Monday, December 24, 2007

On Blog Mentions of "Baha'i" at Christmas-time: Deep Feelings

Here is a Christmas collage of blog mentions of "Baha'i". Christmas-time brings up a lot of feelings for a lot of people, both Christian and Baha'i. -gw


I can’t believe how many churches there are in Renton! A quick count brought me to about ninety. Ninety! Well, now I’m beyond thinking about sitting and singing hymns and hearing a great message of hope and renewal. Now I’m on to thinking “ninety churches”! How many people does that represent? I know it’s a huge number of people who probably attend church on a somewhat regular basis. And that doesn’t even count the people who attend another house of worship; folks who are Muslim, or Buddhist, or Jewish, or Sikh or who follow the Baha’i faith, or any of the other people who follow their own brand of living a good life. It makes me think what if we all, all of us from all of those churches and all of those houses of worship and all of us who don’t get to GO to church but live lives committed to love and compassion, if all of us took the spirit of Christmas to heart. We could change our city, and our whole world to be a place of care, and compassion where no one ever went hungry and no one was ever old and alone.
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I asked my Baha'i friend how he celebrated the season. He laughed "Mostly meeting the expectations of our non-Baha'i family members". In other words, while Dec. 25 is not a focal point in his religious calendar, sharing in family celebrations in the spirit of joy, hope and peace is perfectly in keeping with his faith. Those who struggle with the over-commercialization of the holiday would be particularly comfortable with the Baha'i value of avoiding excessive materialism and greed. One Baha'i description of God's design is "to give and be generous are attributes of Mine". Like many people, I've started giving the kind of Christmas presents that can't be wrapped up - donations that provide something to people I've never met in the name of people I love. I try to fit the gift to the recipient. This year in my book-loving sister's name I am giving a solar panel and light so that someone in the Costa Rican rainforest can read at night without the dangers of an open kerosene lamp. My Baha'i friend, living out his faith, will be taking these lights personally to Costa Rica. He'll be training local indigenous people on maintenance and micro-finance to help make this economic development project truly self-sustainable. I think my sister will approve.
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Grey Bruce - Ontario, CA
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Although I am a Baha'i, my family always celebrated Christmas. I have always celebrated the TRUE meaning of Christmas along with the giving of gifts.
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I had said Ya Baha'u'l'Abha at work a little while back (shortest Baha'i prayer) and he was wondering what it meant and how to say it. Well, he passed out Christmas cards this morning and mine says: Merry Hullabullub Kilikiwa. I was laughing for a good 5 minutes.
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I always felt that by celebrating Christmas I was turning my back on Islam, and I was. But being Baha'i I can openly embrace all traditions, and not feel bad about it. This will be loverly.
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Being Baha'is, my parents and I stopped really celebrating Christmas several years ago, though. So it's pretty easy to feel like an outsider when most people around me are gearing up for a grand shared experience. I will, as usual, be revisiting O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi," which is by far my favorite Christmas story (followed closely by Laura Ingalls Wilder's recounting of the year that Pa and Mr. Edwards rode out and returned with the Christmas gifts).
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In case there is any confusion, Christmas is not celebrated within the Baha'i community, although Baha'i's individually are free to celebrate it, as they feel moved. -gw

HOLY DAYS OF OTHER RELIGIONS
“As regards the celebration of the Christian Holiday by the believers; it is surely preferable and even highly advisable that the friends should in their relation to each other discontinue observing such holidays as Christmas and New Years, and to have their festival gatherings of this nature instead during the Intercalary Days and Naw-Rúz….”

And then there is this reference in a tablet of Abdu'l-Baha to the Christmas tree, for Baha'is, and mentioning Green Acre Baha'i School. -gw

O thou artery pulsating in the body of the world!

Verily I read thy recent letter which indicated conscious joy and abundant happiness from the glad-tidings of the Kingdom of El-Abha. Know, verily that the feast is the day wherein God opened thine insight through the Manifest Light, showed thee unto His Great Kingdom and granted to thee to drink from the chalice overflowing with the wine of divine guidance among the maid-servants. Is there a feast more happy and more noble than this? No, indeed, by the Lord of Heaven, it is a day wherein the thirsty one attaineth to the Spring from which gusheth forth cool and refreshing water, the lover meeteth his Loved One and the sick one is healed by the remedy of the Physician. Blessed art thou for attaining unto this!

Verily, the people who rejoice in the day of the feast and enjoyed the tree (1) (which) was decorated, following the custom of ancient times, are the people of superstitions. By the Majesty of thy Lord! Were they in the time of Christ, they would turn their backs and would not behold His smiling, glorious face; but today they play in the shallow waters of their superstitions without discretion.

Therefore, thank God for His having privileged thee to attain nearness to the Blessed Tree which is grown upon the highest Sinai
and is set aglow with the fire of God’s love, calling unto responsive listeners. I supplicate God to heal thee from all troubles and diseases and make thee a sign of guidance and a standard of the Supreme Concourse in those regions and particularly at Green Acre.
(1) Christmas tree.


Images:
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"HOMELESS," Uploaded on September 20, 2007 by Hulagway on flickr, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
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"Sunrise from the summit of Mount Sinai," uploaded on January 17, 2006 by Bouldering Monkee on flickr, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Posted by GWD at 6:52 AM

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