ALMONTE – If you’re looking for a place to discuss – and maybe even solve – the world’s problems, Almonte’s Baha’i community wants to hear from you.
And not just hear from you, but they want you to be part of the dialogue during their monthly ‘devotionals’, which are usually held at the home of Mai and Ian Young, 134 Dr. Bach St., on the third or fourth Wednesday of the month.
The topics run the gamut from backbiting and gossip to life after death. Last month’s topic was poverty, and member Andy Tamas talked about his governance aid work in Afghanistan.
Members of the Baha’i community can form a local spiritual assembly when nine or more members get together. So, while Almonte has an assembly, Carleton Place does not, as yet.
During the devotionals, which are open to members of all faiths, and even agnostics and atheists too, members read from spiritual texts, usually from the Baha’i faith, but also drawing from Islam, Buddhism and Christianity, in keeping with the Baha’i belief that they should accept the validity of the other great faiths, and hold the likes of Jesus, Buddha and the Prophet Muhammad in equal regard.
The evening started with the music of Aaron Neville singing the Roman Catholic Latin hymn ‘Ave Maria’, literally filled the whole house, partially thanks to Neville’s angelic voice, but also thanks to the Youngs’ great sound system.
As candles flicker on tables, some of the dozen or so gathered on this, the day of the first snowfall of the season, bowed their heads, while others closed their eyes in reflection.
Tamas then showed a short documentary film, ‘Skateistan’, which won an award at the Sundance Film Festival with its look at that country’s first skateboard park for youth. He also showed a clip from a Kabul scene he had shot on his cell phone video camera, showing a busy slice of life in the country, all while a beggar asks for alms in the middle of the street.
When it comes to poverty, “there is a lot more involved than money and material well-being,” said Tamas. He stressed that eradicating poverty is an important Baha’i belief, and that one cannot separate material from spiritual poverty.
“Is a society with a 50 per cent divorce rate developed?” asked Tamas. “We may have three cars in the driveway, but is that all there is to development?”
Tamas’ wife, Susie, was in attendance, and throughout the evening, the couple displayed the spirited yet cordial debate to be found at such a gathering.
“We live in a spiritual reality has a material aspect to it,” said Susie.
Andy pointed to the Indian state of Kerala as a good example of what he would like to see in eradicating poverty, without using consumerism as a pole-vault out.
“(Kerala has) a fairly enlightened socialist, communist government,” he said. “(They have) all of the indicators of development without runaway consumerism.”
He also pointed to Cuba, which used to have one of the highest illiteracy rates in the western world. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959 brought Fidel Castro to power, the literacy rate jumped to 99 per cent.
“They basically shut down the education system and sent people out to teach,” said Andy.
Susie, however, cautioned against extolling the communist model too much.
“There are many things to praise in Cuba, but not with its human rights record,” she said.
“Communism hasn’t worked in very many places in the world,” agreed Mai Young.
“I think of democracy and communism and they are just words,” said Andy Tamas, who admitted that, sometimes, the best of intentions can backfire.
For many years Nepal dealt with a leftist insurgency. A literacy program, sponsored by CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) was launched to teach the women of Nepal to read, which led to unintended consequences.
“A whole bunch of women learned to read and write and they joined the insurgency,” said Andy with a nervous laugh. “CIDA doesn’t like to talk about that.”
On a more serious note, however, he pointed out that, as a child, he never saw homeless people on the streets, and that food banks only came to Canada in 1983.
Susie stressed that public policy must be just, and not reward only the rich. But she admitted that trying to bring a spiritual dimension in discussions on public policy was not without its peril in a secular society like Canada’s.
“You say spiritual principle and people think you have an angel on your shoulder,” said Susie.
Robert Rowshan contributed to the discussion as well, asking that while he knew it was “taboo” to ask, “How much of a role does culture play in poverty? A culture is, basically, a tapestry of values.”
“It is the will of the creator to make the world one family,” said Andy Tamas in closing.
The evening ended with song and a prayer, offered by Ottawa singer and musician Stephen Thirlwall, for the education of children.