- First Seminar Report -

Moral Leadership in a Changing World

Fittingly describe this seminar we had the honour to participate in? Impossible! The spirit that surrounded us, nourished us, cemented our hearts together and is now encouraging us to take our first steps defies words. Not only did this spirit make us feel forever changed, but also Angelika Preston and Kambiz Poostchi introduced us to a whole new way of presenting the Bahá’í principles to the world around us. Humanity stands at the threshold of maturity and is being challenged to develop the necessary qualities to make the transition to an interdependent society. This calls for no less than a shift of paradigm in our social systems and our thinking systems. With this material, so well thought through and so ingeniously presented, we will be able to play our part in assisting in this transition.

A new vision of the world was opening to us. It was truly befitting that this was the first seminar organized by VISION, a non-profit organization “dedicated to the development of both the material and spiritual capabilities of women everywhere…” This first gathering of women (and a few men) from Albania, Austria, Canary Islands, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Northern Ireland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom took place at the home of Bahia and Faramarz Ettehadieh in Wels, Austria from 30 October to 2 November, 2003. We were all deeply moved by the love and warmth present in this home and were very grateful to our charming hostess and host for graciously inviting us and seeing to our every comfort.

In our respective countries each of us will carry this material, in some shape or form, out into the society around us. Armed with the inspirational example of Angelika and Kambiz and the variety of teaching tools they presented us: stories, role playing, demonstrations, physical exercise, visual aids and diagrams, we will take our first steps, gathering experience as we go. Each of us is fortunate to also have received a mentor, whose task it is to encourage and inspire us.

And sometime in the future we will come together again full of excitement as we share our stories and experiences. We will be full of awe at what was attained. How can it be otherwise? As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá assures us: “Not for a moment are ye alone. Not for a second are ye left to yourselves. The Beauty of Abhá is with you. The Glorious God is with you. The King of Kings is with you.” (Compilation: The Power of Divine Assistance)  

November 19, 2003

Dear Friends of VISION,

Warmest greetings from the far north! Here in Sweden the winter comes quickly in November; we light candles to endure the darkness, and bring out our heavy jackets and mittens and boots. Zarrin and I have a special candle, lit in Wels, which we are now sharing with our friends. This special candle is all the knowledge, insight, and inspiration we received during those 3 intensive days. How can we express our deep gratitude to everyone who made the weekend a possibility?  We will start by sharing with you our first experiences with teaching some of the concepts.

We participated in the cluster meeting for North Stockholm, a prioritized cluster in Sweden. Zarrin is a member of this cluster, I live close to the border between clusters, so I sneak into their activities sometimes (they don’t seem to mind). After prayers and some introductions, we were first on the agenda.

We began with the Triangle Game. We made two small changes: we played music while people were aligning. After everyone had aligned themselves, instead of going around and asking who was thinking of whom, and counting how many people were thinking of one, we simply asked one person (a tall person) to move a few steps in one direction. We did this to shorten the overall time for the game, and to avoid any hurt feelings of not being ‘chosen’ (a sensitive issue in Sweden). Unfortunately the room was a little too small, it would have been better with more space to move. We then used the example of the game to point out how 1) when one person rises to serve, her actions influence many people, and 2) how the process must take time, there is no way to force the process, we need patience for the system to align itself. One person mentioned afterwards that she would have liked more time after the game to discuss it.

Then we took up the Law of Harvest. We presented it as a tool for their consultation on planning. We used a so-called Theraband (a colorful strip of stretching plastic), that my husband uses for strength training, to illustrate the creative tension between ‘present state’ and ‘goal’. This worked well. Always good with visual aids! We had translated the page in our material, and made copies for everyone. Zarrin and I also made a quick demonstration of what Angelika showed us, that is, how to walk from one point in the room to another, to FEEL the vision, and then to look back and reflect on how to get from the present state to the vision. The group (16 people)  was divided into groups of 3 to 5 persons with the task to select a specific goal and consult on the different aspects of the process of reaching the goal (i.e., resources, obstacles, steps, etc.).

We gave them about 25 minutes to work in the groups. Then we came together. We first asked each group to say what vision they had chosen, then we asked each group to share some of their consultation about reaching their goal.

The goals chosen varied in scope from encouraging our children to become active Bahaí’s to planning regular devotionals to entry by troops! The overall response of this exercise was positive. The participants saw the value of identifying the different aspects of the process in this way.

During the final discussion, we took the opportunity to point out how this tool is not something only for Bahais, but with that the goal of an ever-advancing civilization, everyone is involved. (As this was a cluster meeting, there were only Bahais there, and goals therefore centered on Bahai goals).

Only one group tried the exercise of walking from one point in the room to another. Again, the small size of the room was one problem. But it came up in the discussion afterwards that this felt difficult. It didn’t really go over . . . so we encouraged them to try, perhaps sometime when they are alone or with people they know well. (There is a lot of self-consciousness in our community.) We emphasized the value of feeling the vision, and how that can stimulate our thinking about the vision. One participant offered the example of how athletes are encouraged to envision their goals, to really imagine and feel themselves achieving their goals. A runner can ‘see’ herself crossing the finish line first. This has been shown to be a very effective preparation for competitions.

Some of the groups spent quite a bit of time discussing which ‘goal’ they should take. Zarrin and I discussed afterwards if maybe we should have given them a more specific goal. But then we realized that deciding the goal was an important part of the process.

One of the organizers of the meeting had talked to me the day before and urged us to consider the importance of service in our presentation. It was a little late to change our plans, but I did introduce the subject of service by talking about moral leadership in the future. In today’s world, leaders strive for power and dominion. A ‘good’ leader is a powerful person who has influence over other people and who controls vast resources. In the future, leaders will be characterized by their ability to serve and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. A ‘good’ leader in the future will be a servant of the people she leads. What a change!

As of this writing (just hours after the meeting), Zarrin and I would consider our experience mostly a success. Several participants expressed their appreciation. We felt that it improved the atmosphere of consultation for the rest of the day. We will listen to see if the ideas we have presented are used in consultations in the future.

Our future plans are still undecided. We are playing with some ideas, and we like the idea of ‘testing’ the material, and our selves, in various small Bahai activities.