Posts from — April 2007

I was intrigued to find out that one of the members of our Baha’i Local Spiritual Assembly in Welwyn (that’s in England’s beautiful county of Hertfordshire) has won a newspaper competition.

thelondonpaper is a free sheet that is forced on innocent home-going commuters at London’s railway stations by purple-clad young people.

Maani Saafa has won the paper’s “inaugural male reader model competition”

A model Baha’i is one thing, but a Baha’i model is quite something else! I don’t think I’ve ever met a Baha’i model before…

Maani the model (Photograph

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Bilo’s post on an article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm about Western coverage of the sufferings of the Baha’is in Egypt has been picked up here by the Middle East Interfaith Blogger Network.

(I found this out because Bilo’s link to one of my posts created a pingback from mefaith.com.)

It’s worth having a look at mefaith.com’s manifesto:

Through blogging, we are free to express our beliefs online and share them with the world in a way that is not possible otherwise. We cherish our right to free expression and freedom of conscience. As individuals with ties to the Middle East, we are pained by ongoing repression and conflict in the region, troubles fueled in part by religious differences and in part by a fundamental lack of communication.

Together, we are committed to helping Middle Eastern societies find a formula for genuine acceptance of difference. We ask the blogging community to provide an open environment for interfaith dialogue and education

I’ve just learned that the ages of the children and junior youth who are being abused and attacked by teachers and school administrators in Iran are as follows:

The Baha’i World News Service has just published its story about the attacks on Baha’i schoolchildren in Iran.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, children, human rights, Iran, schools

Disturbing news has emerged that Baha’i kids in primary and high schools in Iran are being bullied and vilified by their teachers and school administrators.

Young Baha’is are being forced to identify themselves as Baha’is. They then have to endure a catalogue of abuses:

Please get over to Phillipe’s blog to read his description of “a soul transporting celebration at the Boston Baha’i Center”. It’s heart-stirring stuff, all about building a community of the Spirit.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, spirituality, prayer, celebration, community

Erica and I walked a 3-mile circuit through the woods and the village of Burnham Green in our part of Hertfordshire this afternoon. The sun was really warm when we were out of the lively wind that roared in the tree tops.

Spring is here! Another Robert Browning poem:

Pippa’s Song

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven –
All’s right with the world!

Technorati Tags: Spring, England, Hertfordshire, poetry

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Robert Browning’s Home Thoughts from Abroad seems a good poem for 1 April. I first loved this poem when I read it at my prep school. I must have been about 10 at the time. Of course, global warming has changed the timing of Spring growth.

Home Thoughts, From Abroad

Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England