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The call of Abraham and of his subsequent pilgrimage has become part of

the primordial journey of the Jewish people. "It is part, too, of that

theophany, that appearance of God to man, that has been sedimented in

narrative" writes George McLean and has become part of that biblical

"primordium around which a people" has been shaped.(1) Thisprimordium, Peachey says, needs interpretation and application in the

changing circumstances of time and place, our time and place. And that is

what I am doing here in this brief comment as I relate this theme to

"community building."

Having embraced a new theophany and become a part of a new Faith

community which claims descent from this original Abrahamic

experience, I am in possession of a new tradition, arguably now in its

third century, which possesses a richness of detail that was scarcelyperceptible in that first primordium, but which has been enacted again in

the life of Baha'u'llah, the Founder of this new community. I have been

engaged in building this new community for half a century. This new

narrative and its history of some two centuries now(2), not unlike

Abraham's, is of immense value to the international pioneer in the Baha'i

community as he or she goes about their engagement in community

building.

Most of us are involved in community-building in some form or another

around: family, some volunteer group we have joined, a tribe, a town or

city, a nation state. In the last century or so a new community has

emerged: the global community and the Bah' Faith has been involved in

building this global community, a global community within the larger

global community.

Contemporary religious practitioners usually have little direct

engagement--historical, archeological, sociological--with that seminal

Abrahamic-primordium of community about 2000 BC. Tradition and its

institutional configurations overshadow this ancient narrative and, to alesser extent, are animated by it. But, for me, in the Baha'i community,

Abraham's story has found eschatological and apocalyptic significance in

what you might call a contemporary rerun. In this globalizing,

individualizing, pluralising world, a prophet, a manifestation of God, has

been forced, not called, out of his country, taking his kindred with him on

the journey. I find in my life and in pioneering over four epochs, that the

narrative of Baha'u'llah's exile, his journey-narrative, is one I can shape as

I become more familiar with it and as it shapes me. In a world of some 20

million refugees and millions more living in countries in which they werenot born, Baha'u'llah's exile could be seen as a metaphor for our times.

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"Learning the existing Abrahamic story, its language and its logic," says

Peachey, "enables individuals to experience on their own in the terms of

that story or to use it as a foundation for new and expanded

experience."(3) Learning the story is like learning a language. Learning anew tradition, any tradition and becoming a part of that tradition is also

like learning a language. Learning this language is essential if one is to

function within that tradition's parameters. The story of Abraham is the

beginning, the first chapter, of the Israelite narrative; the story of

Baha'u'llah is the end, the last chapter, of this same narrative extended

into our time, our age. Such is my view.

This idea of learning the language of community has similarities to

anyones efforts to build community: a football club, a family, the peoplein a work-place even a loose and informal group of friends. You pays

your money and you makes your choice, as they sayand you spend

your days building community in some shape or formand then you die

and you leave behind you whatever community with whom you have

been engaged.

From the father, the first patriarch, the birth, of the Hebrew people about

4000 years ago, if not before, right up to our time, our modern age, in the

person of Baha'u'llah, this pattern of leaving one's country and going to

another land is, in some ways, the basic myth, model, metaphor, for the

international pioneer. The Baha'i pioneer goes and makes his home "to

develop the society God calls"(4) Baha'u'llah's followers to build. "I will

make of you a great nation,"(5) God says to His people in The Bible. The

international pioneer is also in the same position, only he is at the

beginning of a global, a planetary, system, a world Order, that he is

helping to establish. This is the core of that pioneer's service to humanity.

God will train both the pioneer and the Baha'is, it would appear,

following the metaphor right back to Abraham, in a series of sacred-

historical events different from, but similar in other ways to, the greatliterary-metaphorical history that is The Bible. Abraham's leap of faith is

ours, too, as we walk into history.

Baha'u'llah's exile over forty years(1852-1892) took place only once, as

did Abraham's journey, but each inaugurated the history of a divine-

human relationship which will go on unfolding for centuries, millennia to

comesuch is the belief of those who call themselves Bahais. Just as

Abraham had little comprehension of the nature of his call or of his

destiny at the beginning, so, too, are we in a similar position, although wedo have some glimmering, indeed, much more than a glimmering, of the

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future given to us in the Baha'i writings. At the very start of the building

of this World Order of Baha'u'llah, of community building, it is difficult

to fathom the process, the reality, the meaning. The narrative takes

unexpected turns; uncertainty enters in from time to time. Faith is at our

core, in the centre of our narrative, as it was for Abraham.

But history, for the Jewish people, and for the Baha'is, is seen as an

extended course of instruction filled with lessons and tests by which God

seeks to educate us for our redemptive work. In this narrative is found the

meaning and purpose of our lives. To help establish the Kingdom of God

on earth. Just as Abraham went from his country, kindred and father's

house so does the international pioneer, launched on a mission to other

people, to all people, wherever he goes. The journey has gone on in our

own time in the life of Baha'u'llah. That great journey of the Abrahamicpeoples is the paradigmatic, the metaphorical, vehicle, that the pioneer

takes on board as he becomes a part of a wondrous tradition that weaves

its way through the holy Scriptures of four of the world's religions. For

the pioneer's story is the story he will find there in that holy writ. Therein

will he find his life's meaning and purpose.

--------------------------FOOTNOTES-----------------------------------

(1) Paul Peachey, "The Call of Abraham," in Cultural Heritage and

Contemporary Change, Series 1, Vol.7., George McLean, editor.

(2) If one takes the history of the Baha'i Faith back to 1806 when Shaykh

Ahmad, the chief precursor of the Babi Faith, took up residence in Iran

for the last two decades of his life.

(3) idem

(4) ibid.,p.75.

(5) Numbers 23:9.

Ron Price

8 April 2010