Personal diary of John Barnabas (aka Barney) Leith
From the monthly archives:
…I don’t feel any older, but I can’t quite believe that I’m almost 60.
We had an excellent family get-together on 27 December to celebrate two birthdays, mine and Jacob’s.
This time last year Jakey was an utterly helpless baby. Now, one year on, he’s an active, bright, rather mischievous little boy, just beginning to [...]
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OK, so what is this gang of Baha’is doing celebrating that festival on 25 December?
Our excuse was that the whole country had shut down for the day and there wasn’t anything else to do. (The UK completely shuts for business on 25 December – no trains, no shops, no offices… But someone must be working. [...]
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The Universal House of Justice, the world governing council of the Baha’i community, has addressed a wonderful message to the Baha’is of Egypt. It is also available in Arabic.
If you’re at all interested in seeing how Baha’is respond to deprivation of their human rights and their civil rights, you should read this letter. You will [...]
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Could Tibetan Buddhist monks be the secret weapon against climate change
I recently came across this 2002 article from the Harvard University Gazette. It seems that some Tibetan Buddhist monks were the subject of an experiment while in deep meditation:
In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the [...]
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Thanks to The Independent newspaper on 16 December for elevating me in age and status. According to the Indie’s Portfolio: Our leading religious figures I am a 68-year-old aristocrat and, well, a “religious leader“.
Let’s get this straight. I am 58, the younger son of a Baron (who died when I was 11), and a member [...]
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L to R: Keith McDonald, Carolyn Neogi, Fiona McDonald, Thelma Batchelor, Lindsay Thorne
Erica and I went to a Baha’i nostalgia-fest last night at the home of Sean and Tebby Hinton in London. Fiona and Keith McDonald were visiting from Australia and gathered together some of us who were Baha’i chums in the early 1970s. When [...]
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A poll reported in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper claims that most people in Britain think religion does more harm than good.
The poll also reveals that non-believers outnumber believers in Britain by almost two to one. It paints a picture of a sceptical nation with massive doubts about the effect religion has on society: 82% of thosequestioned [...]
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This is the headline to a scurrilous article in the Aljazeera.com online magazine (in English) by Sheikha Sajida, who is commenting on the recent judgement of the Supreme Administrative Court in Egypt that Baha’is cannot enter the word “Baha’i” on any official document where they have to state their religion.
Sajida makes this extraordinary claim:
Endorsing a [...]
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The life of the Prophet Muhammad has always polarized opinion in the West. After 9/11 and 7/7 it has become increasingly difficult to find balanced accounts of Islam and its founder. Having read Robert Spencer’s “The Truth About Muhammad”, which is relentlessly hostile, I was looking for something rather more sympathetic about Muhammad’s life. [...]
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Afshin is a Baha’i and a media student at Brunel University in London. His blog has lots of good stuff about the Baha’i Faith, Baha’i activities and music. It’s well worth a read.
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Technorati Tags: Baha’i, media
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