Talisman liberation movement and me: NAQ (Never-Asked Questions)

Talisman liberation movement and me: NAQ (Never-Asked Questions)

* Edit

The way this was originally titled and written seemed to equate the "Talisman liberation movement" with people "who have campaigned against the Universal House of Justice." That was a terrible injustice. There were many people involved in that movement, and I saw very few of them campaigning against the House of Justice. My abject apologies to anyone who might have been adversely affected by that. This is the introduction I should have written to avoid that misunderstanding.

From the home page of the Talisman9 Yahoo group:

"Talisman9 succeeds talisman@indiana.edu and talisman@umich.edu as a list for the free and open discussion of issues in the Baha'i Faith from an intellectual and spiritual point of view."

There's a long and eventful history behind that, which I call the "Talisman liberation movement," in which I see some efforts to free the religious spirit from what the Universal House of Justice calls "the shackles that have so far prevented it from bringing to bear the healing influence of which it is capable." There were many people involved in that movement, and I saw very few of them campaigning against the House of Justice, but my attention to the movement revolved largely around those few, and a few people who were feuding with them, in some Internet discussions. I posted quite a bit in those discussions, for many months, and I posted quite a bit about them in other discussions and in my blogs. My discussions and correspondence with them led to friendships with some of them, which some of my other friends disapproved of, to say the least.

* End edit

1. Why am I so interested in some members and former members of the Baha'i Faith who have campaigned against the Universal House of Justice?
2. Why am I still thinking about a feud that happened years ago?
3. What am I trying to do?

I've given up hope of anyone ever understanding my reasons, and I don't know of anyone who even cares, but I've decided to answer those questions here anyway.

1. Why am I so interested in some members and former members of the Baha'i Faith who have campaigned against the Universal House of Justice?

Because of the divisions that I see between them and some other Baha'is.

That might raise the question "Why single out those divisions, out of all the divisions between people in the world, for special attention?"

I'm not sure, but I've learned to trust my intuition about some things, and I'm trusting it about this.

Some possible reasons:

- I see a need for the Baha'i community to address its own social issues as frankly and openly as it addresses everyone else's.

- I see a need to focus on one division or another sometimes. I've also focused sometimes on some other specific divisions, including some revolving around race, class, gender, religion, ideology, language, culture, economics and gays.

- When I see people doing and saying things that alarm me, I feel a responsibility to try to see things their way, see the good in what they're doing, see what I can learn from them, and see how I might serve their best interests. That's deeply rooted in my understanding of following Baha'u'llah. I can't imagine anything more alarming to me than what I saw some people saying and doing, on both sides, in the feuding associated with Dialogue Magazine and the Baha'i Talisman lists. I spent some time with them trying to see things their way, see the good in what they were doing, see what I could learn from them, and see how I might serve their best interests. In the process I developed a friendly personal interest in some of them.

- Another reason might be the campaigns I've seen in each camp, trying to discredit the other, more than I've seen in other divisions between Baha'is.

2. Why am I still thinking about a feud that happened years ago?

I don't see the same open feuding in Internet discussions that I saw before, but I still see people drawing the same lines. I still see campaigns in each camp trying to discredit the other. I don't see any less need to do what I'm trying to do, than ever before.

3. What am I trying to do?

See:

Personal pages

fellowship
http://www.geocities.ws/geotalk/fellowship/fellowship.html

Deeds, Not Words
http://www.geocities.ws/netsofwonder/deedsnotwords/home.html

Glimpses of the Dialogue/Talisman Chronicles
http://www.oocities.org/geotalk/glimpses/

Ideas for working with abused and marginalized people
http://www.geocities.ws/ozpeople/home.html

- Messages from the Universal House of Justice

Letter to the World's Religious Leaders
http://bahai-library.com/published.uhj/religious.leaders.html

One Common Faith
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/bic/OCF/