The concept of “Unity in Diversity” is a given in the Bahá’Ă Faith and a term that’s been bandied around so often, that we’re now seeing it in the non-Bahá’Ă world too. The best known usage inside the Faith, is around the concept of the oneness of humanity, being likened to a garden, but recently I came across this quote (which I’ve broken in 3 parts) and had an entirely different understanding of what it means:
A unity in diversity of actions is called for, a condition in which different individuals will concentrate on different activities, appreciating the salutary effect of the aggregate on the growth and development of the Faith . . .
Think of the human body – a beautiful example of unity in diversity in action! We need big toenails just as much as we need eyeballs and kneecaps and thumbs. The big toenail doesn’t feel guilty it can’t see. The kneecap isn’t depressed because it can’t pick things up. Each part is important to the functioning of the whole (have you ever had a sore big toe nail? The whole body suffers!). Each part has a role to play, which is different from every other part. We accept it without giving it any thought, because typically, the body functions without any conscious effort on our part.
That’s what our Bahá’Ă life needs to be like.
. . . because each person cannot do everything and all persons cannot do the same thing . . .
The Universal House of Justice has asked us to concentrate on 4 core activities: Study Circles, Devotional Gatherings, Children’s Classes and Junior Youth programs, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to do one or more of these activities the same as anyone else.
If you’re a big toenail, perhaps you will tutor a study circle, or put together the devotions, or teach the children’s classes and junior youth programs.
If you’re a kneecap, you might organize the activities (find the tutors, teachers and animators, order the books, call the students, parents etc.)
If you’re the eyeball, you might host the events or bake the cookies.
If you’re the thumb, you might provide transportation or child care.
If you’re the eyelash, you might pray for the success of the event.
If you’re the elbow, you might serve on the institutions that do the planning.
But how many of us try to do everything and either burn out or become inactive because they feel that what they have to offer isn’t appreciated, or isn’t what others are doing etc?
. . . This understanding is important to the maturity which, by the many demands being made upon it, the community is being forced to attain. (Compilations, Promoting Entry by Troops, p. 17)
So the next time you are tempted to do it all, remember that it’s a sign of maturity to know which part of the whole you’re best at, recognize that you are a big toe nail, and leave the work of the eyeball to the eyeball.
What are your thoughts? Post your comments here:
by Susan Gammage, Baha'i Life Coach
Different people look at life in entirely different ways. While some people let things happen to them, others go out and make things happen. It’s very important to have an understanding of which group you belong to.
If you are driven by a compelling vision, you have a greater chance to feel good about yourself.
If you have a true mission, you have a better chance to know where you are going in your life.
When you feel you are in control of your life and events, you will naturally feel more confident and motivated to achieve more.
Life Coaches love to ask questions, to help people come to their own answers. The following is a series of questions for you to ask yourself in order to do some soul searching and to give yourself some insights into what you are all about and why you are here. Having the right question, and answering it well, is one way to get what you want out of life:
1. As a child, what did you dream of becoming?
2. Which three people do you think have influenced your life the most and why?
3. If you could choose your career and get paid whatever you wanted, what would you opt for?
4. What are your top three achievements in life so far? What was so special about them?
5. Doing what makes you the happiest in life?
6. Who are the three people who you admire the most? What are their characteristics and qualities you admire so much?
7. Have you ever helped someone less fortunate than you? If yes, what did you do? If no, why not?
8. List out your greatest strengths?
9. What steps should you take in life to maximise your strengths?
10. What is that one thing for which you would be willing to put everything on the block for? Why?
11. Imagine that all the time you spent till now comes back to you. How would you utilize it now? What would you do with the time this second time round?
12. There are sure to be results/ events in your life you are happy about? What are these? Which are the results/ events you are unhappy about?
13. Is there a word of advice you have picked up from your life so far that you want to pass on to the world?
14. Name one thing you value the most in life?
15. What would you really like to do with your life?
The whole point of getting you to think about those questions was to really get you to think about what you want now and what you wanted for your life when you were younger.
Is it easier for you now, after answering these questions, to realize what you want from life and how you are going to get it?
Research has shown that when you identify a goal and tell another person about it, you’re more likely to carry it out. To make you accountable for moving forward, I’d like you to set a goal from this new learning, and post your comment here, and then when you’ve achieved it, I’d like you to tell us that too.
by Susan Gammage, Baha'i Life Coach
Canada is going to the polls next week, to elect a new prime minister and the United States will soon be electing a president. Apathy is setting in on both sides of the border as many people are not planning to vote because they don’t think their vote will matter. We know, as Baha’is that the old world structures are crumbling, but what is more worrisome, is when people don’t vote in Baha’i elections either.
This week I got a story from an email from a friend, who reminds us that the right to vote was hard fought:
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; who lived only 90 years ago. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917,when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.
http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels ‘ It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient. My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,’ she said. ‘What would those women think of the way I use, or don’t use, my right to vote?
All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’HBO released the movie on video and DVD I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum.
I want it shown anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’
On a personal note: last year when I cast my vote, I was acutely aware that I was doing it for all of the women of my grandmother’s generation, who fought for my right to be there.
What are your thoughts on elections? Post your comments here:
