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Lidia Zamenhof and a World Language
Lidia Zamenhof’s famous father was the creator of the Esperanto – perhaps the most successful effort to create an international language. Lidia herself devoted herself to promoting the language and also to teaching the Baha’i Faith of which she had become a member. Undoubtedly Bahá’u’lláh’s call for adoption of a world language would have resonated strongly with her, given her own commitment to it. Her own life was tragically cut short in World War II, the coming of which Bahá’u’lláh specifically predicted. Irrespective of the specifics, it’s clear that World War II was one of the consequences of clinging to patterns of thought and modes of behaviour inadequate to the…
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Prophet and Seer
Is it possible to see the future? All of us can predict the future to a small degree, simply on the basis of past experience. Yet the idea that someone could see events far into the future raises scepticism. It is outside our common experience. Some of us have subjective experiences of deja vu (a feeling we have seen some event before) or dreams which we see realised sometime in the future. Bahá’u’lláh writes of this phenomenon. Behold how the dream thou hast dreamed is, after the lapse of many years, reenacted before thine eyes. Consider how strange is the mystery of the world that appeareth to thee in thy dream.[1] An instance…
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Cowra Peace Bell tolls a warning
As many know, Cowra once held a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The tragedies that happened there when the prisoners tried to break out, has become the stuff of Australian legend. Less well known is that Japanese civilians were also interned in Cowra during the war. Some never left Cowra. A World Peace bell, donated by the World Peace Bell Association, was erected in Cowra in 1992, in recognition of the city’s contribution to peace and its enduring connections with Japan. I wrote this poem after a visit to Cowra. The Cowra Peace Bell, like those erected in other cities around the world, follows a traditional Japanese design. In Japan…
