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/

Wayfarer's tales revived, maybe

I might start posting here again, now and then. I've enabled comments, and fixed two broken links.

How to find common ground with feuding Baha'is?

In the past, in my relationships with people who claim allegiance to Baha'u'llah while continually depreciating what the House of Justice is promoting, and with their detractors, thinking of them as followers of Baha'u'llah has repeatedly led me to dead ends, contradictions, frustrations and confusion. I might give that up for a while. Taking their stated motives and purposes at face value also led me to dead ends, contradictions, frustrations and confusion. I might give that up for a while, too.

Where does that leave me? I don't know. Maybe try to find some common interests, possibly unrelated to Baha'u'llah, by trial and error. Maybe look for some enduring interests in their conversations, that interest me, and range farther and wider in discussing my own interests.

Closed until further notice

I don't have access to Blogspot any more. I used a proxy to post this, and to disable comments, because they were being spammed.

Examining some questionable behavior

It looks to me like I've been trying to be part of a fellowship that revolves around contempt for everything the House of Justice is promoting. If it looks that way to me, then it might look that way to some other people. If so, then some people might have doubts about my relationship with the House of Justice.

It might be true that I've been trying to be part of a fellowship that revolves around contempt for everything the House of Justice is promoting. I'll be considering that possibility and what to do about it. It might mean backing away from that fellowship somehow.

I do not imagine that it means backing away from my friendships with some of the people in that fellowship.

Status of projects

I'm trying to take a break from Internet discussions, so my online projects are simmering for now, except for following a few blogs and corresponding with a few friends. I'm also continuing my posts on my Deeds Not Words blog, about doing things in the right spirit.

Off line, I'm working mostly on three lines of action:
1. Learning Chinese, to improve my capacity to develop friendships.
2. Memorizing verses about hearts possessed by God, and doing things in the right spirit.
2. Improving my practice of continual attention to doing things in the right spirit, and responding favorably to other people doing that.

Thoughts while reading some discussions about racism

I feel very much at home in this article, except that I'm not interested in being a white ally:

For White Folks: How To Become An Ally

In a comment:

Today POC face the institution of slavery.

Ame13: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction

Now, considering the amount of drug convictions.

Considering the amount of people in prison.

Considering that most dealers and users are white…. but the people who get arrested for drugs are not.

Exactly. Slavery is alive and well today in America, complete with dogs, guns and ropes. I've seen it close up with my own eyes. One thing that's missing in the above outline is the work that inmates do for a few cents a day. and where they do it. They are obviously not in prison because of being considered dangerous criminals.