on Freedom
This is a special issue of One Report for the 2020 For Freedoms Congress, coinciding with the period of Ayyam-i-Ha. Ayyam-i-Ha is a festival dedicated to socializing, hospitality, service, and generosity to prepare for the upcoming Baha’i fast. Depending on the year, Ayyam-i-Ha lasts four or five days, falling between February 25th and March 1st. These days are not accounted for in the Baha’i calendar of nineteen months each with nineteen days. Known in English as the Intercalary Days, “Ayyami-Ha” means the “Days of Ha.” There are multiple interpretations of the concept of “ha,” giving the festival several meanings. “Ha” is a mystical concept that symbolizes the divine essence of God and a timelessness and spacelessness achieved through the divine. The value of “ha” in abjad numerology is 5, which is also the value of the word “bab,” meaning “gate,” calling to spiritual renewal. While other Baha’i holy days commemorate dates of historical significance, Ayyam-i-Ha is a festival of generosity, love, compassion, and friendship. What would you do with days that fall outside of the limits of time?
One Report is spiritually-minded content for people of all beliefs and backgrounds. This publication is borne from a reflection of the teachings of the Baha’i Faith but our contributors are from varied faith backgrounds. The goal is for One Report to offer space for people from all perspectives to discuss and reflect on topics of faith and spirituality. In a time of turmoil, One Report hopes is a source of unity and collaboration. It is an opportunity for people to learn from one another and share in ways that feel relevant, pressing, stirring, and elevated. Thank you.
One Report is edited by Anisa Tavangar with Maya Mansour. Images in this issue are by Caroline Hunter Wallis.
more than wanting Written by Maya June Mansour
My report On Freedom is that it’s never as simple as I think. One day I ponder this and the next day I manifest that, what I think I need changes from week to week. I see things, I imagine, “What does it mean to be Free?” I ask myself, I wonder and muse, and one thing I know for sure is that the answer lies beyond where I can see. For Freedom isn’t something one can dream alone, because dreaming only my dreams limits me to just me. What pleases me won’t please everyone and Freedom is deeper than that, surely. I ask my friends what it means to be free And of course they all say different things.
One says “to use the bathroom whenever I want,” the next, “to pray however I want,” and the other, “to be able to do whatever I want with my body.” And I hear their words and they make sense to me, and to be honest I can’t say I disagree. But part of me begs the question, “Is Freedom not more than mere wanting?” That standard seems too uncreative, especially when we’re all born so noble and lofty. Our understanding of Freedom must evolve and grow as we progress as a society. So as we put our heads together to brainstorm ideas and solutions for humanity, I wonder what we could come up with if we re-imagined our understanding of Freedom through the lens of justice and beauty.
"Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so also this teaching has one taste, the taste of freedom." B
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“No person is truly free except the one who labors in Torah.” [Mishnah Avot,
6:2]
obedience is freedom Written by Wynton St. Clair
“Say: True liberty consisteth in man’s submission unto My commandments, little as ye know it.” -Baha’u’llah True freedom is obedience, submission even. This very idea runs counter to the Western ideal of freedom. Our concept of freedom is wrapped in the clothing of national or cultural ideals of independence and liberty, but selfpreservation is always at the root of Western freedom. How do you think about freedom? Is it the ability to speak and move as you please, unhindered so long as you don’t harm another? Freedom from injury? Freedom of association? Freedom to acquire wealth, materials, property? “The unfettered freedom of the individual should be tempered with mutual consultation and sacrifice, and the spirit of initiative and enterprise should be reinforced by a deeper realization of the supreme necessity for concerted action and a fuller devotion to the common weal.” -Shoghi Effendi
If my highest aim is the development of spiritual qualities in conjunction with my material faculties, and I am devoted to the well being of humanity, then what are the impediments existing in society? Many of the trappings that impede our growth are of our own creation. Our concept of individual liberty is so focused on placating the insistent self as one would an addiction. The attachment to these ideals has led to conflict and contention over resources, created a culture of xenophobia, rampant materialism, and laws that tout liberty as their foundation but do little more than provide an illusion of freedom. “Liberty must, in the end, lead to sedition, whose flames none can quench. Thus warneth you He Who is the Reckoner, the All-Knowing. Know ye that the embodiment of liberty and its symbol is the animal. That which beseemeth man is submission unto such restraints as will protect him from his own ignorance, and guard him against the harm of the mischief-maker. Liberty causeth man to overstep the bounds of propriety, and to infringe on the dignity of his station. It debaseth him to the level of extreme depravity and wickedness.” -Baha’u’llah We often associate obedience and submission with bondage and restriction. No doubt due, in part to our history of slavery. But this is not obedience like one might expect from a dog, or submission to the whims of a petulant and cruel master. Rather, the relationship to obedience is as a child to a loving parent who desires the entire world be available to you. If this is our understanding of obedience, then wouldn’t adherence to the will of God be of benefit? If our aim is the full development of our material and spiritual qualities, and thus far we have only served to create more and more material chains to feed our insistent self, would not obedience to a loving spiritual parent provide a path to true freedom?
“You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in flesh; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” [Galatians,
5:13-14]
consequence of unrooting Written by Lewit Gemeda
I never liked going to church. Growing up, the grandest buildings were always churches. Elaborately decorated, breathtakingly beautiful, and always warm. I never knew what I was supposed to feel when watching the elaborate rituals take place in these grand buildings. The men in their red and gold robes, the men and women—but always the women—bowing and begging for salvation, for freedom, for health, clarity, peace. As I grew older, left my country and started to settle here, the churches were nowhere near as grand but the spirit remained the same. You could even argue it got stronger. Each prayer felt like a cry and God was the
only anchor people like me, or rather people that looked like me, had in this place that never welcomed us, never would. But still, I didn’t like going to church. So, I didn’t go. It was, it is, another institution hellbent on limiting me. Telling me how I should live, dress, act, think, exist. I didn’t want it and I still don’t. But these last couple years have humbled me, shown me just how closely freedom and anxiety are intertwined. I feel unrooted, nothing is definite and I’m not sure if anything inherently matters. With my head spinning most of the time, I wish I could be the kind of person who found peace and freedom in God. But I don’t think God is very peaceful. Although, He is freeing.
free is an energy Written by Terrance Turner aka CAUTION 13 years old. Locked in a box…fed through a slot in the middle of a tattered, metal door; manacled. Sometimes tethered to another as old as I. Chains too heavy to bear the weight; the conditions were unfathomable. Shackled and herded like animals down corridors across cold, clammy floors; the loss of freedom was all too palpable. No mistake, the only source that allowed any natural light was opaque and covered by a worn metal grate high above anyone’s line of sight. Many days It felt like I had been buried alive; buried in a shallow grave. But one day, sunlight, that was never meant to get in that cave, had somehow forced its way through the cracks in the paint and illuminated my concrete confines. I could see the dust particles as the floated, drifted, costed, and meandered in the tiny slivers of light. And I wanted to be in that light! In that tiny sliver of hope. I wanted to float, drift, coast, and meander in that flowing river of life. I wanted to shine! But how could I within those confines? I had found myself in those thought-scattered thoughtpatterns that made me look inside instead of looking outside. I had found myself… looking deep-down inside myself,
to remind myself, that it was all a lie; that it was all temporary. That it lacked any permanence because I was a visionary that had envisioned an oasis for so long that I had begun to see it and touch it, that I had begun to taste it! That through introspection I had finally found a way to escape it; my prison! That in order to know what freedom was, I had to discover what freedom isn’t. It had become a head-on collision with the facts and the fiction; I had to uncover that freedom wasn’t contingent upon the “seen” world or anything in it. That freedom… was infinite! That freedom wasn’t an entity, but a profound understanding of energy. That freedom couldn’t be contained or restrained; couldn’t be locked away or boxed and caged. I was at the beginning of beginning to understand, that freedom wasn’t something we “obtained”. That “freedom” was/is what remains, once everything else is stripped away. Freedom… was/is what sustains. Freedom is faith; a deep belief that we are more than what binds or confines us, that we are more than what divides us. Freedom… connects us, elevates us, and simultaneously separates us from the embodiment of guilt, fear, codependency, suppression, obsession, rejection, or any mental or physical prisons. Freedom is intrinsic to our existence, it is limitless, boundless and can be found everywhere around us. But most importantly it is within us. Patiently waiting for us to tap-in. To reconnect. To synch-up. To get free and stay free! Let freedom ring!
"We have appointed a law and a practice for every one of you. Had God willed, He would have made you a single community, but He wanted to test you regarding what has come to you. So compete with each other in doing good. Every one of you will return to God and He will inform you regarding the things about which you differed." [Surat al-Ma'ida,
48]
the room to search Written by Renae Reints
Living in the United States with fairly liberal parents, I always had the option to choose my beliefs. For most of my life, I chose not to believe in anything other than science. After all, no one I knew enjoyed religion, and nothing I heard made religion sound conducive to a better world. I rejected the idea of God as a fantasy until shown proof. In my bubble of suburbia, I was free to do that without question. Our nation was supposedly founded on this great freedom of religion, but I just saw my friends dragging their feet to CCD each Wednesday and heard about gay couples denied business simply for who they loved. I once unwillingly sat in on a high school Catholic group. They prayed to God for things I was taught you have to earn. Likewise, they thanked God for results borne of their own hard work. Why give credit to something that may or may not exist when you were the one who put in the time and effort? I thought. One girl cried profusely because she felt so touched by God. It all felt dramatic; they all seemed delusional. I was fifteen. In college, the sand I’d dug my heels into began to soften. I now had friends for whom religion
was life-saving. I met others who practiced but didn’t preach. I realized that for all the years I’d spent thinking religion was close-minded and discriminatory, I’d been a hypocrite. I live in a country that gives me the freedom to explore any faith I wish, but, blind to my ignorance, I had written off this privilege. I’m now twenty-three. For the past two years I’ve been exploring the Baha’i Faith, putting aside my self-taught loathing for organized religion to recognize the benefits it can bring to both individual and community. In the United States, I am free to do that without question. Yet even now, when I recognize this amazing privilege and the great potential of pure, wellintentioned religion, I find myself curtailing my own freedom. Weighed down by my former bias, I am nervous to even mention faith in front of my agnostic family or my atheist friends. I don’t want to be seen praying. I don’t want to be seen as dramatic or delusional. I know my fears stem from my own insecurities, and I should have enough faith in my friends and family to recognize they will
not judge me the way I wrongly judged others at fifteen. And lo and behold, every time I give myself space to discuss the Baha’i teachings with my less religiouslyinclined companions, it’s led to beneficial conversation. I’ve come to believe that freedom of religion will only truly become a right when everyone recognizes the potential of diverse communities. We need to stop being afraid to believe, afraid to speak, and afraid to listen. I’ll start with myself.
"You cannot guide those you would like to but God guides those He wills. He has best knowledge of the guided." [Quran,
28:56]
sundays are for repenting Written by Akosua Gyameah
Ma leaves me no choice so I wear my good skin and gather my gold bones in an outfit that makes me look like a virgin
I was glad when they said unto me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.� you will hear a Ghanaian church before you see it, syncopated drums bleat like a neutered goat. an organ pumps out crack tunes and the tambourine, held by any thick armed aunty, clangs like a weapon
Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere men and women shout-cry-shriek in voices serenaded with desire a chorus of calloused feet stamping. swaying. praising the Ego of a Mighty God Come to me, all you who are
weary and burdened, and I will give you rest
for the low low price of 10% of your income SOW A SE EE E EE ED so the pastor can drive a Hummer the blessings of God are worth more than gold And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus voluptuous aunties and potbellied uncles undulate in a procession towards the offering bowl. A big bum aunty gyrates three steps backwards. almost knocking you off your shined shoes
My beloved responded and said to me, ‘Arise, my darling, my beautiful one’ the church mom sings off key about the pearly gates of Heaven and I think about how well my fingers have come to know your locks Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction. Saturday nights spent traversing your landscape armed only with instinct and breath your tender mirabelle plums glisten with sweat like smoothed crystals in the raw morning light Sundays are for repenting. Come near to God and he will come near to you The pastor says terrible things about folks like you and me, something about us ending up in a furnace and I don’t give a damn about God but you know I can barely survive the Arizona summer
All night long on my bed, I looked for the one my heart loves soon we will have to give up spooning and our careers living the family secret I looked for [her] but did not find [her] I would give so many things: teeth, muscle, tendon, my late grandmother’s blood diamond ring agarwood attar, even the color blue, for you but all I want is my mother’s blessing.
How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves
“In the darksome night of despair, my eye turneth expectant and full of hope to the morn of thy boundless favor and at the hour of dawn my drooping soul is refreshed and strengthened in remembrance of Thy beauty and perfection. He whom the grace of Thy mercy aideth, though he be but a drop, shall become the boundless ocean, and the merest atom which the outpouring of Thy loving kidness assisteth, shall shine even as the radiant star.” [excerpt from a prayer by Abdu’l-Baha]
Planetary and syncretic Written by Sundus Xassan-Nooli
Freedom once used to be a pejorative to my Black ears. It still damn near is, but now I know how to mediate between what the word is used for and what it means to me. As an African girl growing up in the States, I was taught that Freedom once used to be in my namesake; and that should I desire to restore my Freedom, I would need to work for and towards it. And it’ll be granted to me by whoever and whatever in a supposed future that I may never see. And as an African, they, the powers that continue to make a forgery out of freedom, remind me that through capital, I shall gain the license to feel the relief of my own expression and self-determination. But this type of freedom is not allowed to speak to me anymore or say my name. Because it isn’t freedom, it is a linear evocation of freedom. It is a half translation where self-indulgent conclusions are marketed as answers to the complex conditions we all live under. Leaving little space for a multiplicity in ideology, cutting across like the line lie it is, this type of freedom is meant to single a person out and make one feel as though they need to prove something to themselves before they can be conscious of their own peace.
Confused, I ask: Since when did freedom turn uniform and for profit? Abused, I shout: When did I ever give the rights to my personal Freedom away to a strange definition? Reluctant, I whisper: We all know why truthfully. Freedom at its barest is syncretic. Freedom is a bond we craft within ourselves and with others, constantly kneading the global and personal with the rhetorical and anecdotal to fashion our own comfort styles of truth. This kind of freedom is both divine and casual, for we access it every day and anytime we express the glory of the orbs we yield inside. Whether someone is snorting in laughter, remixing music, or starting and finishing sentences in different languages, what is deserving of celebratory worship is the will we have to pronounce ourselves to the will of our imagination.
to witness and to be seen Written by Rachel Klein
I prayed for the first time five years ago. My mother and I had been sitting in the far corner of the holding room of a hospital, made private by a thick polyester curtain hanging from its ceiling tracks, watching as the skyline slowly blued into violet. “Sweetie,” Mom whispered to me, reaching out her hand. Her silhouette had grown softer, thinner, in the waning light. On the other side of the curtain, an elderly woman coughed into her blankets, then fell “Only in her final hours did back into silence.
Mom unfurl, and I often root myself back into this memory, not for its beauty or for its sadness, but for the way it reminds me to make myself seen.”
In a few minutes a rabbi appeared, sheepish and solemn, to offer my mother a prayer. Brought up culturally Jewish, though otherwise atheist, Mom, in her final hours, wanted the protection of prayer to buoy her into the ether. A few mornings ago, when dawn lined my bedroom walls in the same deep blue as the blue in that memory, I imagined her eyes again: shut tightly in thought, unmoving in grace. The rabbi had stood beside her as he spoke in Hebrew: Though I walk through a valley of
deepest darkness, I feel no harm, for You are with me. Tears welled in Mom’s eyes, then fell slowly to her lips. Her cheeks shone in the darkness like two moons. I turned over in bed and felt a familiar weight. Nearly six years had passed and I was still tethered to her death like an animal drawn to shade. I thought: grief constantly reshapes itself into uncharted terrain. Time had done nothing but gently move me forward. Perhaps it was not an act of God that she sought in prayer, but the truth in bearing her raw soul and having it be witnessed. Seneca, an ancient stoic, once wrote: “And all of your sorrows have been wasted on you if you have not yet learned how to be wretched.” Is to be free, then, to be witnessed? Is sharing your darkest depths— either to God, to family, or to your own reflection— the very essence of liberation? Only in her final hours did Mom unfurl, and I often root myself back into this memory, not for its beauty or for its sadness, but for the way it reminds me to make myself seen. Freeing oneself from the weight of grief— not grief itself— can be the most radical act of unmooring. A sliver of white light slowly waxed full along my walls. A portrait of my mother— her smile as wide and deep as a gully— sat like a talisman on the table beside me. I thought: to have witnessed her death was to have witnessed her freedom. I thought: perhaps now is when the anchor ought to be drawn up. A siren from a fire engine blared through my window, then passed. I feel no harm, for You are with me. My deepest darkness. Amen. I pulled the covers back and placed both of my feet on the ground.
return, rekindled Written by Salena Pathan
My parents are an interfaith couple. My mother comes from a Marwari Jain family and my father from a Sunni Muslim family. They lived in a small village across from each other in Gujarat. They went to the same school and had the same group of friends. They fell in love when my dad was fifteen and mom was only twelve. In the 1970s, marrying against your parents’ will or into a different community was sinful. My parents secretly dated with the help of close friends who knew how true their relationship was.⠣ My mom migrated to Canada with her brothers under the false promise that once she settled there, she would get married. My dad, an aspiring actor, wanted to provide for his future family and moved to Saudi Arabia under a working visa to drive trucks. Once my mom settled in Canada, her brothers forcefully married her off without my Nana ji’s acknowledgement to a man she never knew or loved. She established her new married life in America. My dad, although heartbroken, kept writing her love letters in hopes of her return to him. She knew there was no way out and that she had to accept this life pushed on her. My father got married to one of his cousins. Although he never loved her, he always maintained a respect for her. Years went by and soon enough, my mother had three beautiful daughters with her husband and found happiness in
motherhood. One day, she got a phone call that her husband passed away in a car accident. Being alone in America with three daughters was traumatic, and she decided to move back to India. It was there that she saw my father for the first time in fourteen years. They couldn’t hold themselves back and rekindled their love. Although my father was already married, he still wanted to take care of my mom and his daughters. Soon my father’s wife figured out that he will never be able to love her, so she divorced him. They started dating again in the 90s and secretly got married without anyone knowing. After hearing this news, my mother’s brothers, who lived in America, stopped talking to her. They influenced her other family members and told them that she married a Muslim who would kill everyone. My father’s love was enough for her to be happy, so she broke her relationship with everyone who was against my dad, choosing his love over their hatred. Growing up, I didn’t feel the story of their separation, only the present of their reunion. Eating sheer korma on Eid was no different than eating ladoos on Diwali.
"Freedom is not a matter of place. It is a condition. I was thankful for the prison, and the lack of liberty was very pleasing to me, for those days were passed in the path of service, under the utmost difficulties and trials, bearing fruits and results. Unless one accepts dire vicissitudes, he will not attain. To me prison is freedom, troubles rest me, death is life, and to be despised is honour. Therefore, I was happy all that time in prison." A
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to be born unfree Written by Ladan Sarvestani
Being an Iranian citizen means you are born a prisoner. But we were not always like this. Iranians have spent forty-one years fighting for our basic human rights. But now, freedom is non-existent in Iran— not freedom of speech or freedom of press, or freedom of simply living your life the way you want. We have to be strategic about every move, even for things as simple as the length of our pants and the color of our nails.
“Many rights that seem fundamental to some women are still goals for Persian women and these basic violations are accepted as part of the culture.” Growing up as a woman in Iran, I learned that over time, certain choices will be taken away from me, and eventually I will no longer allowed to be fully myself. You can’t wear what you like when you step
out of the house, you can’t feel the wind in your hair, you can’t laugh loud, you can’t sing, you can’t have nail polish at school, you can’t be seen with a guy on the streets if he is not your brother or your father, you can’t ride a bike, you can’t swim in the sea, you can’t cheer for your favorite team in the stadium. Many rights that seem fundamental to some women are still goals for Persian women and these basic violations are accepted as part of the culture. Women in Iran live two lives. There is a life at home and another out in public. Women are simply an ornament or an object to be kept at home. If out in the public, then we should be covered under several layers of clothing so you can no longer tell it’s a woman. I have friends that are not allowed to travel to another city within their providence by themselves. Some women do not even have freedom in the confinement of their home. They are being controlled by their fathers and brothers, and once they get married their autonomy is handed off to their husband. I was one of the lucky ones to be born in a Baha’i family in Iran. I was encouraged by both of my parents to spread my wings and push my limits. They taught me that there is nothing I can’t do, based on the Baha’i principle of equality of men and women. I did so, up until I was banned from attending university. Even though I was accepted at one of the prestigious universities of Iran, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, I can’t attend because of my belief in the Bahai Faith. The faith is like a window to a better world, reminding you that life is not confined within the walls of the prison that culture has built for you. I hope for the day that freedom is the reality we live and no longer the dream that we fight for.
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” [John 8:36]
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