From the Field
"...the System of Baha'u'llah..."

Samah Tokmachi, 29, writer and filmmaker from LA, shares some meditations on the relationship between support of the Funds and support of our Administrative Order. 

The American Baha'i community just participated in two momentous events—the winning of the National Fund Goal and the election of the National Spiritual Assembly at this country’s National Convention. Given the significance of these events and the relationship between the institutions of the National Spiritual Assembly and the National Fund, which Shoghi Effendi describes as “twin institutions”, some thoughts came to mind regarding our support of Baha'u'llah’s world organizing system.

In its March 25th 2007 message, the Universal House of Justice focused our attention on the erosion of trust between individuals and their governments, describing it as “one of the signs of the breakdown of society.”

Spelling out the specific and varied consequences and signs of this breakdown, the House of Justice goes on to write: “Contributing to the widening distrust of so vital a process are the influence on the outcome from vested interests having access to lavish funds... Apathy, alienation, and disillusionment are a consequence….”

While the Universal House of Justice’s assessment touches on a myriad of issues, one point raised that is perhaps particularly noteworthy to the American mind is the question of money.  For example, in America’s current presidential primary campaign, over $120 million has been raised for campaigning purposes alone.  Considering this remarkable display of resources has been brought to bear for no more than the purpose of selecting party nominations, little wonder that cynicism surrounding civic life has resulted in minimal participation by the citizenry.

How wonderful, then, that our community has arisen, united, undaunted, and free of the “apathy, alienation, and disillusionment” so often seen in civic life, to support the “lifeblood of the Cause”, the Baha'i Funds, in a manner thus far unprecedented in the history of our community.

Now, then, might be a good time to ask, what exactly did we achieve by winning the National Fund Goal? Several major things.

We, individually and as a community, responded to Shoghi Effendi’s decades old call for the American Baha'i community to offer up an “outpouring of treasure, no less copious than the blood shed so lavishly in the Apostolic Age of the Faith by those who in the heart of the Asiatic continent proclaimed its birth to the world”, the only response that “can befit their spiritual descendants.” Such a display of love and devotion must surely draw down a shower of blessings on the individuals, institutions, and communities involved, whether their support came in the form of material contributions or spiritual supplications.

Along with these blessings, very real effects were achieved. Some might ask, what are we giving to when we contribute to the Baha’i Fund?  To the World Order of Baha’u’llah, which the Universal House of Justice tells us is the “… divinely ordained system for which nations and peoples so desperately search…” one that is “without precedent in human history for its standard of justice and its commitment to the practical realization of the oneness of mankind, as well as for its capacity to promote change and the advancement of world civilization. It provides the means by which the Divine Will illumines the path of human progress and guides the eventual establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.”*

If this Order is the means by which God recreates our world, then it seems that it is our means—our resources—that fuel this divine process.  From this perspective, how can we afford not to give?

By the time you read this, our National Convention will have come and gone.  In that rarefied arena of grassroots spiritual democracy, our elected representatives have engaged in a sacred dialogue. They have discussed the spiritual problems of our nation and world, and how the community of the Greatest Name can better address them. And all of this has occurred within the framework of a unifying system that no other group on earth has the opportunity to utilize or support.

As we survey the wreckage of a collapsing order and contrast it with the beauty of Baha’u’llah’s still embryonic Order, perhaps we can reflect on and plan our giving practices for the upcoming year, for as Shoghi Effendi tells us, “…our contributions to the Faith are the surest way of lifting once and for all time the burden of hunger and misery from mankind, for it is only through the System of Baha'u'llah—Divine in origin—that the world can be gotten on its feet and want, fear, hunger, war, etc., be eliminated.”

No one else has this privilege but us.  Let us use it wisely.

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*March 25, 2007, Universal House of Justice

Picture of the Seat of the Universal House of Justice reproduced by permission of the Baha'i International Community. Baha'i Media Bank