News from Around the Region

Invitation for Home-Front Pioneers in the Rio Grande Valley Cluster

Local Baháʼí Communities, News from Around the Region, Service Opportunities -

The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Cluster is at the southern tip of Texas. Relatively isolated from the rest of the United States as well as most of Mexico, it is culturally distinct from both. It has almost 1.4 million inhabitants, over 90% of whom are Hispanic. The RGV offers a friendly, family-oriented approach to life where people tend to greet others warmly and to help strangers in need. The Valley is growing fairly rapidly due to a high birth rate and immigration from across the Mexico border. Many families have members on both sides of the border. A seasonal influx of “Winter Texans” brings tens of thousands of retirees from the Midwest, and the beautiful beaches of nearby South Padre Island attract tourists.

The Bahá’í communities of the Valley date from the 1970’s. Local Spiritual Assemblies are regularly elected in McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville. The current Bahá’í population is about 115, most of whom are adults. For over a year the total number of core activities has hovered around 45, with 2/3 of those being devotionals. Although work has been done in two focus neighborhoods at the initiative of individuals and couples and the potential for growth is enormous, human resources are not sufficient to fully develop these receptive neighborhoods. Children and junior youth primarily speak English, but a significant percentage of their parents communicate more comfortably in Spanish. In this environment, it is clear that the Valley would especially benefit from more Spanish language support.

The Area Teaching Committee warmly welcomes inquiries from friends interested in home-front pioneering in the Valley and can be reached at RioGrandeValleyATC@gmail.com.

 

For general information, visit this Wikipedia article about the Lower Rio Grande Valley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Rio_Grande_Valley

Ayyám-i-Há, the Fast, and the Naw-Rúz Celebration

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Spiritual Regeneration in Anticipation of Spring

As we celebrate Naw-Rúz this year on the 21st of March, 2023, we end the month of fasting with the joyful anniversary of the spring equinox, which marks the beginning of the Bahá’í new year.  

The pre-spring festivities began with the intercalary days of Ayyám-i-Há.  During these additional four days between the Bahá’í months, we expressed our generosity, compassion, friendship, and love through acts of service, parties, and gift giving. 

This joyful festival readied us for the fast, which is a time of prayer, abstinence, self-improvement, restraint, and contemplation. With the conclusion of the month of fasting, we gather in community to welcome the new year with our families and friends, as we break the fast once more at sunset on the 20th of March.

What is Ayyám-i-Há?

“Let the days in excess of the months be placed before the month of fasting. We have ordained that these, amid all nights and days, shall be the manifestations of the letter Há, and thus they have not been bounded by the limits of the year and its months. It behooveth the people of Bahá, throughout these days, to provide good cheer for themselves, their kindred and, beyond them, the poor and needy, and with joy and exultation to hail and glorify their Lord, to sing His praise and magnify His Name; and when they end—these days of giving that precede the season of restraint—let them enter upon the Fast.” – Bahá’u’lláh, “The Kitáb-i-Aqdas,” para.16.

The Spiritual Benefits of the Fast

“No protector is there but Thee, no place to flee to except Thee, no refuge to seek save Thee. Cause me to taste, O my Lord, the divine sweetness of Thy remembrance and praise.” – Bahá’u’lláh, “Bahá’í  Prayers,” p. 256.

“This is, O my God, the first of the days on which Thou hast bidden Thy loved ones to observe the Fast. I ask of Thee by Thy Self and by him who hath fasted out of love for Thee and for Thy good-pleasure—and not out of self and desire, nor out of fear of Thy wrath—and by Thy most excellent names and august attributes, to purify Thy servants from the love of aught except Thee and to draw them nigh unto the Dawning-Place of the lights of Thy countenance and the Seat of the throne of Thy oneness. Illumine their hearts, O my God, with the light of Thy knowledge and brighten their faces with the rays of the Daystar that shineth from the horizon of Thy Will.” – Bahá’u’lláh, “Bahá’í Prayers,” p. 259.

Entering the Spiritual Springtime with Naw-Rúz

“At the time of the vernal equinox in the material world a wonderful vibrant energy and new life-quickening is observed everywhere in the vegetable kingdom; the animal and human kingdoms are resuscitated and move forward with a new impulse. The whole world is born anew, resurrected. Gentle zephyrs are set in motion, wafting and fragrant; flowers bloom; the trees are in blossom, the air temperate and delightful; how pleasant and beautiful become the mountains, fields and meadows.

“Likewise, the spiritual bounty and springtime of God quicken the world of humanity with a new animus and vivification. All the virtues which have been deposited and potential in human hearts are being revealed from that Reality as flowers and blossoms from divine gardens. It is a day of joy, a time of happiness, a period of spiritual growth. I beg of God that this divine spiritual civilization may have the fullest impression and effect upon you. May you become as growing plants. May the trees of your hearts bring forth new leaves and variegated blossoms. May ideal fruits appear from them in order that the world of humanity, which has grown and developed in material civilization, may be quickened in the bringing forth of spiritual ideals.” – ’Abdu’l-Bahá, “The Promulgation of Universal Peace,” 21 April 1912, Talk at Studio Hall, 1219 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Sofia Alves Wins Prestigious Design Award

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Congratulations are in order for Sofia Alves, a Baha’i from New Orleans, and her collaborator, Willow Cook. These LSU School of Interior Design students have been selected as winners of the 28th PAVE Student Design Competition. Their interior design project “Nest” addresses homelessness in New York City.

“Having the opportunity to create a project that has the potential to help the homeless communities across New York in collaboration with City Relief has been one of the most inspiring and enjoyable experiences I have had,” said Alves. “Without an organization like PAVE to support students and connect us to organizations like City Relief, we would not be able to contribute as students to the betterment of our society in the way we have.”

Click on each picture below to read more:

Kevin Locke: Personal Reflection

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A Reminiscence of Kevin Locke

I have known Kevin Locke since the early 1980’s, when we both lived on Standing Rock and taught the Faith either directly or through various activities. He was a patient and kind man, full of good will, and always giving respect and honor to the various groups of Indigenous and other peoples. Kevin would use his platform to highlight the other tribes, especially under-represented ones, other performers, and even the participants. He didn’t like the spotlight to be on him alone. That wasn’t what he was about. And He was always careful to acknowledge the Indigenous lands we were on.

In the spring of 2021, Kevin contacted me, wondering if I would help him find a place where he could give a fireside near Austin, as he was driving through on his way back to Standing Rock from Florida. When I contacted a few people, it turned out that the best place to have the fireside was in Killeen, which would be a treat for the small hard-working group there. Kevin decided to talk about the Lakota Messenger of God, the White Buffalo Calf Woman, and tied her existence to the coming of Bahá’u’lláh. It went over well.

In October 2021, Kevin came down from South Dakota to help a group of us celebrate Indigenous People’s Day, held on the grounds of the State Capitol in Austin, TX. Although he was the main attraction, in true Kevin fashion he highlighted everyone else and brought out the best in them. His granddaughters, of course, stole the show as they danced with him. The Spiritual Assembly of Austin provided support to the Indigenous People’s Day Committee, which included a wonderful dinner for all the performers. The event helped us gauge what the Indigenous people thought of the Bahá’í Faith. We are happy to report that several people made positive comments about knowing the Bahá’ís in Texas, especially in the area of San Antonio.

The most recent project I had with Kevin was in writing a book for youth about his mother, Patricia Locke. My book, “Warrior Grandma: The Story of Patricia Locke,” is now in print. Kevin encouraged me, helped me to accent the Lakota words, ensured that I explained Lakota culture correctly, took photos for me, and approved the final manuscript. He was very excited about this book and its goals: to teach about his mother, the Indigenous messengers, the beginnings of institutional racism, and, of course, the Bahá’í Faith. He and his mother were instrumental in researching Indigenous religion and Indigenous Messengers of God.

As we go forward in a world without Kevin on this plane, let us remember him in the manner that he honored us. Remember to be humble, to put others before ourselves, and to bring to the forefront the best in each other and in everyone we meet. 

Please pray for the Patricia Locke Foundation and all the work it does for children on the Standing Rock Reservation:  https://patricialockefoundation.org/

Littlebrave Beaston, Killeen/Austin, TX 

South Montgomery County, TX Bahá’i Community Celebrations for the Birth of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh

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South Montgomery County, TX Bahá’i Community Celebrations
for the Birth of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh

On Wednesday (10/26/22) about 25 sincere souls, including several friends of the Faith, met in Ridgewood Park in The Woodlands along the road which is aptly named Interfaith Way, where we communed with nature, engaged in many meaningful conversations, enjoyed refreshments, and learned about the writings and teachings of the blessed Báb. Conversations were held in Spanish and English.

People came together from as far away as Bolivia, Canada, and Mexico. One couplewill soon leave for Qatar. We are far-flung citizens of the world, who were magnetized to come together and celebrate the birth of the Báb.   As Bahá’u’lláh said on this precious day in 1891 when He hosted a similar celebration, “This is the day on which His Holiness the Báb was born and shed illumination upon the world. Hence, let there be joy and gladness a thousand-fold.”(As recounted by Mírzá Habíbu’lláh Afnán. See Rev. of Bahá’u’lláh, Vol. 4, p. 334.)

On Thursday (10/27/22) we again gathered, this time in a room at the South Regional Library to celebrate Bahá’u’lláh’s birthday. As we sat together in a circle of friends, we heard the story of the life of the Blessed Beauty. To cast some light upon such an exalted Figure can merely touch upon aspects of a momentous life. The chosen readings called upon the metaphor of trees to turn our focus on Bahá’u’lláh’s ardent love of nature.

After our devotions, we went outside to walk across the lawn of the park next to the library, where the Bahá’is of Montgomery County South planted two trees to commemorate the bicentennial births of Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb in 2017 and 2019, respectively, with beautiful plaques placed below the trees to identify them. These two trees flower in the spring, and they flank a statue to honor veterans of war and those who have died in the fruitless conflicts that the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh have beensent by God to end forever.

These twin Luminaries call us to universal peace and brotherhood. “He hath proclaimed: It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind itscitizens.” (Tablet of Maqṣúd, Bahá’u’lláh.)

Impressive Social Action

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Impressive Social Action As A Result of a Junior Youth Group

Here is a wonderful story from New Braunsfels describing their involvement in the community resulting in a social action activity fruit from their junior youth group.

“We started our junior youth group about three years ago and used a room at the local community center for our gatherings. Our Bahá’í community is quite small with no youth but we decided to go ahead and start a group with the hope of raising capacity with the junior youth to become future animators. Friends from the Learning Site came to help us with outreach and we were able to get a Junior Youth group started within three visits to the focused neighborhood. During these three years we developed a good relationship with the Education Director at the community center. She was slowly allowing us to do more activities.

Some of our JY group service activities involved partnering with the Martin Luther King Association. We made posters for MLK day and displayed them at the community center and the main library. Junior youth and kids from our children’s class participated in the local MLK March.

Due to a racial incident that occurred within the city, the mayor decided to bring the community together to consult about ways to make sure similar incidents did not occur again. The mayor reached out to local organizations to participate in a community forum that would help promote unity in diversity. Because of our connections with MLK, three Bahá’í were invited to join this forum. This group of about 60 community members came up with the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Awareness forum, (IDEA forum). Since we were involved in the formation of this group, we were able to contribute in the design of the organizational structure. We decided that it would have a horizontal structure within circles, instead of the traditional top down leadership. We came up with a steering committee and four subcommittees that each had a liaison that would join the steering committee to make sure all the subcommittees were equally represented. Our Bahá’í team members joined the awareness subcommittee and recruited the Education Director at the local community center to join in. The awareness committee is about education and appreciation of our diversity.

We partnered with the ED and the IDEA Forum to host a mini camp for kids. The camp was on fostering friendships with the theme of unity. It included arts, crafts, and games. The focus was on developing their strengths in showing cooperation and teamwork, making friends, appreciating diversity, making sure everyone is included, listening and trying to understand, and working to make things better for all. The participants learned the quotation “So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole world.”

We involved our junior youth in planning the activities and they helped facilitate it. We had 10 lovely children of diverse backgrounds participate. We did an art project that showed them the qualities of being a true friend. We discussed the power of unity and did a skit at the end of the camp for the parents that was about unity and disunity. By the end of the camp bonds of friendship had started and they learned about how essential it is for cooperation and reciprocity in order for us to achieve growth and to realize we all benefit and are stronger when we work together.

The Education Director asked us to offer this mini camp again as he had a waiting list so we will repeat the lessons again in August.

Here is the structure from the committee:

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Rockwall TX Cluster Conference

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Rockwall Cluster Conference

Conference update in Rockwall. It lasted two days and was overflowing with joy, inspiration, music, and a spirit of fellowship. Fifty-three friends attended, half of whom were from the wider community. The friends expressed so much joy and hope with Baháʼu’lláh’s vision for humanity. There were more families that wanted to come but had conflicts with their schedules.They planned lots of arts integration and family activities. They added a showing of the video “A Space for Spiritual Conversation” and the Baháʼí World News Service’s video, “Global Conferences: Fostering a culture of peace, contributing to social betterment”.

Each day they all started in one home with an opening time for fellowship and food, followed by a family devotional, songs led by the children’s classes and junior youth, an introduction to the purpose of the conference, family crafts related to the themes of the conference and cultural presentations. Following the devotional, arts and cultural presentations, the adults moved to the other home and left the CC and JY with their groups at the main home. Everyone regrouped at the main home at the end of the day so each group could share arts, insights and learnings with each other and have a closing devotional.

The first day of the conference they did a family art project which was a large banner with the words “Hope for our Community”. The adult program included several hours of study each day on the themes in large and small groups. They also prayed together, sang songs, and played “Community Building Charades” with all the words and phrases we acted out coming from the themes of the conference.

For the children’s program, classes were patterned after the Ruhi class model but included the same themes from the conference that the adults studied. The children’s class teachers were three youth and one adult who have been working together as a team for the past few months. Two of the youth are from the wider community and have been part of the JYSEP program for the past 3 years. The children in the weekly classes, most of whom are from the wider community, have been growing very close to their teachers and this growing friendship has been special for both the youth and the children. Two of the youth have had some struggles at school with bullying and even getting into fights. Becoming CC teachers has helped them to gain confidence through seeing themselves as mentors and understanding their life purpose differently through service to humanity and not just the changes and chances of daily life. They expressed this shift and how they are feeling newly empowered during the conference. One youth shared, “I love teaching the children and having an impact on them. I want them to learn about service and how they can contribute to our community.” A parent shared that her twin daughters love their teachers so much and they sing the songs so much at home that now the parents know the songs too.

The program for the CC included prayers, learning quotes, creating songs with the quotes from the Writings, collaborative parachute games, singing, drumming, and other collaborative games. The youth teachers were very interested in making music with the children and they ended up learning and creating many songs together which they performed during sharing time with the rest of the conference participants.

The junior youth studied the Human Temple and had conversations around the two-fold moral purpose, an exploration of spiritual and material reality, their own spiritual and material identities, and the forces influencing them from society alongside Baháʼu’lláh’s vision for humanity. They planned two special art projects which they worked on each day. The first project used mannequin heads to symbolize the material and spiritual identities of each youth. Identity has been a big topic with this group and so the animators thought this would be a good art project to think deeply about this topic. They used Mod Podge and paint to decorate each head and represented the qualities of their soul (spiritual attributes) on the head itself, while putting their material qualities on papers attached to sticks that stuck out of the heads. Their second art project consisted of twelve canvases, grouped together as one picture. The picture was of a tree and the roots of the tree look like a map of the continents of the earth. The quote, “Ye are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch” was written on the canvases. The youth did not get to see the whole picture. They just received a single canvas to paint. Afterward they put all their canvases together like a puzzle to see what they had created. It was a physical demonstration of the power of collaboration and unity and the artwork was absolutely beautiful! The youth and junior youth had time for fellowship, played parachute games with the younger kids, and sang many songs together.

Overall, there was a strong spirit of fellowship and love at the conferences. One of the seekers shared that he has been having dreams of a set of golden doors opening and that he feels called to the Baháʼí community to understand his dreams and his spiritual purpose. Thanks to his sharing we were able to have some powerful conversations about dreams, the coming Golden Age, the new Nine Year Plan, and the Báb. Several families who had been engaged in the community building activities drew closer to the Faith and expressed a desire to engage more deeply due to their experience at the conference. Many families grew closer in friendship to other families. It will be exciting to see how these friendships blossom and what fruits they will bear. We also had some collaborators from other surrounding communities come to learn from our experience so they might pursue neighborhood conferences.

The story and picture is provided by: Naomi

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Ridvan April 21 King of Festivals

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“This is the Day in which God’s most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences,and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness.”  – Bahá’u’lláh

In the Najíbíyyih Garden outside the city of Baghdád, thirty-one days after Naw-Rúz, in April 1863, Bahá’u’lláh declared His Mission. In a Tablet, He refers to His Declaration as “the Day of supreme felicity” and He describes the Garden of Riḍván as “the Spot from which He shed upon the whole of creation the splendors of His Name, the All-Merciful”.

Bahá’u’lláh spent twelve days in this Garden prior to departing for Istanbul, the place to which He had been banished . For 12 days He received friends and family and declared HE was the initiator of a new era in history in which the tyrannies and injustices of the past would give way to a world of peace and justice: an embodiment of the principle of the oneness of humankind.The “Divine Springtime,” had arrived.

In 2022, Local Spiritual Assemblies are to form on the First Day of Ridván—which begins at sunset on Wednesday, April 20, and ends at sunset on Thursday, April 21. ‘I earnestly appeal to every one of you to endeavor to approach the election with that purity of spirit that can alone obtain our Beloved’s most cherished desire.

Let us recall His explicit and oft-repeated assurances that every Assembly elected in that rarefied atmosphere of selflessness and detachment is, in truth, appointed of God…” (Shoghi Effendi, Principles of Bahá’í Administration, pages 65-66) The establishment of a Local Spiritual Assembly draws special blessing to the entire population, not just the Bahá’í community.