Greater Columbia Baha'i Community

https://youtu.be/unVwsiDIz4s

Tomorrow at sunset Bahá'ís all over the world will begin to celebrate Ayyám-i-Há. The Bahá'í calendar has 19 months of 19 days, which of course equals 361 days. So, Ayyám-i-Há is basically an adjustment for the four (or five) days needed to align our calendar with the solar cycle. It is placed after the 18th Bahá'í month, after which we Bahá'ís will enter our month of sunrise to sunset fasting, which culminates with Naw-Rúz, when the new Bahá'í year starts.

I've linked a short, humorous video to explain this a little further.

WHAT IS AYYAM-I-HA? with Jordan Raj In Baha’i Blog’s WHAT IS AYYAM-I-HA?, Jordan Raj with the help of his cousin, Raj, briefly explain the meaning and significance of the Baha'i holy days of Ay...

https://youtu.be/anUsv9ZtxVk

"You got to educate yourself."

The 1989 recording of "Sowing the Seeds of Love" was a Beatles-inspired sonic wonder. Here, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith of Tears For Fears, along with the BBC Concert Orchestra, give us a different take on their classic. Tears For Fears just released new music last year, The Tipping Point. I like what I've heard of it so far.

Lyrics:

High time we made a stand and shook up the views of the common man
And the lovetrain rides from coast to coast
D.J.'s the man we love the most
Could you be, could you be squeaky clean
And smash any hope of democracy?
As the headline says you're free to choose
There's egg on your face and mud on your shoes
One of these days they're gonna call it the blues yeah
Sowing the seeds of love (Anything is possible)
Seeds of love (When you're sowing the seeds of love)
Sowing the seeds
Sowing the seeds of love (Anything is possible)
Seeds of love (When you're sowing the seeds of love)
Sowing the seeds
I spy tears in their eyes
They look to the skies for some kind of divine intervention
Food goes to waste
So nice to eat, so nice to taste
Politician granny with your high ideals
Have you no idea how the majority feels?
So without love and a promise land
We're fools to the rules of a goverment plan
Kick out the style!
Bring back the jam!
Sowing the seeds of love (Anything is possible)
Seeds of love (When you're sowing the seeds of love)
Sowing the seeds
Sowing the seeds of love (Anything is possible)
Seeds of love (When you're sowing the seeds of love)
Sowing the seeds
The birds and the bees
My girlfriend and me
In love
Feel the pain
Talk about it
If you're a worried man, then shout about it
Open hearts, feel about it
Open minds, think about it
Everyone, read about it
Everyone, scream about it!
Everyone (Everyone yeah, yeah)
Everyone (Everyone), read about it, read about it
Read in the books in the crannies
And the nooks there are books to read for us!

Tears For Fears - Sowing The Seeds Of Love With Orchestra (Live) 2022

https://thesutrolibrary.wordpress.com/2021/05/04/columbia/

Here's one of those things you may not know, how our fair city got its name.

From Wikipedia—"State Senator John Lewis Gervais of the town of Ninety Six introduced a bill that was approved by the legislature on March 22, 1786, to create a new state capital. Considerable argument occurred over the name for the new city. According to published accounts, Senator Gervais said he hoped that "in this town we should find refuge under the wings of COLUMBIA", for that was the name which he wished it to be called. One legislator insisted on the name "Washington", but "Columbia" won by a vote of 11–7 in the state senate."

Apparently "Columbia" was at one time a powerful feminine personification of the United States, which inspired a lot of naming of places, songs, and companies. Our nation's capital is called "The District of Columbia." We have patriotic songs such as "Rise, Columbia!," "Hail, Columbia!," and "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," which if nowhere else you've probably heard in classic cartoons with a maritime theme. Then, there are fixtures of our popular culture such as Columbia Pictures, Columbia Records, and the former Columbia Broadcasting System. (CBS dropped its original full name back in the 1970s.)

So, here's a little history lesson for you today.



(JM)

Columbia There are so many powerful symbols in American history and these symbols of national pride hold a wealth of information about how people in the past viewed our country’s struggles, aspirations, and…

Isn't this lovely? Wow!

https://youtu.be/zfPzUZ_25yw

Here's a little lift for your Tuesday...Enjoy!

Ali Youssefi - UNITE [Official Video] #virtualchoir #worldcollaboration ► Become a patron of Ali Youssefi Music: https://www.patreon.com/aliyoussefi► Stream/Download song: https://fanlink.to/AliYoussefi► Join me on Spotify | Appl...

https://bahaiteachings.org/time-martin-luther-king-jr-shocked-world/

Happy MLK Day, everyone! We offer for you this morning an article from BahaiTeachings concerning Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" speech given on April 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York City. In this courageous and (at the time) controversial speech Dr. King spoke publicly for the first time against the Vietnam War—and his vision of a new and more just world order strongly mirrored Bahá'í principles.

If you have never heard nor read this landmark speech, we offer you a pair of links below.

First, the audio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJhgXKGldUk

And the text:https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil100/17.%20MLK%20Beyond%20Vietnam.pdf



(JM)

That Time Martin Luther King, Jr. Shocked the World Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, you’ll no doubt hear his phrase “I have a dream”—but you probably won’t hear his most stirring call...

https://youtu.be/m46X9Cv_toY

Your Awestruck Page Admin has a visit to Wilmette, Illinois on his bucket list. Wilmette is one of the northern suburbs of Chicago, and there is where the Baha’i House of Worship for North America is located, on the shores of Lake Michigan. (There is a Baha’i House of Worship on every inhabited continent.) Construction started on the Temple in 1912, and it was completed in 1953.

The structure abounds with Bahá’í symbology, beginning with it being a nine-sided structure with nine entrances to the auditorium, nine interior alcoves, nine dome sections, and nine fountains in the garden area. (The number nine symbolizes perfection and completion in the Bahá’í Faith.) The space between the floor of the auditorium and the ceiling of the dome measures 138 feet high, and the interior of the dome is 72 feet in diameter. The auditorium seats 1,191 people.

This building is really meant for everyone, for the followers of all religions. (You will see symbols of other faiths carved within the pillars as well.) Although all the Bahá’í Houses of Worship throughout the world are nine-sided, several of them reflect indigenous architecture and culture.

Enjoy the short video about the House of Worship in Wilmette.



(JM)

Wilmette, Illinois, United States | House of Worship Short video of the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette prepared for the Bicentenary of the birth of the Báb.

There are only a handful of Baha’i radio stations in the world, for the most part in Latin America (and one in the Philippines), yet we are blessed to have one in South Carolina.

WLGI (Radio Baha’i) broadcasts at 50,000 watts over 90.9 FM from the Louis G. Gregory Baha’i Institute located near the small town of Hemingway (about 2 1/2 hours east of Columbia). Its listening area covers Marion, Florence, Williamsburg, Horry, and Georgetown Counties. Their programming is mostly a mix of Jazz, R&B, Gospel, and Baha’i devotional music.

You might wonder out of all the places there could be a Baha’i radio station in the United States, why would one be located in a relatively rural part of South Carolina? Back in the early 1970s there was an explosion of new Baha’is in the P*e Dee region as many thousands embraced the Baha’i message of the oneness of humanity—so many that the Baha’i institutions (and on-the-ground workers) had trouble following up with all these new believers. In 1972 the Louis G. Gregory Baha’i Institute was established in an effort to support the Baha’i teaching efforts in the region. Radio Baha’i followed in 1984.

(If the history of the Baha’i Faith in South Carolina might interest you, check out “A History of the Baha’i Faith in South Carolina” by Louis Venters.) https://a.co/d/2BLsvX9

We here in Columbia (and elsewhere) can stream Radio Baha’i by visiting https://www.radiobahai.us/ or there’s a good chance you’ll find it on your favorite radio streaming app.

By the way, the only other Baha’i radio station in North America is the low power (100 watts) FM station KURE-LP, broadcasting from the Desert Rose Baha’i Institute in Arizona.
https://drbi.org/album/kure-lp-106-1-fm/



(JM)

Radio Baha'i 90.9 FM Music for love, peace and unity

https://youtu.be/d5qhQDmQGjs

Your Groovin' Page Admin really likes this artist's music, especially this song. Rosanna Lea is a Baha'i singer/songwriter from the UK.

If you're a Spotify listener, here's Rosanna's Spotify page.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ciOxG6fCts3UhijTo0FFs?si=TVE3gWHBQoeNcuTj3U1cEw



(JM)

Human Provided to YouTube by DistroKidHuman · Rosanna LeaStory to Tell℗ FairbrotherReleased on: 2019-06-28Auto-generated by YouTube.

It seems from what Your Devoted Page Admin is reading, weekend posting on social media may not find much of an audience. (Not that we have much of one during the week, either. But we do press on, do we not?) Yet, Sunday morning may bring up the question, “What do Baha’is do on this most hallowed day of the week?”

Well, to start with, Sunday in and of itself (or any other day of the week for that matter) has no particular importance in current Baha’i practice. (Baha’is have their own calendar that dictates a lot of our coming together but that is a post for another time.) In most places of a decent size there are Baha’i activities but that is largely due to our culture and the availability of people—Sunday is still a day off for a majority of people, though that appears to be changing.

In places that are large enough to have a Baha’i Center (more of a meeting place than a house of worship) there may be devotional gatherings on a Sunday morning, with the sharing and discussion of Baha’i writings, often based on a particular topic. The pandemic moved a lot of that sort of thing to Zoom in most places, including here in Columbia. (We in Columbia moved out of our Center on Assembly Street, though the door is still open that we’ll establish another Center in the area sometime in the future.) Usually there will be a time where individuals can share prayers out of our Prayer Book as they are led but we really don’t have congregational or corporate prayers, call and response, or any kind of liturgy (the only time we have a congregational prayer is at a Baha’i funeral).

Oh, and you won’t find one of us wearing a clerical collar, or a stole, or a robe—or anyone called Father, Pastor, Reverend, or Grand Poobah. We have no clergy in the Baha’i Faith.

Historically, Baha’is have gathered in homes, on any day or night of the week, though nowadays we are still doing a good bit of Zooming. The bedrock (and gateway) of Bahai gatherings is called a “Fireside,” where a Baha’i will open their home to seekers and other Baha’is and discuss the teachings of the Faith. This is really a place for those who are interested in the Faith to bring their questions and concerns in a relaxed, informal environment. If it is a gathering of mostly Baha’is (though seekers are still welcome) then we are talking about a “Deepening,” when (as the name implies) we really dig into the writings, usually about a particular topic.

Many of us gather together to study what are called Ruhi books, which originated in Colombia (the one in South America) and have now become one of the primary ways Baha'is (and friends) all over the world study the Baha'i writings, ultimately with the intent to more effectively serve the Faith and our communities. There are several Ruhi books covering various topics and avenues of service—filled with seemingly simplistic exercises which morph into very profound conversations.

Every 19 days, according to the months of the Baha’i calendar (the first day of a Baha’i month), we have what is called a “Feast.” Though there may be food, it’s really more of a combination of a devotional and business meeting, and every Baha’i month our National Spiritual Assembly (“National” in the vernacular) sends out a letter of encouragement and guidance, which we read together. And we get the treasurer’s report.

And throughout the year, according to our calendar, we have our “Holy Days,” the spirit of which will vary from joyful and celebratory to sorrowful and reflective. Some of them may involve a lot of food. (Persian food...Yum!) Baha'is may or may not frequent Firesides and Devotionals depending on their whims and schedules, but we generally do try to attend the Feasts and Holy Day gatherings.

As for Your Devoted Page Admin, I will be going to a Deepening later. I hope Carey has Peanut M&Ms.



(The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha’i Faith.)

(JM)

https://youtu.be/7L6Vin-5188

For those whose knowledge of Baha’i musicians begin and end with Seals and Crofts, here’s someone who you may not have heard of, but you’ve most certainly heard.

Louie Shelton is one of the famed group of Los Angeles studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew, who played on countless hit records during the 1960s and 1970s. Louie’s most iconic guitar parts include the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” the solo in Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” the blistering guitar work in Boz Scaggs’ “Lowdown,” and two classics from The Monkees, “Valleri” and “Last Train to Clarksville.” And he produced (and played on) the Seals and Crofts records we all know and love.

Louie currently lives down in Australia, and at the age of 81 is still very active playing concerts, recording, and working with Baha’i artists such as Shadi Toloui-Wallace.

(Here is Shadi’s Spotify page. “Verdant Isle” is one album that Louie produced for her.)

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7mSxpXiT4pOXS8bg7Phg2l?si=KQYW1HZhSFSZbzqzO8a1-w

Here in a video from Louie’s YouTube channel, he talks about his first big break as a session musician, working on “Last Train to Clarksville.”



(JM)

"Last Train To Clarksville" guitar solo by Louie Shelton The "Last Train To Clarksville" guitar solo. This was the original track that got Louie's famed career started in Los Angeles.Over the past several decades y...

https://youtu.be/b5oXgAVs250

Sometimes music can say things better than wordy theological statements from those in ivory towers. (Or for that matter cumbersome words from occasionally befuddled page admins.) Colby Jeffers and AWU Donson bring the message to you loud and clear on this Friday morning.

And here's the story behind the song.
https://www.colbyjeffers.com/the-story-behind-the-song-change-the-world/



(JM)

Colby Jeffers and AWU - CHANGE THE WORLD (Official Music Video) Official video for "Change The World" by Colby and AwuSUBSCRIBE to Colby and Awu YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/colbyandawuFollow Colby Jeffers:Instag...

Hi! Welcome to our page. This page exists from the desire to have an active social media presence for local people to learn more about our Faith.

We are Bahá’ís living in the Columbia, South Carolina area, which includes the suburbs of Lexington and Richland Counties. South Carolina has a large Bahá’í presence given her size, especially in the P*e Dee/Grand Strand region (Florence, Conway, Myrtle Beach, Georgetown). You may encounter media reports that the Bahá’í Faith is the second largest religion in the state after Christianity. Indeed, on a per capita basis, South Carolina has a larger proportion of Bahá’ís than any other state in the US.

We have a long history here, and prominent Bahá’ís from South Carolina include racial justice trailblazer Louis Gregory, astronaut Dr. Ronald McNair, and famed trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Those giants proclaimed the oneness of humanity long before most of us were born.

A LITTLE DISCLAIMER BUSINESS:

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Bahá’í Faith.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

This page is under the oversight of the Bahá’í Local Spiritual Assemblies in the Columbia area. The admins of this page (and the individual Bahá’ís we may feature in our posts) are all people doing their best to live out what God has called them to do. We are each held responsible to study and follow the teachings of the Faith, and are well aware of how their words and actions affect how others perceive the Faith. We don't speak for the Faith in any kind of authority. For official teachings and positions of the Bahá’í Faith we direct you to the US website at https://www.bahai.us or the worldwide website at https://www.bahai.org.

So, thank you for coming by, and we hope you’ll visit often. Take care.


(JM)

Home The Baha'i Temple in Wilmette will only be open from 10am to 6pm, due to the winter weather. The Welcome Center remains open 10am to 6pm, as usual.

https://youtu.be/0P-5m9ltkik

One thing we want to do around here is introduce you (and quite often yours truly as well) to Baha'i musicians and artists. Okay, your page admin likes this guy's style. Toronto-based rapper The Mighty Rhino is here to bring you a smile this morning. And we have a link to an article about him.

https://deepfreezechillin.com/2021/02/26/the-mighty-rhino/



(JM)

The Mighty Rhino - "Stay Up" (official music video) The Mighty Rhino is delighted to present "Stay Up"! On May 1, 2014, the unstoppably energetic Toronto rapper convened his friends and family in the iconic Ke...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Cf_UiGQ9AISy2HHXxn_oA

Our YouTube channel is off and running. We'll eventually get around to producing our own content but for now we are gathering Baha'i videos featuring Columbia or South Carolina where they can be easily found.

(JM)

Greater Columbia Baha'i Channel - YouTube Welcome to the YouTube home for the Baha'i community in the Greater Columbia, South Carolina area (Lexington and Richland Counties and the City of Columbia)....

https://youtu.be/zLSaDVG4yBE

Actor Rainn Wilson, most widely known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the sitcom The Office narrates a video explaining the basic teachings of the Baha'i Faith.



(JM)

What is the Baha'i Faith? An Introduction by Rainn Wilson BahaiTeachings.org is excited to share this animated introduction to the Baha'i Faith by Rainn Wilson. To learn more about the Baha'i Faith visit http://expl...