Ave Maria

Recently my only flute student here in Honduras was forbidden from performing Schubert ‘s “Ave Maria” at a church Christmas presentation on the grounds that it is “Catholic” and therfore not allowed in that Evangelical hall. This is reminiscent of an experience of mine a couple of dcecades back. I was playing the flute at a wedding in Mississauga, Ontario with a harpist, and because of unclear directions, we uncharacteristically arrived only minutes before the ceremony was about to begin. As we were hurriedly setting up, the minister came over and enquired about the music we were planning to play, and I gave him a quick run-down. When I mentioned the Schubert “Ave Maria,” he stated flatly that I couldn’t play that.

“Why not?”
“It’s Catholic.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Well, you can’t play it.”
“The bride and groom have requested it.”
“I don’t care. You’re not going to play that in my church.”
“I believe this is the Lord’s church.”

He went off in a huff; I wasn’t trying to be insolent, it was that everybody was ready and waiting for the wedding march to begin and I it wasn’t the time or place to get into an argument.

A few readers may know what he was talking about, but most, I venture, are baffled or see this as a silly sectarian view, akin to the Communist Chinese government banning the music of Beethoven because he was “bourgeois.” The crux of the matter is that in churches, the Latin words that are usually sung are the prayer, “Hail Mary, full of grace . . .” The Catholics have a cult of the worship of the Virgin Mary not shared by most Protestant sects. To inflict this doctrinal squabble on a defenseless little musical masterpiece, even when it is played instrumentally, without the words, is a tiny example of the myriad walls religion has erected in the seamless Faith of God, the removal of which is the avowed thousand-year mission of the Bahá’ís.

The original lyric that Franz Schubert (pictured above) selected for his song was a German translation (made by one Adam Storck) of an excerpt from Canto XXIX of Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem Lady of the Lake. The heroine, Ellen Douglas, is on the run, and prays to the Virgin Mary. It begins thus:

Ave Maria! maiden mild!

Listen to a maiden's prayer!

Thou canst hear though from the wild,

Thou canst save amid despair.

Safe may we sleep beneath thy care,

Though banished, outcast, and reviled--

Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;

Mother, hear a suppliant child!

Ave Maria!

Schubert set this to music around 1825, at age 28. He wrote over 600 songs, and introduced them to his circle at musical parties which came to be known as Schubertiads. He wrote to his parents about this song, mentioning that the listeners were surprised at the piety in the song, which was not something he was known for. His own title for this song was “Ellen’s Third Song.” It occurred to an unknown person at a later date that the Latin prayer to Mary could be moulded to Schubert’s sublime melody, and I wonder whether the soul of that meddler in is a place arrived at via a road paved with good intentions.

In For a New Experience

In Chicago one of the many Bahá’í hats I wore was “Pioneer Resource Person,” a representative of the Office of International Pioneering at the community level, making presentations at Feasts and encouraging those who could and especially those who believed they couldn’t to forsake their homes and go to distant lands to serve the Faith. But not for a moment during this time did I think I would actually go myself. After all, I was serving here. I was needed here. But, like a traffic accident which happens suddenly without warning, events in a plodding existence took a precipitous turn, and my thoughts turned to pioneering, and also to learning a new language. Where would I go? Hungary is in dire need of pioneers who can speak the native language; this was brought home to me by the royal treatment I received on a travel-teaching trip in 2003. What language would I learn? Why, Arabic, of course. And then the call came to go to Honduras, and I answered without question, for I perceived it as the call of the very voice I could not ignore. At a gathering on the night before I left, a friend quipped that I must have been mumbling my prayers, and God heard “Honduras” instead of “Hungary.” And the new language must needs be Spanish.

But there was no turning back. Who should I meet in the waiting lounge at Pearson Airport in Toronto reading a Bahá’í prayer book but a Canadian on her way to Honduras to serve as an Auxiliary Board Member? She had been there many years and gave me much advice on the flight. Yet as someone who had lived for half a century in sophisticated metropolises in the privileged part of the world, on the mango- and poverty-lined road up the mountains which Christopher Columbus had called “the depths,” I was in for more jolts and jabs than Mike Tyson could have inflicted upon me.

On the very day I arrived, I overheard a telephone conversation which included the following sentence: “Bring the machetes to the devotional gathering.” I knew I was in for a new experience. The machetes were used to cut the grass, prune the trees, and clear the weeds at the local Bahá’í Centre that had fallen into neglect over the summer, and fixed in my memory is the image of elderly Doña Julia in her formal black dress and high-heeled shoes stooped down and wielding the machete like the blades of a helicopter over the screaming weeds. Lesson #1 in Honduran culture.

I’ve heard of mobile book units before, but where else is the Bahá’í library located under the seat of a motorcycle, wending its way up gnarled rocky mountain roads? That is where Joycelyn Jolly, a striking black American woman who was an accomplished cellist and Suzuki teacher who adopted an orphaned girl in Brazil kept the books as she provided this service amidst her struggle to be a single mother and obedient servant of the Five Year Plan. Her struggles were causing her to look elsewhere, and she suddenly got a marriage proposal from a musical colleague stretching back over a quarter of century who began scouring the planet for her after he had lost his wife. Since she left for Baltimore, I have been performing this function, keeping all the books under lock and key, and bringing them out for display carefully and gently at every Feast.

There are many other singular events, but probably the most astonishing was watching a one-legged man during prayers at a Feast methodically chase down a spider on a wall, leaning to the point where surely he was going to topple over first this way and then that, reaching and contorting, until finally at an angle Olympic gymnasts the world over must envy, whacked the spider -- with a Bahá’í prayer book! -- all while the prayer continued unabated and unconcerned. I admit at the time what I felt was shame, but now I regard as one of the more bizarre scenes in a community that spearheads an “A Cluster” (designated as being at an advanced stage of organization) but is still in the infant stages of love and reverence for Bahá’u’lláh.

My experiences in Honduras are posted as a series of updates on a separate blog, siguahon.blogspot.com.

On the Ninth Day of Ridván, My True Love . . .

The Festival of Ridván, the “King of Festivals” is celebrated by the Bahá’ís from April 21 to May 2. It was during those twelve days in 1863 that Bahá’u’lláh received visitors in the Najibiyyih Garden outside Baghdad, and made the stupendous announcement to at least four of His closest followers that He was in fact the Promised One prophesied and awaited by all the major religious traditions and scriptures.

Furthermore, three of these days have been designated as Holy Days. The first and last are understood easily enough, but what about the ninth? We read so often that His family visited Him on the Ninth Day that we can get the idea that it is because of their arrival that that particular day is celebrated. Except for Naw-Rúz (New Year, March 21), the Bahá’í Holy Days are all associated with the Twin Manifestations, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. We do not know who these family members were or how many (they did not include ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who was there from the First Day); for all we know they may have been future Covenant-breakers, and it would be inconceivable to have a Holy Day associated with covenant-breaking. And it was likely that their arrival would have been earlier had it not been for high rushing waters of the Tigris River (The Najibiyyih Garden was on an island) imperiling any crossing.

We have a direct if rather prosaic explanation from the writings themselves:
“. . . the reason we commemorate the 1st, 9th and 12th days of Ridván as Holidays (Holy Days) is because one is the first day, one is the last day, and the third one is the ninth day, which of course is associated with the number 9. All 12 days could not be holidays, therefore these three were chosen.”
Letter written on behalf of the Guardian, dated June 8, 1952, to an individual believer, in Lights of Guidance, pg. 230
(Compilations, NSA USA - Developing Distinctive Baha'i Communities)

Alas, I do not read either Arabic or Persian, but I have been told by more than one Persian believer that there exists an untranslated Tablet in which Bahá’u’lláh answers questions about the various Holy Days, and in which He purportedly explains that the Ninth Day of Ridván is associated with the Most Great Name (via the abjad system of numerology that was still in use in the nineteenth century). I shall be writing the Research Department about this matter, and may have an update to this post before long.

A note of caution regarding the above photograph of the Ridván Garden. This, and every other photo is of the one outside ‘Akká in the Holy Land, and was called that name by Bahá’u’lláh Himself. It is NOT the one associated with the “King of Festivals.” The Ridván Garden outside of Baghdad is at present a hospital parking lot. May the All-Powerful Lord restore it to the condition in which roses could be piled so high in Bahá’u’lláh’s tent that one could not see over them.

Unity in Diversity

The concept of Unity in Diversity has been described in the Bahá’í writings as the “flowers of one garden”; humanity has also been described as “the leaves of one branch,” “the waves of one ocean,” and with various other images, but perhaps the first one is the most potent, because of the fact that the flowers of one garden are not all the same -- their pleasing effect is largely because they are not the same, but present a harmonious whole. Surely a garden consisting exclusively of red roses would be impressive, but throw in a variety of colours, and the delight is increased tenfold.

But there is another phenomenon that brings the concept of unity in diversity home to me in a robust way: when one attends a concert, be the audience comprised of twenty or twenty thousand souls, every single person in that audience experiences the music in a personal way that is different from every other person. Forty years of performing and teaching music have taught me that this is absolutely true and not just some sentimental statement. How miraculous is this? How can the same piece of music have a different effect on everyone? The answer is not in the music itself, but in the receptacle, the filter of the human mind and heart. Everyone at that concert brings to bear upon their listening the wealth of their own heritage and experience, their tastes, their prejudices, their reactions, their sensitivities. Music is not heard with a single part of the brain but is actually synthesized in various locations of our mysterious grey matter; the intellectual, emotional, psychological, and every other aspect of the brain is engaged. Memory is a powerful factor, which not only helps us understand the language of music, determines our reaction to music heard before, and is even the basis of apprehending what is new to our ears. How often has a song, not heard for years or decades, instantly unlocked a flood of memories and emotions? Even more powerful, perhaps, is the spiritual realm which is invoked and in which we partake, recognizing the true voice of music reaching us from a world beyond.

Not convinced? Can any of us say that our experience of listening to the selfsame recording is ever exactly the same twice? Was any time exactly the same as the first time? Our mood, our environment, our level of concentration or distraction, our age, our company, biorhythm, a myriad other factors all affect the result. How often have we been disappointed when a favourite piece of music does not produce the same wonderful effect we remember and anticipate? All experience is unique and unrepeatable, even the repetition of drudgery, and we cannot press a button to get an exact replica of one, much though we may be led to believe this is possible.

Yet, yet . . . at a concert there IS a communal experience. We all experience it together, and there is a general consensus about the quality and effect of the performance and presentation. We feel the buildup of excitement together and are transported to bliss together. We feel the climax together and we respond as one. Some concerts even become legendary for creating a special moment in time that all who had attended agree upon. And it is that harmonious whole that is our Unity in Diversity. Imagine if there were no unity, that life and experience were not shared, how unutterable lonely the cosmos would be. And though we do, at times, feel alone, isolated, and misunderstood, our greatest desire at those moments is to return to that blessed unity that brings us peace and love. Uniquely and together.

Anna Schmanna

You heard it here first: Anna’s Presentation is boring! What? Allow me to explain.

What the Bahá’í World has come to know as “Anna’s Presentation” is excerpted from Ruhi Institute Book 6, Unit Two, Sections 6-19, and is the brainchild of Dr. Arbab and perhaps his associates, distilled from the experience of Bahá’ís around the world. It is the idealized, comprehensive unfolding of the Faith through the vehicle of a fictional, remarkable, well-nigh unbelievable seventeen-year old as expounded to her Catholic school friend Emilia. (“Well-nigh,” since the Faith actually does sprout such prodigious youth.) The style of it is reminiscent of Plato’s Republic in that one person is expounding while the other(s) merely give laconic assent to its inexorable flow. From the turn of this Gregorian Millenium this presentation has been increasingly touted as the teaching tool sin qua non in the mounting crescendo of emphasis on direct teaching. We now have full-colour booklets replete with gorgeous photography, flip charts, and power point presentations, and Anna is the rock star of the current Five-Year Plan.

But whoa, just a minute. Occasionally we go overboard in our enthusiasm. In some quarters it is recommended that those going forth to teach memorize it in toto and regurgitate it when we find receptive souls. First of all, we are not selling the Faith like Encyclopaedia Brittanica so we’re not giving a prefabricated spiel that has a proven track record, and secondly, in difficulty it is roughly equivalent to memorizing Act II, Sc. 2 of Hamlet. And most importantly, giving it in its published form is like listening to deadpan comedian Steve Wright recite The Tell-Tale Heart – boring! The Institutions of the Faith have lately recognized this, and are encouraging the believers to animate their renditions with their own personal zeal for the Faith.

So why do we use it and what is its value? It really answers the question, “How do I teach the Faith -- what do I say?” Most of us in introducing the Bahá’í Faith to a person unfamiliar with it choose certain aspects of it we are comfortable with, the principles or the history or the community, for example. Or else we say things that are perhaps meaningful for us, but give little glimpse of the big picture, such as, “For me it is about hope.” Or perhaps even more commonly, “I finally found a religion that teaches what I have always believed.” Over the years I have been time and again taken aback by the things that have come out of Bahá’ís mouths, having no context or connection to the virgin listener, such as the Infallibility of the Manifestations, stories of the martyrs, personal reminiscences of meeting a Hand of the Cause, their own struggles with a particular Bahá’í law, or some other matter that requires considerable groundwork. Few of us give a comprehensive view, the skeleton of the entire colossal edifice, which would in the course of a few or even a single meeting, give a seeker a sufficient overview to decide whether his own soul has connected with it. How many of us have encountered the same seekers at firesides month after month, year after year, who still have little grasp of the “fundamental verities” that lie at the heart of this glorious path to God? And this is the genius of Anna’s Presentation, that it gives a panoramic view of this vaaaaaaaaaaaast ocean.

So yes, we ought to internalize this guide, and then be prepared to talk about the Central Figures with the love we have for Them, the Administration with all the reverence and obedience we have for its Institutions, the laws, the worldwide community, the core activities that prepare souls to usher in a new age of humanity, the mighty socially transformative principles, the Covenant, Progressive Revelation, the beautiful prayers and majestic words of the writings, and our central passion for teaching in our quest for the holy grail of uniting all of mankind.

The Face of My Lord

******** Every Easter brings much the same spate of movies of the life of Jesus Christ, and ever since I was very very young, I thought: this can’t be right – surely Jesus did not look and act like a washed-up, drug-sodden, syphilitic ex-rocker spewing those famous world-changing words à la Bob Dylan, which is largely how He is portrayed in Hollywood. And even different interpretations, like The Last Temptation of Christ or The Passion of the Christ don’t do it for me. I had often asked myself what Christ was really like – was he the man of sorrows depicted to me by my teachers and Bible storybooks? I wasn’t convinced. There was a majesty to His words that was not accounted for. What was His bearing? His tone of voice? How did He captivate multitudes? How was He at His most intimate moments, as in the Garden of Gethsemane? When He delivered the Sermon on the Mount, was He in another world, or did heaven come to Him? Did His moods change dramatically, was He serene for the most part, how was He when seized by the Holy Spirit? Much is made of His anger when casting the money-changers out of the Temple – how did that actually happen? Were His words about the Pharisees as cutting and ironic as I imagine? We know that he grieved; surely he joked and laughed as well?

Oddly enough, the Bible itself is little help in this regard, for not only does it not provide any details that might serve as clues, but the four Evangelists themselves had differing portraits of Jesus. Even more oddly, the model that came as close to satisfying this thirst was Swami Dayananda Saraswati, a saffron-robed teacher of Vedanta with whom I studied for fifteen years. He spoke with calm authority, and was saintly and dignified without being the least bit pious, since ebullient hilarity was bubbling and gurgling just under the surface at all times.

At any rate, Bahá’ís are prevented from portraying the Manifestations of God as characters in a drama for this selfsame reason, that it would be impossible for us to do justice to the majesty of Their being, as well as for preventing a host of other abuses, such as having Bahá’u’lláh’s face in an ashtray, or a plastic Lucky Buddha smiling inanely atop the television showing the Ultimate Fighting Challenge.

Case in point: this past Good Friday I was in a village in Honduras where they spray-painted the Stations of the Cross on “carpets” (actually sand poured on the street), and paraded effigies of Jesus, Mary, and other figures on funeral biers during all hours of the day and night, followed by a brass band playing the most pitifully morose music you could ever imagine. Doesn’t the face of Christ in the photo above look like Che Guevara? And the priest and his retinue would walk over the face of Jesus!! Somehow that’s what upset me – the rest I could pass off as village tradition, which is the only explanation I could get anyway.

I was privileged to see one of the two existing photos of Bahá’u’lláh on a recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and it pierced my very soul. The other is not in the hands of the Bahá’ís, found its way onto the Internet, and was sent to me by a friend for verification. I glanced at it for a mere five seconds (Oh, my God) and filed it, and shall perhaps look at it someday again at a propitious moment. But I certainly won’t be putting it on my welcome mat.

Which Way to the Qiblih?

A concept that may be foreign to most Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists, but is of great importance to Muslims and Jews, is the direction to face while reciting specific prayers. The Jews have always turned toward Jerusalem, and one may argue that their problems with the Muslims began when the Prophet Muhammad directed them to turn and face Mecca instead, and they refused.

The Bahá’ís continue this practice of reciting daily “obligatory” prayers while facing the “Point of Adoration,” (Qiblih in Arabic), turning towards the resting-place of Bahá’u’lláh, at Bahji, near the city of Akko (Akká, Acre), across the bay from Haifa on the eastern Mediterranean coast.

But if one is in Ougadougou, Medicine Hat, or Siguatepeque (and there are Bahá’ís there as well as in virtually any other spot on the globe), how does one answer, “Which way to the Qiblih?” In fact, far too many make the mistake of consulting a flat map; we should all know better, since we know that it is a distortion. New Yorkers who do this, for instance, will conclude that it is just a wee bit south of east, whereas they should be facing NORTHeast.

The simplest way to find the shortest and most direct route over the surface of the earth (rather than through it) is to take a piece of string and a globe, press down one end of the string at Akko, make the other end point at wherever you are, and pull the string taut. Counterintuitive as it may seem, the string has traced the path to the Qiblih. (This will also answer why, if you’re flying to Rome from New York, you’ll stop in or pass by London on the way.) If you happen to be in Alaska, your route will take you over the North Pole. Try it!

A more precise way is to go to a website such as http://www.qiblih.com/, where you can type in your longitude and latitude, press the enter button and presto! your direction will be displayed. Of course you’ll need to know which way is north, south, east, and west, which can easily observe by watching a sunrise.