It’s a new day and a new year! One of the wonderful things about this time of year is the opportunity it offers to reflect on the year that’s just past. Creating a habit of reflection is so important in our growth and development. In The Hidden Words, Baha’u’llah writes:
O SON OF BEING! Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning; for death, unheralded, shall come upon thee and thou shalt be called to give account for thy deeds.
This always leaves me thinking, if we’re to reflect at the end of each day, how much more might we reflect at the end of each month, or each year?
In many ways the Fast, in its lead up to Naw Ruz, and the clarifying and focusing effect it has on the mind, is the perfect time to reflect on how the year went, what worked, what didn’t, and what we might try in the year to come.
This year during the Fast, together with some friends, I have been studying some passages from the recently revised edition of Ruhi Book 7: Walking Together on a Path of Service (available online here). In the preface it remarks that “it is in the field of service that we are each able to realise our God-given potential and contribute to the betterment of society” and that “spiritual growth” is “engendered by service”.
So as I reflect on the year that’s past, it’s to the field of service that I find myself thinking. What did I do? What did I try? What worked? What didn’t? In what ways can I use this opportunity presented by a new year to reapply myself, to restart what I might have let slip, to renew my focus and initiative?
I don’t know what BE 181 holds, but I hope that for all of us, it’s a little better, a little more industrious, a little more spiritual, a little more service-oriented, and a little bit more joyful than the year that’s just past!
Every year our friends over at the Australian Baha’i Choral Festival put on an amazing event at the Sydney Baha’i Temple. Over the course of just a few days, participants come together, learn songs, develop their capacity, and perform in a beautiful concert. This year they let us in behind the scenes to document the event and the gorgeous souls who make it such a success, and the result is a beautiful documentary called ‘A Ladder for the Soul’.
In the Dec 2021 message kicking off the Nine Year Plan, the Universal House of Justice describes the arts as “… an important means of generating joy, strengthening bonds of unity, disseminating knowledge, and consolidating understanding, as well as of acquainting those in the wider society with the principles of the Cause”. So it’s really exciting to see such a deeply reflective arts process as the Choral Festival for us all to learn from.
And on that note, I’ll close this monthly reflection with a quick shout out to all the amazing musicians who have been making music in the recent Studio Sessions series on YouTube. We’ve published two dozen new songs since the series kicked back up late last year, with many (MANY) more to come! I hope you’re enjoying them as much as I am!
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