Community Blog

Study Circle Group "Arises to Serve" in NYC, Part One

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:35:00 -0500

As some of you may know, Baha'is here in New York City, as well as around the planet, have over the last several years been engaged in grass-roots, community-building activities. These "core activities," as they are sometimes called, include hosting devotional meetings open to members of all faith communities (or of none), and conducting classes for children and adolescents, the topics focused on moral and spiritual education. Baha'is in New York have established several of these gatherings, as a quick browse of this website will show. The purpose of such activities is to lay the foundations for a world civilization that is spiritual, organic, and unified.

Another type of core activity is called a "study circle." Study circles are small, usually weekly, gatherings of adults (or sometimes older youths) who engage in joint study and discussion of short selections from the Baha'i Writings. Weekly immersion in even small portions of the Writings can have a powerful effect on a person, as they deepen their understanding of the Baha'i approach to life, which involves service to humanity.

At the present time, study circles in New York City are using a series of books called the Ruhi Institute. Right now there are seven books in the series. This blog entry tells two brief stories about one of these "Ruhi groups," and their efforts along the path of service.

Our next two blog entries each tell a story about one of these 'Ruhi groups,' and their efforts along the path of service.

Scott

[Please join us at a study circle near you. more...]

Bahá’ís in Iran Still Need Our Help

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:15:00 -0500

The situation for Bahá’ís in Iran is still dire, but you can make a difference. A resolution condemning the Islamic Republic for its treatment of Bahá’ís just passed the House of Representatives, and The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is currently reviewing a related bill. One of our senators, Kirsten Gillibrand, is a member of the this committee.

Please write her a letter, urging her to pass the resolution. A sample letter, recognizable by most word processing programs, is available for download right HERE.

Feel free to alter the text – the more individualized and personal your letter is, the more impact it will have. Just keep in mind it’s always more effective.

Rainn Wilson on Oprah discusses spirituality

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:15:13 -0400

Most guests on Oprah Winfrey’s shows leave the questions to their famous host. Not Rainn Wilson, the actor famous for playing the eccentric paper salesman, Dwight Schrute, on NBC’s hit comedy “The Office.” During his recent spot on Winfrey’s Soul Series radio show, Wilson pulled a list of questions from his back pocket and started interviewing his host.

His questions for Oprah included these:

What does your soul look like?
If you could ask God one question, what would it be?

They’re the sort of questions – “life’s big questions” – that Wilson, a longtime Baha’i, posts on his new website, Soul Pancake. Anyone who visits the site can post an answer – or questions of their own. Winfrey’s favorite question of Wilson’s was, “What do you miss most about being five years old?”

“I like that,” she said, and promised she’d eventually come up with a response.

When she does, she can post it on Soul Pancake, a place where she – and the rest of us – can share our own answers to life’s big questions with people from all over the world.

COLLEGE WEEKEND @ GREEN ACRE

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:32:04 -0500

“Your mission is unspeakably glorious....”

A weekend for connecting college youth to their spiritual heritage and mission in life, while also striving for academic excellence.

The Regional Council invites all college age youth, Baha’is and friends, to register today for an inspiring program for college students being held at Green Acre Bahá’í School in Eliot, Maine, the weekend of September 26-28, 2008. The program will be diverse and dynamic. Some scholarships may be available.

Car-pooling may help everyone attend.

We will have an exciting weekend of learning, sharing, personal growth, campus growth, planning ahead. There will be consultation, break-out groups, devotions, presentations, Sacred Writings, and the arts. We will discuss our campuses and our clusters, as well as juggling teaching, service, and studying.

Meet new and old friends. Bring musical instruments and talents.

Please share this message with your friends of college age. And this is a great atmosphere for Bahá’ís and friends of the Faith to catch the spirit.

Call 1-800-894-9715, or register on line at:

http://www.greenacre.org/

Friends at the 96th Annual Bahá’í Souvenir Picnic of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:01:16 -0500

On May 19th, [1912,] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed the congregation of the Brotherhood Church, at Jersey City, New Jersey. The pastor of that church, Howard Colby Ives, relates the story: ‘It was an impressive, even to me a thrilling sight when the majestic figure of the Master strode up the aisle of the Brotherhood Church leading the little company of believers from various parts of the world. As memory now takes its backward look I realize how little I understood at that time the full significance of that memorable scene. Here, in a setting of Western civilization, almost two thousand years from the dawn of Christian teaching, stood One whose Life and Word were the very embodiment of the essence of the message of good-will to all peoples which those nations which bear His name had seemingly forgotten.

Here stood the living proof of the falsity of the assumption that East and West can never meet. Here was martyrdom for Truth and Love speaking lovingly and humbly to souls engrossed with self and who knew it not . . .

‘But to all such thoughts I, like most of the audience, was a stranger. Yet there was in that hall that evening an atmosphere of spiritual reality foreign to its past . . .’
(H.M. Balyuzi, Abdu’l-Baha - The Centre of the Covenant, p. 193)

Picnic Fundraiser a Tasty Success

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:00:44 -0500

The Queens Baha’i Fundraising Picnic was held on the afternoon of Saturday, August 23, in Forest Park. The picnic, organized by the Queens Feast Area Committee over the past several summers, had this year been scheduled for early August, but had been postponed due to the collective-teaching project begun this summer in Elmhurst, Flatbush, Jackson Heights, and Washington Heights.

The purpose of the picnic was to provide a venue for fellowship and fun among the friends, in particular Baha’i families; and to raise money for the New York City Baha’i Fund. Accordingly, the Sector Committee organized the preparation of delicious food, donated by several of the friends – barbecued chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, Persian rice with vegetables, spicy pasta salad, watermelon, flan, chocolate brownies, and coconut pastries. The servings were “all you can eat,” with a minimum charge of $15 per person. Funds were also raised through the sale of “gently used” items donated by some of the friends and sold toward the end of the picnic. The amount raised for the local Baha’i fund was $660. The picnic got into full swing at about 2 pm, and ended at 8:30. Aside from enjoying the food and one another’s company, time was spent by some in animated discussion, one group of adults engaging in an exploration of topics from the Writings for example, a meditation on the destiny of the soul, over brownies). In contrast, several others were engaged in more vigorous fellowship at the volleyball net, about which event there were unconfirmed reports of creative application of the official rules.

While most of the attendees were residents of Queens, there were also visitors from the Bronx, China, Iran, and Korea. In all, the picnic was attended by forty people, eight of whom were adult non-Baha’is, and including eight young children, the youngest being four-month-old Mateen Pourjafar, who could not be reached for comment.