

Scorn us not, o soulless breed,

for much we have braced,

unsuccumbed and fellowless.

[Page 33]

We trust the Gardener’s care,

this muse that heals the scars that

vex your bosom lifeless.

How dare you plough the sea

with coward heart when it’s

might that drowns all waviness.

You speak of love yet

whisper flight, the true Beloved

harrows on, relentless, breathless.

Better to be the meanest weed

and be blown into the eagle’s nest

than be the fairest petal, unfolding emptiness.

Under our patch of parched earth

dig roots deep in love’s fountain

and so resist the fury of stiff-set tempests.

Look at yourself, half-conscious pretender

And take the showers as they fall;

With cypress promenaded, steal to the heartland, one and all.

—SHAHBAZ FATHEAZAM
TRANSLATED BY GUHTY EJTEMAI

Copyright © 2007 by Shahbaz Fatheazam.

SHAHBAZ FATHEAZAM, who has lived in six countries on three continents, is a financial consultant to the health-care and educational sectors. He is a consultant to the World Bank and a guest lecturer at Catholic University in Brazil.

[Page 34]

RAY HUDSON

Working at the Used Book Sale

The book she is about to open

came from the bee keeper’s estate.

Almost a year after he died

boxes and boxes tumbled out

from his son’s pickup truck

for the library’s monthly sales.

She handles the book like any other,

unaware that perfect strangers

with arthritis and auto-immune diseases

would knock at his door.

He could harvest the stinging fruit,

had established standards for treatment.

It’s September and I wonder

what has become of his bees,

their pure measured venom?

Now what he read is being sold.

It’s foolish to think the bees

burrowed inside the bindings

hoping to find him. But I move

to alert her to the unlikely possibility

just as she opens the cover

and the words pour out like honey.

—RAY HUDSON

Copyright © 2007 by Ray Hudson.

RAY HUDSON was a public school teacher in the Aleutian Islands for more than a quarter of a century. His Family After All: Alaska’s Jesse Lee Home, a study of Methodist missionaries in a Russian Orthodox community, was published by Hardscratch Press in September 2007.

[Page 35]

Three for Robin Fowler

1

I am trying to remember what I was doing.

He was dying and I am trying to remember

what I was doing and I cannot.

I have learned he died two months ago

and if I could remember what I was doing

some appropriate emotion might surface.

Thirty years ago we shared the politics

of a small town, mutual friends, a house,

a similar comfortable reticence.

We hiked the beach road on Saturdays,

out past the dump, crossing

twenty years of landslides. Salmon berries

filled creek beds. Ground squirrels,

sleek handfuls of fury, foreigners like us,

squeaked and vanished. There was something

between us that we never touched. Hills

curled from the hawk as the hawk flew.

We scoured the curved protective shore

for Japanese floats, storm-lodged eyes of squid.

Overhead a hawk, suddenly alert, altered its arc

as waves of grass muffled a transplanted cry.

He moved to Israel, the sun, his ordinary days.

I heard he enjoyed his work with foreign currencies,

spent off-hours acting, never married, never wrote,

would visit brothers and sisters in England,

came back to the States occasionally and moved,

at last, to New Mexico, swimming, the sun, a sudden

and disastrous carcinoma. I am trying to remember

what I was doing when he died. I was living

without him. I was getting along just fine

[Page 36] 2

Irises and lupine hide.

The humpbacked violets that breed.

Below sub-arctic winds.

Anemones have gone to seed.

On the island where we lived.

A few will notice that he died.

Comparatively young. The songs.

Of longspurs intersect the hills.

Where longspurs glide.

Near the summit of a ridge.

On the island where we lived.

Wind-devoured alders cling.

Tracy, Phil, and Tim are gone.

And Helen’s bright magenta scarf.

Is folded in a drawer. His death.

Reminds me of their deaths. The town.

The island where we lived.

Their lives. The distant sun.

3

Between us the nearness of tsunamis,

the island’s isolation, earthquakes,

light glancing off Obernoi Point, off angular

fragments, shards of pumice and basalt,

boulders balancing the sea. The memory

of his voice should be enough. The long prayer

for the departed, its lyrical comforting,

inclusion of community, should be enough.

I was trained to forget but something remains

unfinished and bleeds in me deeper

than any father’s hurt as though,

after a sudden landslide, I returned

limping, exultant, a three-legged fox freed

from its trap, cauterized against forgetting.

—RAY HUDSON

Copyright © 2007 by Ray Hudson.

RAY HUDSON, who has lived for many years in the Aleutian Islands, has done oral histories about villages that disappeared from the Islands during the twentieth century. His Moments Rightly Placed: An Aleutian Memoir was published by Epicenter Press in 1998. An Aleutian Ethnography by Lucien M. Turner is forthcoming from the University of Alaska Press.

[Page 37]

DIANE LOTFI

First principles

in a world that is less

than perfect

the coffee this morning

was not so bad.

the steam pleasant,

the flavor such that

one imagined the fruit tended with care,

the beans roasted by someone who knew what he was doing—

then sent here by the aunt of a friend of a cousin

with a willing if insouciant traveler,

who packed them with his clean tux

so that everything was to hand.

in a world like that,

most things are not so bad.

—DIANE LOTFI

Copyright © 2007 by Diane Lotfi.

DLANE LOTFI is a publishing director at CTB/McGraw-Hill. Her recent work involves educational reform that, by adding elements of inquiry and investigation, allows students to explore subjects in greater depth.

[Page 38]

J. A . MCLEAN

Five Winter Haiku

I

Buzzing madly

around the room

the last fly of summer

II

Alone in the gym

with dead weights

and mute machines

III

Still as stone

one black crow

on a bare branch

IV

Down Elgin Street

north winds reap

summer’s despair

V

Smoke twirls

from chimney pots—

fugitive dancers

—J. A. MCLEAN

Copyright © 2007 by J. A. McLean.

J. A. McLEAN is an independent scholar and poet. His several publications include Dimensions in Spirituality: Reflections on the Meaning of Spiritual Life and Transformation in Light of the Bahá’í Faith.

[Page 39]

HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN

for it will come

once

like swimming

like homework

like school

like stale candy

like mouldy history

like this poem

which struggles word

by creeping word

into existence

like the hard nose turtle

gliding

once and only once

across the finish line.

—HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN

Copyright © 2007 by Herbert Woodward Martini

HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN, World Order’s poetry editor, has recently retired from the University of Dayton as its Poet in Residence. He is the subject of a 2004 critical biography entitled Herbert Woodward Martin and the African American Tradition in Poetry, published by Kent State University.

A Spare Shadow

The sweet tired cows have moved

to the farthest extent of the farm

harvesting the bountiful left-over

stubble, rope, stalks and leaves remaining.

The light side of the farm picture

is where the grass is depleted of pleasure;

the apple tree no longer furnishes fruit or shade.

There is nothing here to eat.

There is nothing here except a spare shadow,

a ghost of some former self.

—HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN

Copyright © 2007 by Herbert Woodward Martin.

HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN published in 2007 his Selected Poems: Inscribing My Name with Kent State University Press.

[Page 40]

PETER E. MURPHY

Stay to the Left Unless Passing

My daughter and I motor through South Wales,

me steering from the wrong side of the rental

as she mantra’s, “Stay to the left, Daddy,

stay to the left,” and I think of Hoover tapping

the phone of Einstein who collaborated

with Paul Robeson to eliminate lynching.

Their crusade, the Director noted,

was “Un-American.”

We scud over the Black Mountains

from Brecon, cling around cliffs as momentum

pushes us toward the edge, and inertia tugs us

back above the dingle where Robeson

played David Goliath in Proud Valley,

the film he loved most. He sang with the miners

at Eisteddford and taught them Negro sprirituals

still sung by some Welsh male choirs

and the Manic Street Preachers.

We teach the Park & Dare in Treorchy

Where Robeson booms from an old victrola,

“Wales, Wales, oh but my heart is with you”

and “All Men are Brothers” from Beethoven’s 9th,

finger paled photographs of the 1957 link-up

When he sang on the phone from Harlem to the miners

of Porthcawl over the newly dropped transatlantic cable.

Who knew this about Robeson, about the miners

who petitioned both governments seven years

to restore his passport, to “Let Robeson Sing”?

[Page 41]

Darkness drops as we drive back toward Brecon

over dragon-tail cliffs above farms where the putrid

fumes of sheep and cattle, burnt for hoof and mouth,

descend upon us, stinging our noses, our eyes.

My daughter mostly silent, whispers

”Stay to the left, Daddy, stay to the left,”

as we listen to Robeson’s refrain, “Didn’t my lord

deliver Daniel, and why not every man?”

The words rise like conditioned air

through the darkening cabin of the rented car.

—PETER E. MURPHY

Copyright © 2007 by Peter E. Murphy.

PETER E. MURPHY, the founder and director of the annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway, published The Stubborn Child with Jane Street Press in 2005. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including The Atlantic Review, The Shakespeare Quarterly, and Witness.

[Page 42]

JUNE PERKINS

Song for Martha (Tree)

By a rainbow tree in Honolulu

Rainbow languages are gently flowing

Singing, “Martha board your next canoe”

Whether she knows the next bend’s turning

Her heart is filled with a simple yearning

She is drawn to follow every rainbow

Searching the mysteries of its soul

On every continent she can only sing

Filled to the brim with her love of Him

Drawn on and on to where the next path is going

The red hues of her sacrifice growing

Her will with others does not always intertwine

But still on and on she rainbow dances

On boats, canoes, ferries, aeroplanes and trains

Each stop is a spirit travel line

That feels itself drawn to the divine.

On a train bound for glory

There’s the beginning of her next story

In each surging mob within places of unrest

She tries to see glimmers of light

The dawn of orange and yellow in her sight

In her pale blue silk dress and brown overcoat

Accompanied by one small suitcase full mostly of

books

She’ll travel the endless greens

On her way to visit Queen Marie

—JUNE PERKINS

Copyright © 2007 by June Perkins.

JUNE PERKINS, who is of Mekeo and Australian background, holds a doctorate in indigenous literature from the University of Sydney. She is a freelance writer and digital storyteller.

[Page 43]

RON PRICE

The Rose and the Hyacinth

Do you come from some cord of creation,

some melody of eternity, O Beauty?

I see you in my solitude I cry to you in my joy.

I murmur your pleasure in my grief,

in my weariest moments you are like wine

quaffed from the clearest chalice,

but not always found, not always drunk.

Your eyes are brighter than the dawn,

more breathtaking than a glorious sunset.

Your kisses are a drug intoxicating my spirit;

I can scarcely imagine your mouth without

swooning away: imagination is troubled here.

Fate is a spaniel that follows at your heel

as you seem to plant a strange and quiet

desolation of hope, as if I am called by sorrow.

Your world attracts the taste of honey

mixed with poison; the wick of your lovers,

their lives crackle and cry, embalmed in awe.

Paradise and hell are revealed in your eyes

and feet of steel in their subtlety, precious,

mysteriously they bore the weight of God.

I mirror forth your Beauty, well, I try;

I wear your robes at your wondrous fountain,

knowing my thirsty tongue shall one day

be no more. The Sun shall shine forever

with its light of Beauty from its Dawning-place

of the Divine Presence. I blush to lift up my face

to your Beauty, to your deathless tree

behind its veil of concealment,

where something eternal sings

with the melody of a nightingale

and a fragrance which goes deep.

I pass by the Beauty of this Rose

and the Hyacinth of this assembly

on the stoney, tortuous, road of my life.

—RON PRICE

Copyright © 2007 by Ron Price.

RON PRICE, a prolific poet, is a Canadian who lived and taught (primary, secondary, and post-secondary classes) in Australia for more than three decades. Now retired, he lives in Tasmania.

[Page 44]

JULIO SAVI

The Scents of the Beloved

Beijing, November 15-19, 1998

Be kind, be brave, be pure, be as

radiant as the sunlight—the Lord

of the Dawning warns his Guaymi

worshiper. Wisdoms of ancient masters

echo from the odors of untamed lands.

Let your hearts be as one heart—

the Supreme Brahman breathes

in the holy rishi, enraptured

on the banks of the river Ganges.

A scent of soma wafts from Benares.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor

as thyself—Hashem speaks unto Moses

secluded in the tent of meeting.

Whiffs of hyssop spread from

the slopes of the Temple Mount.

Assist Ārmaiti, the good dwelling

rich in pastures—Ahura Mazda enjoins

to his ecstatic bard Zarathushtra.

Balsams of noble cypress exhale

from the land of Kashmár.

An all-embracing love for all the universe—

the Unborn inspires the enlightened

Gautama on the banks of the Nairañjana.

Aromas of sandalwood float

from the pipal tree of Bodhgāya.

All within the Four Seas are brothers—

K’ung Fu-tzu teaches to his reverent

disciples gathered around him. Flavors

of eastern spices waft from the sacred

precincts Of the Temple of Heaven.

All ye are brethren and one

is your Father—the Son of God

announces among the old olive trees

of the Mount. Spirals of incense

ascend from the hills of Jerusalem.

[Page 45]

Treat the people with ease . . .

Love each other and don’t differ—

Gabriel reveals to Muḥammad.

Muskiness of eastern breeze

blows from the sands of Ḥijáz.

It is not his to boast who loveth

His country, but it is his who loveth

the world—Bahá’u’lláh admonishes

from Bahjí. Mount Carmel emanates

quintessence of cedar and rose.

—JULIO SAVI

Copyright © 2007 by Julio Savi.

JULIO SAVL a medical doctor by profession, is interested in scripture, theology, interfaith dialogue, poetry, and music. His many publications include The Eternal Quest for God; For the Sake of God: Notes on Philosophy of Religion; and Remoteness: Selected Poems. He is working on a book on Bahá’u’lláh’s Seven Valleys and Four Valleys.

[Page 46]

JIM STOKES

Resurrection

I

All the light went out of the world.

Even on the underside of rocks,

The parts that never see the sun,

Even on the dark part of the dark side of the moon,

Even within deep-water fish

Who have no eyes—

Even and all they were mourning

into the moist perpetual sand

into the astral night

nto the eyeless centers of their being:

the light has gone out of the world.

II

the stillness rose

unimaginably

as of a spirit departing

yet hovering—

indecisive

amidst the conscious fires of pain.

as if—

inexplicably—

the rock had cracked

and poured forth water onto the blood;

as if

mute darkness

had begun to keen:

“this is no sea for you”;

as if

the sightless things

had opened new eyes

as hurrying spirits passed them by;

and catching new breath

the world (as one) cried out:

“Oh, stay with me.”

And something heard.

[Page 47] III

The world grew luminous

with complexity.

tendril-covered rocks

shone with a troubled light;

darkness sang to darkness

with confused and muted harmonies;

the eyeless

yearned to see.

It was as

a gradual waking.

what could its meaning

impossibly be?

—JIM STOKES

Copyright © 2007 by Jim Stokes.

JIM STOKES, a professor of English literature at the University of Wisconsin-Stevsns Point, has published with the University of Toronto Press a two-volume work called The Dramatic Records of Somerset, a book in the Records of Early English Drama series, and is working on similar records for Lincolnshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk. With a Guggenheim Foundation grant, he is writing “The Effects of the Reformation on Traditional Culture in Somerset, 1532-1647.”

[Page 48]

[Page 49]

CALL FOR PAPERS

WANTED—SHORT ARTICLES ON THE DESTINY OF AMERICA
AND ACHIEVING WORLD PEACE
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: MARCH 1, 2008

World Order is seeking short articles (circa 1,000- 1,500 words) on the topics of the destiny of America and achieving world peace. This is your chance to write on a topic close to your heart without writing a long article that seems like a chapter for a book. Think short, tight, and focused. The topic could be poverty, education. global warming. Or tetrorism, religious tolerance, health issues, freedom from prejudice, some aspect of the advancement of women, the maturation of humankind.

To get your juices flowing, you may want to revisit Shoghi Effendi’s Advent of Divine Justice. The sections on the acquisition of qualities North American Bahá’ís need for fulfilling their destiny (pp. 16-43 in the 1990 pocket-size edition) and on “The Destiny of America” (pp. 85-90 in the same edition) are bound to give you ideas. For issues related to world peace, you may want to reread The Promise of World Peace.

In short, we invite you to write about an issue that you feel needs urgent attention—and that will contribute to the health of the nation and of the world.

Manuscript Submission Information:
For a copy of the World Order style sheet for preparing a manuscript (and other tips), send an e-mail to <worldorder@usbnc.org>, or write to the address below.

Submissions to the journal will be subject to external blind peer review if they fall outside the expertise of the Editorial Board or upon request by the author.

Manuscripts (in Word or WordPerfect) should be sent to World Order, Dr. Betty J. Fisher, Managing Editor, 7311 Quail Springs Place NE, Albuquerque, NM 87113-4780, USA or to <worldorder@usbnc.org>.

World Order has been published quarterly since 1966 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States.

[Page 50]

Forthcoming...

Robert Weinberg in “Filmmaking with a Conscience”
interviews film director Mark Bamford about his award-winning
debut film Cape of Good Hope.

Christopher Buck introduces four talks by Alaine Locke.

Peter E. Murphy reviews The Modern Elegiac Temper
by John B. Vickery.

Anne Gordon Perry reviews The Russo-Japanese War in
Cultural Perspective, 1904-05, edited by David Wells and
Sandra Wilson.

Melanie Smith reviews Taking Social Action in a Changing
World by Aaron Emmel.