Seventy and Two: Musings on Meaning

The authors of Bahá’í Perspectives – my new favorite Bahá’í blog – keep churning out wonders. Their latest post is a gem for Bahá’ís and interested non-Bahá’ís. It approaches the modern dating paradigm from a Bahá’í Perspective, identifies the problems, and searches through the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith for solutions:

Quit Playing Games
It seems that from culture to culture, no matter if you’re from Seychelles or France, Nova Scotia or the Yucatan, certain things are universally appealing. The pursuit of love, of a relationship, sitting perhaps atop the list of things people are seeking. Since the appearance of humans on this planet, one could safely guess, we have been trying to woo one another or convince one another that we are worthy of being wooed.

Bahá’í Perspectives is the newest addition to my blogroll, and this post did it. I advise every fellow blog-fiend to give them a gander.

I have two ways of loving You:
A selfish one
And another way that is worthy of You.
In my selfish love, I remember You and You alone.
In that other love, You lift the veil
And let me feast my eyes on Your Living Face.
Rabi’á al-Basra

Everyone has experienced synchronicity. You learn a new word and suddenly you hear it everywhere? You start thinking about a concept and people around you start bringing it up? Wikipedia defines synchronicity in a very succinct manner:

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally un-related. In order to be ’synchronistic’, the events must be related to one another temporally, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small.

I have come to believe, simply from my experience, that synchronicity is very often a divine message. A way of God and the Universe nudging you in the right direction. Although it may be perfectly explainable logically, it is anomalous in our perception. At the very least it cannot be ignored. In my life I have one great experience of synchronicity. Throughout the months before I discovered the Baha’i Faith, while still in a limbo of developing panentheism from my atheism, I kept thinking that a religion ought to be founded that united the Abrahamic Faiths and took the attitude of Islam to other religions (Every people being sent a Prophet). During this time, the Baha’i Faith popped up quite a few times in my life. So, from my experience in life and the experiences of others relayed to me, I strongly believe that synchronicity at least demands our respect and attention.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am flying out to Seattle (My favorite city in the entire world) two hours from now for a weekend annual conference of members of the Appointed Branch. We have Assistants, Auxilliary Board Members, Area Teaching Committees and maybe Counselors . . . I am looking forward to it so much, and hoping that I will finally meet our ABM for Protection!

When I get back, expect a blog post illuminating everyone on everything I learned, with a little squeeing about how awesome Seattle is. I hope it rains! (Not joking. I love the ocean, I love big cities, I love dreary/stormy weather, and I love Baha’is. Therefore Seattle is the greatest city on this side of the earth)