Confession #3: "I'm like"

One of the principles of the Bahá’í Faith is the elimination of prejudice.  And that means prejudice of all kinds.  I’m not racist, never have been, not even on my radar.  Though I love knowledge, I don’t see the superiority of the educated over the un.

So am I free of prejudice?  Can I start dancing the samba in celebration of my pristine prejudicelessness?  Hardly.  If I know a person’s name before I meet them, I’m predisposed to like them or not.  Moses or Mandrake makes me prick my ears up.  Mortimer or Ahmedinijad, not so much.  Say Helen, I’m in heaven.  Say Hepzibah or Henryk, I turn the other cheek.

Don’t get me started.  Oops, you already have.  I am prejudiced against the wearing of baseball hats backward, bad spelling, gum chewing, cigarette smoking, saying “I’m like,” loudmouths, cellphone/videogame addiction, talking down to children, berating other drivers, ugly shoes, bad service, restaurants with tvs blaring, businesses with their unwashed urchins running around in front of their customers. Now there’s no stopping.  In fact, don’t come near me, I’m the biggest bigot and hypocrite around.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.

The Seven Words You Can't Say

            In His Will and Testament, Bahá’u’lláh wrote:  “The tongue is for mentioning what is good.  Defile it not with unseemly talk.”  A few weeks ago, my sister and brother-in-law came back from a golfing trip complaining about the foulmouthed boors, both male and female, out on the links.  Being no strangers to colourful descriptive adjectives themselves, I tried listening to what their actual beef was.  They set out the perameters of when and how much was appropriate for one to swear.  One of my brother-in-law’s arguments was that one is entitled to use purple prose when angry or outraged for emphasis, but in casual conversation it is just bad manners. A delicate distinction to be sure.  It reminded me of the late comedian George Carlin’s query:  “Why is everyone who drives faster than me a maniac, and everyone who drives slower an idiot?”

            (I once listened to George Carlin deliver the exact same routine on cable television that I had once heard him do on network.  Exactly the same, that is, except that the cable one was spiced and seasoned with an absurd amount of superfluous obscenity, which didn’t make it one whit the funnier.)

            But I have a reason to be indulgent with salty parlance.  In the summer of 1976 I was working a summer job at the pulp and paper mill where my father worked for a quarter of a century.  We went together early, before sunrise, but since his shift started half an hour before mine, I would go a corner of the lunch room with my copy of Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, turn on the light, and read.  There were grumblings from grizzled overalls hunched over their coffees, and one morning one ursine growl wasn’t taking it any more, rose up and rumbled my way.  Suddenly out of nowhere Paddy Smith, at once the most gregarious, glossolarily challenged and unimaginative of men, swept in and grabbed the Kodiak by the arm, and shouted (and I quote) “Sit your effing a** down!  That’s effing education, man!  He’s not going to effing be an effing bum like us!  He’s going to effing do something with his effing life!”  Not only was his heart in the right place, his courageous speech is engraved in my memory much more clearly than any but the opening lines of Richard III and five out of the six soliloquies of Hamlet.

Confession #2: Allah’u-‘Abhá

            For fifteen years I was a disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, and studied Vedanta for some years before that.  In early morning and late-night meditations I had used the incantation “Om,” which transported me immediately into the realm of communion with the Infinite Divine.  It automatically shut out the busy world and enfolded me in the Sublime Serenity.  Upon accepting the Bahá’í Faith, “Om” (which is only a sound symbol after all, however dripping with spiritual purport) was naturally to be replaced by “Alláh’u-Abhá,” an Arabic phrase roughly meaning “God, the All-Glorious,” but more importantly the Name of God, the Most Great Name, hidden from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim devotees, as well as all other previous seekers of His hidden name.  

            Naturally, I say, but it didn’t take.  Seventeen years later, after at least ninety-five fervent daily repetitions, it doesn’t reverberate in my inner chambers with anything like devotion or conviction, to no small sense of frustration and even a tincture of guilt.  This phenomenon has engendered its own soul-searching:  is there a cause for this recalcitrance that must needs be expunged or exorcised, or is it merely a papadum to be assigned no importance whatever in the face of what matters?  Is it rooted in any prejudice against or resistance to Arabic culture or language?  Do I cling to any residual notion of the superiority of the Hindu rishis or avatars?  I am inclined to dismiss it, except that I want to love it as much and more as I did, and do, Om.

            It is used as a greeting by Bahá’ís, about which I can’t complain as it was mandated thus by a Manifestation of God, even though my personal preference would have been to reserve it to accompany more exalted utterance.   But where I do inwardly cringe is when it is used casually, as a common coin, from off-handedly tossing it about to singing it to trivial melodies to the accompaniment of indifferent strumming and whacking, especially amid a general babble. “Approach Me not with lifeless hearts,” Bahá’u’lláh has admonished us.

            For some reason, another form of The Most Great Name, “Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá,” (O Thou the Glory of the All-Glorious) which doesn’t look or sound categorically different from “Alláh’u-Abhá,” thrills my soul like nineteen times nineteen “Hallelujas” cannot.  Go figure.  Perhaps in it lies my potential salvation.

Decennoval Goal

            On July 13 I was watching the final of the World Cup soccer tournament with a number of Bahá’ís after a Nineteen-Day Feast in Stouffville, Ontario.  Near the end of regulation time, the German team took Miroslav Klose out and substituted Mario Götze.  It was a notable moment mostly because of Klose’s stellar career, but what caught my attention immediately was that Götze’s jersey number was 19.  Surely this was prophetic!  All I said at the time was “Are you kidding me?” but what I meant was that since the number 19 is a magical and mystical number in the Bahá’í Faith, this player was fated to score the winning goal in this tight game which was still scoreless.  Regulation time ended in a scoreless tie, as did the first overtime period.  But eight minutes into the second overtime Götze did in fact score the championship goal in spectacular fashion, becoming an instant household name over much of this planet of ours.  In retrospect should have been more explicit in my comment when he was put in the game, for without witnesses I cannot prove what had been in my mind.

            What’s up with the number nineteen?  In fact it was Bahá’u’lláh’s forerunner, The Báb, who interpreted a passage in the Qur’án that 19 equals one unit in the eyes of God.  (Numerology was a going concern at that time, especially in that part of the world.  It has since shriveled down to a mere curiosity in the general eyes of men.)  He therefore used 19 in many ways to signalize the uniqueness of this Revelation, not the least of which was the solar calendar He created, consisting of 19 months of 19 days each.  In fact, the Universal House of Justice had just announced on Mercy 17, 171 B.E. (July 10, 2014), the final touches to some ambiguities to it.  Has anyone told Götze?  I’m sure he would like to know. 

psst: (I called it first!!!)

A Rare and Precious Talisman

           Whenever the time for Bahá’í elections comes around, the preparations always include the study of an admonition from the Guardian regarding some of the qualities one must look for in those for  whom one intends to cast a vote.  Among these qualities, one has intrigued me above all others:  a well-trained mind.  Most of the others seem more straightforward than this one – what exactly is a “well-trained mind”?  I have put this query to many a Bahá’í whom I respect, and the answers have varied from annoyance that I should have a question about something so obvious to “It is one that is well-grounded in the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.”  The second one brought cheers from those assembled, for it sounds like a fine answer indeed, which I acknowledge.  And yet was there not in that cheer a small grain of relief that the question would not have to be explored any further?  In fact, I have never received an answer that has satisfied me fully, and such things act as fishhooks, tugging irritatingly at me when I try to ignore them.

            So here’s what I’ve come up with so far.  The fact that the Guardian mentions it suggests to me that it is an outstanding quality not possessed by all, nor perhaps even by many.  And also that it’s not something that comes automatically with age or experience, but that it is acquired through systematic rigour, ergo “trained.”  So what are minds like that do not fulfill this condition?  Frankly, our minds are messy places, gurgling miasmas of desires and disappointments, grudges and hormones, silly superstitions guilty pleasures, and memories both deep and fleeting, constantly being transmogrified by shafts of insight and reconsideration from all directions, beset by hobgoblins like street urchins appearing from  who knows where and insisting that their voices be heard.  Difficult to have a clear thought amongst all that clamour, never mind trying to express one.

            Someone who serves on an elected institution of the Faith must be able to consult with others, listen to them [HUGE], respond to them, stick to the matter at hand, be objective and dispassionate, keeping the principles and guidance of the Faith and its well-being in the forefront of one’s mind, shoving aside our petty obsessions (who, me?) and our personal agendas.  Some of us just like the sound of our own voices, and this must be tempered at times.

            We are still at the stage of human development that the vast majority of us are inclined to complaining, arguing, criticizing, and prejudging (read:  prejudice), and these have no place on assemblies. Most people repeat the same things over and over (have you noticed?) and this is an undesirable trait which hampers consultation.  We also have personal relationships with other members of these institutions, which should have no bearing with our interactions with them at meetings (good luck with that).  Many a joke has been made about husband and wife serving on the same assembly.

            There are several difficult disciplines for assembly members to which others are not subjected.  One has to wholeheartedly embrace decisions made by the body which one has not wholeheartedly endorsed.  One must not secondguess or undermine the assembly’s authority outside its meetings (whereas inside it one may argue as vociferously as one wishes within the bounds of courtesy and respect).  Discussing confidential assembly matters outside the meeting, even with one’s closest family members, is a no-no-no-no.  

            So the hallmarks of a well-trained mind are intelligence and discipline, fuelled by a love for and knowledge of the Faith, its writings and guidance.  Experience and education are not absolute requirements (as some devoted and wise souls without a dollar or certificate sometimes prove), but are valued whips and handmaidens along the way.  A well-trained mind is a rare and precious talisman indeed.