material embodiments of spiritual power
I had the most extraordinary experience spending the weekend in a home in Lancaster, PA that is the embodiment of Baha'i spirit and power. An extraordinary home. It is a large and spacious home, a row house that looks unassuming from the street and yet expands into glorious cavernous spaces, three stories and a basement. Every inch of the home is used for service, love, edification, enrichment, spiritual delight. Three little girls enjoying their friendship brought laughter and sweetness among us. They pranced around loved and cared for by the spectrum of youth and adults who seemed to stream in and out of the home. All the vacant rooms in the home were filled with young people just graduated from college and transitioning on to other things in their lives. They were there soaking in the empowering energies for a few months and engaging in various acts of community service--to children and youth. Then there were the visitors, including me and marvelous Melissa, who had spent the weekend or who streamed in and out for a brief visit to one of the inhabitants of the household or for spiritual and intellectual meetings---- The great attraction I believe was the desire to just be close to the blessed owner of this home and his wonderful wife. In spite of the high traffic in the home the atmosphere was one of cleanliness, orderliness and pure refinement. Such elegance, simplicity combined with loving, friendly, unassuming, welcoming comfort. Instantly one feels at home and so loved.
The experience really got me reflecting on the importance of purity and refinement in our environment, in our speech and in our actions and the powerful effect this can have on our own spirits and on the spirits of others.
The only feeling I could compare it to was the feeling that I have experienced in the Holy Land--since i did not take any pictures this weekend let me pause to post a few pictures of the Baha'i propreties at the World Center that seem to embody
immaculacy,
simplicity,
refinement, taste,
and the extent to which
classical and modern blend harmoniously. It seems also useful to consider how such refinement can also feel so friendly and welcoming and infused with love...
In the aforementioned home, spirituality finds physical expression in the environment and this environment in turn impacts upon the spirit.
"We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon theother and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions."
(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 84)
Somehow there was always enough food for everyone to eat at a long table to which individuals spontaneously appear and are welcomed with such wholehearted sincerity and humility as dearly loved family members. Such joy and fellowship, each one feeling comfortable instantly and yearning for the blessing to offer some small service in the co-construction of the spontaneously emerging event. Book shelves line the walls in the living room and in the dining room containing tomes of the worlds classical and contemporary spiritual, philosophical and social thought. The conversations in the home range from light and humorous to conversations of deep intensity...
Truly a holy and sanctified home. A rare spot. A rare spot. The embodiment of the following ideals...
"Blessed is the spot and house....where mention of God hath been made and His praise glorified." (Baha'u'llah)
"Verily, I pray God to make thy home a center for the radiation of light and the glowing of His love in the hearts of His people. Know that in every home when God is praised and prayed to, and His Kingdom proclaimed, that home is a garden of God and a paradise of His happiness."
(Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v1, p. 69)
"My home is the home of peace. My home is the home of joy and delight. My home is the home of laughter and exultation. Whosoever enters through the portals of this home, must go out with gladsome heart. This is the home of light; whosoever enters here must become illumined...."
(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 397)
"In this glorious Cause the life of a married couple should resemble the life of the angels in heaven -- a life full of joy and spiritual delight, a life of unity and concord, a friendship both mental and physical. The home should be orderly and well-organized. Their ideas and thoughts should be like the rays of the sun of truth and the radiance of the brilliant stars in the heavens... They should always be elated with joy and gladness and be a source of happiness to the hearts of others."
(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 397)
The experience really got me reflecting on the importance of purity and refinement in our environment, in our speech and in our actions and the powerful effect this can have on our own spirits and on the spirits of others.
The only feeling I could compare it to was the feeling that I have experienced in the Holy Land--since i did not take any pictures this weekend let me pause to post a few pictures of the Baha'i propreties at the World Center that seem to embody
immaculacy,
simplicity,
refinement, taste,
and the extent to which
classical and modern blend harmoniously. It seems also useful to consider how such refinement can also feel so friendly and welcoming and infused with love...In the aforementioned home, spirituality finds physical expression in the environment and this environment in turn impacts upon the spirit.
"We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon theother and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions."
(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 84)
Somehow there was always enough food for everyone to eat at a long table to which individuals spontaneously appear and are welcomed with such wholehearted sincerity and humility as dearly loved family members. Such joy and fellowship, each one feeling comfortable instantly and yearning for the blessing to offer some small service in the co-construction of the spontaneously emerging event. Book shelves line the walls in the living room and in the dining room containing tomes of the worlds classical and contemporary spiritual, philosophical and social thought. The conversations in the home range from light and humorous to conversations of deep intensity...
Truly a holy and sanctified home. A rare spot. A rare spot. The embodiment of the following ideals...
"Blessed is the spot and house....where mention of God hath been made and His praise glorified." (Baha'u'llah)
"Verily, I pray God to make thy home a center for the radiation of light and the glowing of His love in the hearts of His people. Know that in every home when God is praised and prayed to, and His Kingdom proclaimed, that home is a garden of God and a paradise of His happiness."
(Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v1, p. 69)
"My home is the home of peace. My home is the home of joy and delight. My home is the home of laughter and exultation. Whosoever enters through the portals of this home, must go out with gladsome heart. This is the home of light; whosoever enters here must become illumined...."
(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 397)
"In this glorious Cause the life of a married couple should resemble the life of the angels in heaven -- a life full of joy and spiritual delight, a life of unity and concord, a friendship both mental and physical. The home should be orderly and well-organized. Their ideas and thoughts should be like the rays of the sun of truth and the radiance of the brilliant stars in the heavens... They should always be elated with joy and gladness and be a source of happiness to the hearts of others."
(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 397)
posted by child_of_africa at 12:10 PM
2 Comments:
About arranging the physical space to reflect/influence the spiritual, I am very much drawn to the room in the Mansion at Bahji. http://www.bahaullah.org/shrine/
I wonder whether there are some things that can be learned from it for use in a home. It is simple, but still decorative, harmonious. It is restful and welcoming. I love it so much.
What a marvelous post! The home you describe reminds me very much of the home of my second spiritual parents, Bob and Debbie Rosenfeld in Rochester, NY. Their house, as spacious as it was, was always full of people of all ages, races, backgrounds, busy with some Baha'i activities.
The topic of the beauty of cleanliness is a very dear to me. I am, of course, as guilty of clutter, as it gets. But I am starting to realize that just as a cluttered mind leads to a cluttered space, one could extrapolate that a peaceful mind leads to a peacefully beautiful space. And that, I think, was one of the secrets of the design genius of Shoghi Effendi!
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