Wanderings

Last night, I hosted a devotional meeting dedicated to looking at the term ‘New World’ and especially the charge to Baha’is to create a New World Order.  Naturally, we started with Columbus Day, and discussed how a New World can simply be a matter of perspective and interpretation.  Additionally, there are concerns that celebrating only this one point of view can foster prejudice against another, as the people in the video below discuss:

TeacherJay Reflections discrimination, Monday Night Devotions, New World Order, prejudice, world peace

Lauded be Thy name, O Lord my God! I entreat Thee by Thy Name through which the Hour hath struck, and the Resurrection came to pass, and fear and trembling seized all that are in heaven and all that are on earth, to rain down, out of the heaven of Thy mercy and the clouds of Thy tender compassion, what will gladden the hearts of Thy servants, who have turned towards Thee and helped Thy Cause.

Keep safe Thy servants and Thy handmaidens, O my Lord, from the darts of idle fancy and vain imaginings, and give them from the hands of thy grace a draught of the soft-flowing waters of Thy knowledge.

Thou, truly, art the Almighty, the Most Exalted, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous.

~ Bahá’u'lláh, Baha’i Prayer

This prayer for protection is more about protecting us from some of the hidden and intangible dangers of this world than the more obvious threats to our safety and health.  Perhaps prayers like this are even more important as they emphasize the dangers of the things which we may overlook in our lives, such as materialism, greed, jealousy and prejudice.

TeacherJay Baha'u'llah, Prayers materialism, prayer, prejudice

So-called "interracial marriage" is also encouraged in the Bahá’í teachings, which stress the essential oneness of the human race.

~ Baha’i International Community, 1992, Magazine – The Baha’is

It is very interesting to me that the Baha’i Faith promotes interracial marriage as a form of world unity, bringing the world one step closer.  I have found an additional effect, however.  Meeting so many interracial couples when I first entered into the Baha’i community challenged some of my own conceptions.  I would meet people of different races and make assumptions about their spouses, and/or not realize who was married to whom.  Although it was a bit embarrassing and sometimes frustrating, it also helped me to grow more accepting of something that I had thought I already accepted.  I did not object to such unions, but because I had such little previous experience with them, I was not accustomed to them.

TeacherJay Baha'i International Community prejudice, racism, reflection, unity

The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity, and unity is necessary if we would reach truth, for truth is one.

~ Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 136

Many of the greatest discoveries and advancements in history came from someone considering, even if just for a moment, if what we had always believed and accepted as fact were wrong.  Sometimes we must consider that there are alternatives to what we know to be right; that sometimes it is possible for multiple viewpoints to all be correct.  When we reach that point we may begin to understand not just the truth, but each other.

TeacherJay Paris Talks diversity, independent investigation of truth, prejudice, progress, unity

Yesterday I was reading a story book about Ruby Bridges while sitting in the park with some new friends.  Brother and sister they are of mixed race and had just finished 2nd and 4th grades.  They had not heard the story about the first African-American child to attend an all-white school in the South.  Although I tried to explain to them that there was a time in the history of the United States that children were segregated they told me they just couldn’t understand it… they quickly followed up to tell me it was not the story they didn’t understand, but the motivations.

When asked if their public school classrooms had children with different skin colors and different ethnicities they told they did and that they enjoyed seeing the mix.  In their suburb of a medium-sized Midwestern city, they had already encountered much diversity in race, culture and language.  What struck me the most was when the older of the two commented that he felt bad for the children who had to live through segregation—but it was not for the black children, who were not allowed to go to school with the white children, rather he felt sorry for the white children whose parents denied them the opportunity to have children of other races in their classroom.  I found this to be a very interesting and very mature stance to take from such a young man.  If only more people had such a responsible attitude towards segregation and prejudice today, perhaps we could be one step closer towards unity in this world.

TeacherJay Reflections children, education, prejudice, progress, unity

The Bahá’í Faith recognizes the unity of God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand-in-hand with science, and that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive society. It inculcates the principle of equal opportunity, rights and privileges for both sexes, advocates compulsory education, abolishes extremes of poverty and wealth, exalts work performed in the spirit of service to the rank of worship, recommends the adoption of an auxiliary international language, and provides the necessary agencies for the establishment and safeguarding of a permanent and universal peace.

~ Shoghi Effendi, The Bahá’í Faith – The World Religion: A Summary of Its Aims, Teachings and History

I really appreciate this single paragraph that summarizes the beliefs of the Baha’is.  I ran across it in a collection of excerpts of the writings titled “Teachings for the New World Order.”  That term has been used several times during the 20th century and beginning of the 21st.  It was normally following wars, i.e. WWI, WWII and the Cold War, and used to describe the hopes of what would come—more specifically that after all of the death and destruction preceding those times, that people would change, that the world would have to change.

While it seems in those cases the world, though it may never be the same, did revert back to its previous pettiness—prejudice and poverty still persist.  However, as Baha’is we pray for the day when people will put these feelings aside and learn how we can live together and allow religion to be the cohesive force that binds us, not the wedge that divides us.

TeacherJay Shoghi Effendi diversity, independent investigation of truth, international, language, New World Order, poverty, prejudice, progress, science, unity, war, wealth, world peace

If you look at any playground you can see children of all sizes, shapes, colors and religions laughing and playing together.  They don’t seem to create distinctions to keep themselves apart, but often look first for what makes them similar.  Playmates may begin to notice each other’s differences, but it tends to be a source of curiosity and a reason to get to know the playmate a little better, not something to keep them apart.  Children seem to be interested in forming bonds with each other to make new friends.

When do kids lose that natural curiosity and begin to use those differences to separate them from others?  Why does this happen?  What kinds of things can teachers and parents do to encourage that curiosity?

Teachers often say they learn a lot from their students.  Maybe kids can show adults how to live together.

I was listening to the song "We Can Show You How" from One World by the Children’s Theatre Company when I thought of this post.  You can listen to this song and 4 others on their MySpace page.

While one question may be, Can they show us how?, perhaps the larger unknown is, Will we listen?

Note: This entry is cross-posted on my other blog – TeacherJay’s EduBlog.

TeacherJay Reflections children, education, music, prejudice, progress, racism, relationships, unity, youth

But there is need of a superior power to overcome human prejudices, a power which nothing in the world of mankind can withstand and which will overshadow the effect of all other forces at work in human conditions. That irresistible power is the love of God. It is my hope and prayer that it may destroy the prejudice of this one point of distinction between you and unite you all permanently under its hallowed protection. Bahá’u'lláh has proclaimed the oneness of the world of humanity. He has caused various nations and divergent creeds to unite. He has declared that difference of race and color is like the variegated beauty of flowers in a garden. If you enter a garden, you will see yellow, white, blue, red flowers in profusion and beauty — each radiant within itself and although different from the others, lending its own charm to them. Racial difference in the human kingdom is similar. If all the flowers in a garden were of the same color, the effect would be monotonous and wearying to the eye.

Therefore, Bahá’u'lláh hath said that the various races of humankind lend a composite harmony and beauty of color to the whole. Let all associate, therefore, in this great human garden even as flowers grow and blend together side by side without discord or disagreement between them.

~ Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 68

The elimination of prejudices is one of the core beliefs of the Baha’i Faith.  We are not expected to do this on our own, as mentioned in this quote.  Abdu’l-Baha confirms that this endeavor is so great that we require the love of God in order to accomplish it.

A beautiful analogy follows—the variegated skin colors of humans as different types of flowers.  Different, yes, but all equal and all contributing to one great mosaic.  In this way, our diversity can lead to our unity.

TeacherJay Promulgation of Universal Peace, The diversity, God's Love, prejudice, racism, unity, world peace