Bahá'í Epistolary: Uber-"teaching" in the congregation, or changing the world? My community is bigger than yours, or birthing the new community?
---------------------------
Readers here might enjoy what is, as far as I know, the most extensive analysis of the new Baha'i paradigm of learning and growth. I posted an introduction to the paradigmatic shift in the Baha'i community, the new culture of learning and growth that is at the heart of this paradigm, some 24 months ago. I did this posting at several internet sites and have updated/revised that post in these last two years. It seemed like a good idea to give readers some specific steps on how to access this now revised article/essay at Baha’i Library Online(BLO).
In that two year period there have been many thousand views of my article at the few sites where it has been posted. In addition to googling "Baha'i Culture of Learning and Growth" and accessing my article in the process at several sites, readers can take the following steps to access the latest edition of my article at BLO: (i) type Baha’i Library Online or Baha’i Academics Resource Library into your search engine; (ii) click on the small box “By author” at the top of the access page at BLO; (iii) type “Price” into the small box that then appears and click on the word “Go;” and then (iv) scroll down to article/document item #46 and (v) click on that item and read to your heart’s content. When your eyes and your mind start to glaze over, stop reading. The article can be downloaded free and you will then have access to a revised article, a 164 page, 77,000 word context for all this new paradigmatic terminology that has come into the Baha’i community in the last 13 years.
The statement is a personal one, does not assume an adversarial attitude, attempts to give birth of as fine an etiquette of expression as I can muster and, I like to think, possesses both candour and critical thought on the one hand and praise and delight at the process on the other. I invite readers to what I also like to think is “a context on which relevant fundamental questions” regarding this new paradigm may be discussed within the Baha’i community. It is also my intention to update this article in the months and years ahead. One of the advantages of the BLO site is the freedom it gives to a writer to update the article right on the site in an ongoing process as new insights from major thinkers in the Baha'i community and information from the elected and appointed institutions of the Cause comes to hand.
If time and the inclination permit, check it out. No worries, no obligation, just if it interests you. You may find the piece of writing too long as I'm sure many readers do. You may also find it too personal due to the fact that I attempt to answer the question: “where do I fit into this new paradigm?” After a few paragraphs of reading, you will get the flavour of the exercise. Just keep reading if your mind and spirit are enjoying the process.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Updating of Culture of Learning Article at Buzzle.com
Since I posted an introduction to the paradigmatic shift in the Baha'i community, the new culture of learning and growth that is at the heart of this paradigm, 18 months ago now, it seemed like a good idea to give readers some specific steps on how to access this article/essay at Baha’i Library Online(BLO).
In those 18 months there have been many thousand views of my article at the few sites where I posted it. The steps to access my article are simple: (i) type Baha’i Library Online or Baha’i Academics Resource Library into your search engine; (ii) click on the small box “By author” at the top of the access page at BLO; (iii) type “Price” into the small box that then appears and click on the word “Go;” and then (iv) scroll down to article/document item #46 and (v) click on that item and read to your heart’s content. When your eyes and your mind start to glaze over, stop reading. The article can be downloaded free and you will then have access to a revised article, a 140 page, 66,000 word context for all this new paradigmatic terminology that has come into the Baha’i community in the last 13 years.
The statement is a personal one, does not assume an adversarial attitude, attempts to give birth of as fine an etiquette of expression as I can muster and, I like to think, possesses both candor and critical thought. I invite readers to what I also like to think is “a context on which relevant fundamental questions” regarding this new paradigm may be discussed within the Baha’i community. It is also my intention to update this article in the months and years ahead. One of the advantages of the BLO site is the freedom it gives to a writer to update the article at the site.-Ron Price, George Town, Tasmania
In those 18 months there have been many thousand views of my article at the few sites where I posted it. The steps to access my article are simple: (i) type Baha’i Library Online or Baha’i Academics Resource Library into your search engine; (ii) click on the small box “By author” at the top of the access page at BLO; (iii) type “Price” into the small box that then appears and click on the word “Go;” and then (iv) scroll down to article/document item #46 and (v) click on that item and read to your heart’s content. When your eyes and your mind start to glaze over, stop reading. The article can be downloaded free and you will then have access to a revised article, a 140 page, 66,000 word context for all this new paradigmatic terminology that has come into the Baha’i community in the last 13 years.
The statement is a personal one, does not assume an adversarial attitude, attempts to give birth of as fine an etiquette of expression as I can muster and, I like to think, possesses both candor and critical thought. I invite readers to what I also like to think is “a context on which relevant fundamental questions” regarding this new paradigm may be discussed within the Baha’i community. It is also my intention to update this article in the months and years ahead. One of the advantages of the BLO site is the freedom it gives to a writer to update the article at the site.-Ron Price, George Town, Tasmania
Monday, July 2, 2007
Pioneering Over Four Epochs1: Post #2
QUITE UNMEASUREABLE, INDEFINABLE
If a person chooses to perfect his writing and not his life, "he must refuse a heavenly mansion." Toil will leave its mark: "a raging in the dark." He will feel "the day's vanity, the night's remorse."
-Ron Price with thanks to W.B. Yeats, "The Choice", W.B. Yeats The Poems, editor, Daniel Albright, J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., London, 1990, pp.296-7.
All this writing is for me
a visible sign of the melody
of eternity with the chord
of creation, an attempt to
establish myself in the realm
of divine trust, to bring the
Supreme Concourse to the
door of my life as I play
with the heavens of mysteries,
the colours and riddles of life.
Holding all there is of creative
thought, I produce a spiritual
word and result that is quite
immeasureable, indefineable.1
Ron Price
26 October 1997
1 most of this perspective comes from 'Abdu'l-Baha statement on the cry Ya'Baha'ul-Abha which I have applied to writing. The comparison can be made, but how validly?
If a person chooses to perfect his writing and not his life, "he must refuse a heavenly mansion." Toil will leave its mark: "a raging in the dark." He will feel "the day's vanity, the night's remorse."
-Ron Price with thanks to W.B. Yeats, "The Choice", W.B. Yeats The Poems, editor, Daniel Albright, J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., London, 1990, pp.296-7.
All this writing is for me
a visible sign of the melody
of eternity with the chord
of creation, an attempt to
establish myself in the realm
of divine trust, to bring the
Supreme Concourse to the
door of my life as I play
with the heavens of mysteries,
the colours and riddles of life.
Holding all there is of creative
thought, I produce a spiritual
word and result that is quite
immeasureable, indefineable.1
Ron Price
26 October 1997
1 most of this perspective comes from 'Abdu'l-Baha statement on the cry Ya'Baha'ul-Abha which I have applied to writing. The comparison can be made, but how validly?
Pioneering Over Four Epochs1: Post #1
RESPONSE TO CRITICISM: LAURA RIDING
Early in the new millennium I began to receive criticisms of my prose and poetry. Some of those are found here. In 1936, right at the start of the Baha’i teaching Plan, Laura Riding wrote to a correspondent, "I believe that misconceptions about oneself that one does not correct where possible act as a bad magic…." That "bad magic" has been at work on the reputation of Laura (Riding) Jackson for many, many years. One of the criticisms leveled at her in her later life, and repeated by Dr. Vendler (who predictably finds her, in this, "more than a little monomaniacal"), was that she "spent a great deal of time writing tenacious and extensive letters to anyone who, in her view, had misrepresented some aspect, no matter how minute, of her life or writing." It is true that despite advanced age and failing health, she continued to the end her vigorous (and one might even say valiant) attempt to halt the spread of misconceptions about herself, but the "bad magic" was too powerful to be overcome. (Incidentally, that was the view of "magic" held by a woman who has been accused of witchcraft.)
Why was she so scrupulous in her attempts to correct misconceptions, "no matter how minute," of her life and writing? Because she recognized the importance of details to the understanding of human character. "The detail of human nature is never a matter of infinitesimals," she wrote in an essay published in 1974. "Every last component of the human course of things is a true fraction of the personal world, reflecting a little its general character." –Elizabeth Friedman, “Letter About Laura (Riding) Jackson,” The New York Review of Books, 3 February 1994.
My approach is more diverse. Sometimes I ignore the comment; sometimes I am tenacious and write an extensive response; sometimes I write something brief and to the point. I certainly agree with Riding that we should not be judged by some infinitessimals. After three or four years of written and critical feedback it hardly amounts to much of significance. But I thought this personal comment here would be a useful summary position.
Ron Price
10 March 2007
Early in the new millennium I began to receive criticisms of my prose and poetry. Some of those are found here. In 1936, right at the start of the Baha’i teaching Plan, Laura Riding wrote to a correspondent, "I believe that misconceptions about oneself that one does not correct where possible act as a bad magic…." That "bad magic" has been at work on the reputation of Laura (Riding) Jackson for many, many years. One of the criticisms leveled at her in her later life, and repeated by Dr. Vendler (who predictably finds her, in this, "more than a little monomaniacal"), was that she "spent a great deal of time writing tenacious and extensive letters to anyone who, in her view, had misrepresented some aspect, no matter how minute, of her life or writing." It is true that despite advanced age and failing health, she continued to the end her vigorous (and one might even say valiant) attempt to halt the spread of misconceptions about herself, but the "bad magic" was too powerful to be overcome. (Incidentally, that was the view of "magic" held by a woman who has been accused of witchcraft.)
Why was she so scrupulous in her attempts to correct misconceptions, "no matter how minute," of her life and writing? Because she recognized the importance of details to the understanding of human character. "The detail of human nature is never a matter of infinitesimals," she wrote in an essay published in 1974. "Every last component of the human course of things is a true fraction of the personal world, reflecting a little its general character." –Elizabeth Friedman, “Letter About Laura (Riding) Jackson,” The New York Review of Books, 3 February 1994.
My approach is more diverse. Sometimes I ignore the comment; sometimes I am tenacious and write an extensive response; sometimes I write something brief and to the point. I certainly agree with Riding that we should not be judged by some infinitessimals. After three or four years of written and critical feedback it hardly amounts to much of significance. But I thought this personal comment here would be a useful summary position.
Ron Price
10 March 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)