Shahriar Erfanian ©

 ”O Companion Of My Throne! Hear no evil, and see no evil, abase not thyself, neither sigh and weep. Speak no evil, that thou mayest not hear it spoken unto thee, and magnify not the faults of others that thine own faults may not appear great; and wish not the abasement of anyone, that thine own abasement be not exposed. Live then the days of thy life, that are less than a fleeting moment, with thy mind stainless, thy heart unsullied, thy thoughts pure, and thy nature sanctified, so that, free and content, thou mayest put away this mortal frame, and repair unto the mystic paradise and abide in the eternal kingdom for evermore.” ~Baha’u'llah

Kat Eghdamian ©

“How great is Thy power! How exalted Thy sovereignty! How lofty Thy might! How excellent Thy majesty! How supreme is Thy grandeur…” 

Jarnah Montersino ©

Chad Mauger ©

 Grandeur is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “splendour and impressiveness, especially of appearance or style”, and is a term easily applied to the gardens in Haifa and Acre (‘Akká).  This photo was taken on the commemoration of the first day of Ridván, the Most Great Festival whereon Bahá’u’lláh publicly declared His mission. That day I deliberately chose to use only a manual-focus SLR, loaded with 35mm film. Film photography, to me, it is an activity entirely separate from digital photography. One that requires selectiveness and deliberate execution, and forces you to slow down. Along with it comes anticipation. Delayed gratification is almost always a good thing.

Tamila Zeinalova ©

“All majesty and glory, O my God, and all dominion and light and grandeur and splendour be unto Thee. Thou bestowest sovereignty on whom Thou willest and dost withhold it from whom Thou desirest.” – Selections From the Writings of the Báb, page 203

Shirin Marshall ©

“…when I behold the sea, I find that it speaketh to me of Thy majesty, and of the potency of Thy might, and of Thy sovereignty and Thy Grandeur. And at whatever time I contemplate the mountains, I am led to discover the ensigns of Thy victory and the standards of Thine omnipotence.” Baha’u’llah

Sarah Johnson ©

 Gratitude for a wise young woman who has faith that grandeur can be found in small things, for a blazing blue and orange coconut crab who ventured out during the daytime, for my husband who noticed it while watering the garden, and for God, Who created them all.

Sholeh Loehle ©

 The aquarium in Monterey, California is a photographer’s dream. Good lighting, clean glass…I took a lot of photos.

“I IMPLORE Thee by the splendour of the light of Thy glorious face, the majesty of Thine ancient grandeur and the power of Thy transcendent sovereignty to ordain for us at this moment every measure of that which is good and seemly and to destine for us every portion of the outpourings of Thy grace. For granting of gifts doth not cause Thee loss, nor doth the bestowing of favours diminish Thy wealth.

Glorified art Thou, O Lord! Verily I am poor while in truth Thou art rich; verily I am lowly while in truth Thou art mighty; verily I am impotent while in truth Thou art powerful; verily I am abased while in truth Thou art the most exalted; verily I am distressed while in truth Thou art the Lord of might.” -The Bab

Lindsey Lugsch-Tehle ©

“I implore Thee by the splendour of the light of Thy glorious face, the majesty of Thine ancient grandeur and the power of Thy transcendent sovereignty to ordain for us at this moment every measure of that which is good and seemly and to destine for us every portion of the outpourings of Thy grace.” ~The Bab

Oh, but it IS true.  Things need not have happened to be true.  Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.

Dream of the Endless, in “Sandman: Dream Country”

Today is the Twelfth Day of Ridvan, a Holy Day which symbolizes the beginning of a new age for Baha’is.  Ridvan is special, waaaaaay special, to us Baha’is.  ”King of Festivals” special (Ridvan means paradise in Arabic).

In this time of renewal I can’t help but imagine Abdu’l-Baha saw strains of this idea in the nation he visited in 1912.  The clear thinker can find renewal and rebirth fused into the genetic code of America, the idea.  But to get there we need to go back in time a little bit.

We humans.  We build things.  In the dawn of our time, when spoken language still held novelty, we build societies, traditions, and eventually settlements and cities.  As we shape the physical world with buildings, dams, canals and agriculture, we shape our understanding of it with ideas.  Romans constructed elaborate mythologies wherein they were invincible in war so long as certain criteria were met — among them constant expansion.  Renaissance academics and artists constructed the idea that the artistic and philosophical values they held dear were simply a rebirth of Roman values — conveniently ignoring the fact that many of the texts they rediscovered came from libraries run by Islamic scholars.

“Nothing to see here. Just white people inheriting knowledge from white people. No Arabs eeeeeever cared or wrote about Plato, I swear!”

We Americans.  We build things too.  And Abdu’l-Baha arrived in our land in the midst of one of the most whirlwind epochs of construction we ever undertook.  Our major cities had exploded in population; New York and Chicago especially engaged in massive construction projects throughout the turn of the century, ever reaching for the sky, and about to embark on ever more ambitious projects (more on that later).  We had accepted waves of immigrants from Europe and Asia.  In the midst of this bustle, Americans constantly defined themselves, their brethren, and their cities. Chicago became the “Windy City” because of its promoters outsized boasts about it.  The dedication of the Statue of Liberty occurred only 26 years before Abdu’l-Baha came to New York — it’s words promising shelter for the “huddled masses” were still new.  But for all it’s promise, we were still racked by disagreements, and many of the core ideas about America-the-idea were caught in contention.

Having conquered the American frontier, our expansionist tendencies began to take an imperial tone — the Spanish-American War and Hawaiian Annexation in 1898, the Philippine-American War shortly thereafter, and the voyage of the Great White Fleet (named un-ironically)  in 1907-09.  In 1907 America engaged in the “Gentleman’s Agreement” with Japan, in which we promised equal treatment for Japanese-Americans and freedom of immigration for Japanese citizens, provided the Japanese government stopped issuing passports to those who wanted to travel to America.

It was into this swirling vortex of hope, desperation and insanity that Abdu’l-Baha stepped, with a message and a vision surpassing that which most could comprehend.  He came to an America in the midst of a frenetic transformation and transmutation; and he, too, came to build in both word and deed.

On May 1, 1912, he laid the cornerstone of what would become the “Mother Temple of the West.”  Cornerstone dedications had become popular events in the Chicago area.  City officials, visiting dignitaries and press would attend.  By those standards, much of the proceedings surrounding the temple were strange.  The cornerstone was a limestone block, cast-off in a construction site four years prior; the assembled were diverse and not all of the economic or social elite; the land was purchased but the final construction still would require decades of fundraising and effort.  And yet, as Abdu’l-Baha dedicated the construction site he said “The Temple is already built.”

Weird coincidences — top right is a picture of me and my brother. This is in the Temple. Btw, I’m not a doctor, I just own a white linen blazer.

As I sit with my computer in Los Angeles, contemplating the end of this period of celebration, I wonder about the promises America made to the world, and the construction which Abdu’l-Baha set out to accomplish.  The Mother Temple of the West is built, and America is much changed.  And yet still we wrestle with our mythologies, like demons in the night.

Are we the land of freedom or the land where middle-class families struggle to deal with economic contraction?  Are we the land of opportunity or the land where a shadow population of immigrants — accepted for their economic utility — flounder without infrastructural support due to their status as “illegal” immigrants?  Are we the land where effort and education allow you to make your way in life, or the land where for the last 30 years class boundaries have decreased in permeability, and where a plurality of college grads are unemployed or underemployed?  You get the picture.

When I begin to despair, I think of the idea of Ridvan.  Paradise is a process.  Change occurs in waves of renwal and reinvention.  While the idea of one climatic battle appeals on an aesthetic level, it belies the truth.  America-the-place has a ways to go before it truly embodies America-the-idea.  But, as Abdu’l-Baha said, “The Temple is already built.”