Rebuilding the broken world

6 intense days of summer school:

During the morning sessions I had the privilege of assisting with the children's classes for the 7-8 year olds. (I am eagerly awaiting the DVDs of the morning sessions, as I heard they were amazing!)

The parents dropped their children off for the classes.

We would start with prayers (always very good to have some printed out for the children to read from), beginning with them telling me how to sit and behave during prayer time, and what prayer was:

"There is nothing sweeter in the world of existence than prayer. The most blessed condition is the condition of prayer and supplication. Prayer is conversation with God." [From the writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá]

We might start with some name games, as most children won't know each other.

And then we have discussion:

What is the name of this summer school?? "Rebuilding the broken world" What does this mean? How is this world broken? Together, we drew out two components of "broken" our world might possess -

1. physically broken: tsunamis, global warming, deforestation, droughts, hurricanes... (one child offered a delightful insight into the causes of global warming)

2. spiritually, or socially broken: corruption, wars, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, exploitation of workers, bullying, lying, fighting, extreme poverty, racism....

and we talked about what it meant to rebuild this broken world of ours - a topic that we added to over the four days. We found that to rebuild this broken world, the remedy had three core components:

1. The virtues. These are: truthfulness, love, consideration, service, justice, joy etc....

"Consider the virtues of the human world and realize that the oneness of humanity is the primary foundation of them all." (Baha'u'llah)

and we talked about how we needed to enjoy the oneness of humanity before we could properly enjoy the fruits of these virtues.

2. The Covenant. The Greater Covenant referring to recognition of Baha'u'llah as the Manifestation of God for this day and age, while the Lesser Covenant is essentially following those Whom Baha'u'llah indicated in His Will and Testament (i.e. Abdu'l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice).

"The first condition [to attain the station of an Apostle of Baha'u'llah] is firmness in the Covenant of God. For the power of the Covenant will protect the Cause of Bahá’u'lláh from the doubts of the people of error. It is the fortified fortress of the Cause of God and the firm pillar of the religion of God. Today no power can conserve the oneness of the Bahá’í world save the Covenant of God; otherwise differences like unto a most great tempest will encompass the Bahá’í world. It is evident that the axis of the oneness of the world of humanity is the power of the Covenant and nothing else." ('Abdu'l-Baha) [note: we didn't use this quote in the class :)]

So now we have a fortress. At this stage, my class had 9 boys and 1 girl. There was enthusiastic discussion as to the qualities of a fort. This fort, the ultimate fort, would protect us from all:

- a foundation of the oneness of humanity
- a base of "virtue bricks", held together by prayer, faith and love.
- pillars that consisted of the Administrative Order, and the Lesser Covenant,
- a roof that was the Greater Covenant

"9. O SON OF BEING! My love is My stronghold; he that entereth therein is safe and secure, and he that turneth away shall surely stray and perish." (Baha'u'llah)

And then, we made bricks, and built our fort :) lots of team work!

3. These were the social teachings -

The oneness of God!
The oneness of religion!
The oneness of humanity!
Harmony of science and religion,
Equality of men and women,
One universal language,
Elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty,
Elimination of prejudice,

All of these we tied together in a grand finale - a skit performed on the last night. The children were wonderful and remembered their lines and rebuilt the world with great enthusiasm :)