The people of Baha and the framework for action

I need to take a break from Internet discussions, but I'm planning to continue reading some blogs. One is a blog that I had chosen for systematic and sustained efforts to practice encouragement and support. Another one is one that I just discovered, that I also want to continue encouraging. There are a few others that I want to follow.

I might also take a few more steps in the series of articles I wanted to post about the people of Baha and the framework for action. I still don't have a clear idea of what to do. Maybe I'll write about some of my ideas and experiences as I try to deepen my own understanding, and improve my own practice, in using the framework for action to serve Baha'u'llah's purposes.

I'll try describing where I am now in my understanding and practice.

One way I've thought of the framework for action is that it provides a continually improving environment for people who are interested, to improve their capacity to serve Baha'u'llah's purposes. I might discuss how the various components contribute to that, and how they work together. I might discuss different kinds of relationships people might have with Baha'u'llah, and how that might affect what they can do with the framework for action.

For most of my life a recurring question for me has been what I might do to make my life more pleasing to God. I was eager to go through the Ruhi courses because I saw in them a way to systematically improve my knowledge, understanding and capacity. Then I wanted to help individuals who were interested in the courses but who weren't ready to participate in organized classes with other people. I wanted to go through tutor training to improve my work with individuals. After I went through some of the books I realized the importance of the practices and that I hadn't done much with them. I went back and tried to do them, and I did some research to learn how to help other people do them. I also decided that one way to improve my capacity to serve intensive growth programs would be to develop a passion for teaching, and more specifically to learn to invite people to activities.

Before I moved to China, I was going to a friend's house for prayers once a week, and we were working through Ruhi Book 1 together and discussing plans for some work we wanted to do with some children and junior youth. I tried to find some intensive growth programs somewhere that I could participate in, so I could bring the spirit and some ideas about it back into my community. I was trying to get together with some people who had been through the tutor training but who were having trouble doing anything with it, so we could help each other to take some beginning steps. I was having a lot of trouble getting started.

I was also trying to help develop ways for people who weren't participating in institute courses to get part of the training some other way if they were interested, through mentoring for example.

When our community started practicing for intensive teaching campaigns, I didn't participate in the initial teaching, but I started visiting one of the homes.

Besides practicing and promoting all the components of the framework for action, at the same time I was promoting some ideas and pursuing some initiatives of my own, and practicing and promoting encouragement and support of others doing the same, regardless of how anyone thought they fit into community goals and plans. I was also trying to prevent and counteract people being stigmatized for not participating in institute courses, or in any other part of community goals and plans. In my understanding it is contrary to Baha'u'llah's purposes and to the interests of the House of Justice to stigmatize people for not participating in community goals and plans, or to depreciate initiatives outside of them.

My own inititatives revolved around neighborhood community service and development, working with children and junior youth, and walking and working with people in the margins of the Baha'i community, online and offline.

It would please me very much to see more and more people voluntarily starting their own core activities, going through the sequence of institute courses including the practices, fully participating in reflection meetings, inviting non-members into the core activities, preparing to participate in intensive teaching campaigns, promoting their own ideas and pursuing their own initiatives, and learning to encourage and support each other in all that, in ways that really help and without stigmazing anyone who isn't interested.

It would please me very much to see individuals and institutions learning to offer the kind of encouragement and support to people that really helps, in the challenges they're facing and in what they're trying to do with their lives, regardless of how it fits into community goals and plans.