What Bahá’ís are doing

Bahá’ís are doing a curious thing, something that has never been done before in human history – or even before humans began recording history. They are trying to build a new, equitable social network around the whole planet to include everyone on the planet. No one will be forced to be part of this, but it will be open and available to everyone.
Sometimes this is hard to see and many people don’t see it. It can be hard to see if you don’t have a long-view perspective – over centuries. It’s not something that can be accomplished over night or in a few decades, it will take centuries.
Here is where the element of faith comes in. One has to have faith that it is possible, then make an effort to bring it about. We cannot be responsible for the resutls or the actions of other people. We are each only responsible for our individual effort. The effort is achievement.
The important part is that Bahá’ís are making an effort when few other people are even trying. Many have given up or refuse to try – the world is going to end, so why bother? The world is ending, but it is not going to end.
The world, the world view, that Western civilization is based on (including such ideas as: the white man is better than anyone else) is ending, because it does not work any more. A new world view is emerging (that all parts of the planet are interconnected). Thus we are in a transition and transitions can be frightening – so we have violence in reaction out of fear.
If a long-term view can be maintained, see that all the people of the globe are getting lessons in learning to live and function together, then the chaos is understandable and fear is diminished.
This comning together of different peoples is a signal event of our times. Not so long ago people of different colors and religions lived in separate parts of the globe – brown skinned Hindus lived in India, black Africans lived Africa (though the descendents of some former slaves are in America), white skinned Christians lived in Europe, red skinned people lived in the Americas. The european invasion of the Americas began to change all that. Now 500 years later, people from all kinds of places live in all kinds of other places. This process will continue. We cannot kill, or even hate, our neighbors and co-workers simply because they look different from us or have different beliefs, so we have to learn to live and work together.
It can be easy to become sidetracked by daily annoyances or even conflicts between people, even misunderstandings between Bahá’ís (one Bahá’í described these as a clash of visions more than conflicting people since Bahá’ís are united in love for Bahá’u’lláh). It is love for Bahá’u’lláh that binds Bahá’ís together.
Bahá’u’lláh said there would be Houses of Justice to coordinate the affairs of society and we were to turn to ‘Abdu’l- Bahá. ‘Abdu’l- Bahá instituted and encouraged the first local Houses of Justice (though He did not insist on that name for them) and He created the Guardianship and appointed Shoghi Effendi to fill that position. Shoghi Effendi standardized the embryonic Houses of Justice as local and national Spiritual Assemblies. Shoghi Effendi’s “chief stewards” arranged for the election of the first international House of Justice. The purpose of all of this activity, stated by Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, is to be a framework to assist humanity to achieve its unity. The structure is perfect, the humans putting it together are not. None of us is perfect and mistakes will be made. If we keep that it mind, it is easier to work together. It is simplier when we remember to, “Breathe not the sins of others, so long as thou art thyself a sinner.” We have worked jointly together for over a century and made great progress, we can continue to do it together for more centuries and make even more progress.