US Baha'i News

The language of community building, ubiquitous in guidance from the Universal House of Justice, is making its way into our everyday speech. A prime example is how the age-old question “What is the Baha’i Faith?” is answered. Many Baha’is have a set “instant fireside” that introduces the Faith, its teachings and aims, and the station [...]

Learning opportunities — and bounties — abound when you strive to identify and meet the spiritual needs of another soul. Accompanying a seeker has its rewards Tara Higgins of Sebastian, Florida, shares this story: “This week I received an email informing me of a seeker in the Sebastian area. I was only given the seeker’s name (Cherie) [...]

“Uncompromising in defense of the truth, yet infinitely gentle in manner, ['Abdu'l-Bahá] brought the universal divine principles to bear on the exigencies of the age.” So wrote the Universal House of Justice in its message at Ridván 2011. Stories in the January/February 2012 issue of The American Bahá’í detailed what many of our brothers and [...]

At first blush it doesn’t seem a difficult task: Arrange to visit someone, and at that encounter share a prayer and chat about … whatever. And it isn’t, say Baha’is who have engaged in such visits to the homes of Baha’is they haven’t seen in a while, of new believers, and of others they wish [...]

Make friends. Build trust. Learn people’s needs. Be flexible. These are critical to the success of any social and economic development project, say three longtime practitioners who participated in the Baha’i Conference on Social and Economic Development. And just might aid the rest of us when opportunities for social action arise naturally from our neighborhood [...]

Feeling overwhelmed by the length of the path ahead as humanity sets out out to remake the world in God’s image? Listen to Judy Parsley: “I had a garden once,” she writes. “Every year I would add a little of this and a little of that: flowers, herbs, rocks. “If there was a particularly interesting [...]

Baha’is who engage in social action alongside members of other faiths say a posture of mutual learning and respect is leading to more effective service. “In a nutshell,” says Noel Jost-Coq, “[these other faiths] have been walking the walk for decades, and we are infants. We have the [Baha'i] writings, but that alone doesn’t make [...]

Watch and listen to these video and podcast interviews with Frances Worthington, author of Abraham: One God, Three Wives, Five Religions Abraham: One God, Three Wives, Five Religions “brings a fresh and lively interfaith perspective to the four-thousand-year-old story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Keturah and their eight children. Follow the adventure from the lush marshes of Mesopotamia to the [...]

Phillipe Copeland, in his latest entry on blogcritics, notes how the passing of Whitney Houston, is “an opportunity to consider the power of music itself.” “This power imposes responsibilities on both its creators and its consumers. One of the things I’ve found most striking since hearing of her death are the spontaneous and heartfelt testimonies about [...]

Zia Nikubonyad worked for the development of the Baha’i Faith over many decades in Asia, Europe, North and South America. He passed away October 7, 2011, in Cardiff, California, at age 89. He had lived in the San Diego area since the 1980s. A letter of tribute from the National Spiritual Assembly says in part, [...]

H.T.D. “Tim” Rost put a profound vision onto paper in 1970 when he produced a doctoral dissertation on how Baha’i writings could help shape universities and colleges inspired by the teachings of Baha’u’llah. He took the opportunity to put that vision into action in the 1980s, when the educator from the Midwest joined the staff [...]

In one area a major obstacle to growth is water. In another it’s mountains. But in the emerging clusters involved the small Baha’i communities are taking steps to bridge such gaps. A warm environment for reflection The strengths and disadvantages of teleconferencing were there for all to hear Jan. 29 as the tiny group of [...]

While in Baghdad, Baha’u’llah wrote The Four Valleys (around 1857) and The Seven Valleys (around 1860). Both works were in response to questions posed to him by a Sufi leader and written in a poetic, mystical style. In The Four Valleys, Baha’u'llah describes the qualities and grades of four types of mystical wayfarers. The Seven Valleys follows the soul on [...]

I have been a declared Baha’i for three wonderful years! I have grown an immense amount of love and gratitude for the Baha’i Faith in my life! I am 24 years old and a recent college graduate in the state of Utah. I have blonde hair and blue eyes and I come from a very dominant Latter-day-Saint (Mormon) culture. I [...]

Adrienne Ellis Reeves never imagined that after retiring at the age of 70, she would begin a new chapter in her life by writing chapters on the lives of others. In the late 1980’s, after Reeves friend Martha, an employee of the Baha’i Publishing Trust, shared with her that more children’s books were needed containing [...]

Bill and Jean Harley have been married for 40 years. Here is some advice they have learned over the years in what to look for in a companion.

Acclaimed jazz vocalist and Baha’i, Tierney Sutton, and her fellow band members have garnered their 4th Grammy nomination for ‘Best Jazz Vocal Album’ for their latest album, “American Road.” The new album also earned Sutton and her band a nomination for Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocal, competing with orchestral arrangements written for Sting, Barbra Streisand, [...]

The Baha’i year consists of 19 months of 19 days each. The months are named after the attributes of God. Each Baha’i community holds a Nineteen Day Feast on the first day of each Baha’i month. The Feast has spiritual, administrative and social functions and is the primary locus of fellowship and community decision-making in each Baha’i locality. [...]

The Spiritual Heritage of the Human Race, a book produced under the auspices of the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland, has just been published in an Arabic-language edition. “We hope that this study, presented in an accessible style and format, will help promote interfaith dialogue and understanding throughout the Arabic-speaking [...]

National Teaching Office Here are two of the many stories the National Teaching Office receives regularly in connection either with programs of growth or with inquiries made about the Faith through www.bahai.us and 800-22-UNITE: Perseverance in communication This past February a community in Virginia received an online seeker inquiry. A local Baha’i who was asked [...]