on speech on language
hollow words, is one wo
rd that brings peace.�
Buddha
“Better than a thousand
One Report is spiritually-minded content for and by young people. This publication is borne from a reflection of the teachings of the Baha’i Faith and many of our contributors are Baha’is, but not all. The goal is for One Report to offer space for people from all faith backgrounds and beliefs to discuss issues of faith and spirituality. In a time of turmoil, One Report hopes to be a source of unity and collaboration. It is an opportunity for young people to learn from one another and share reflections 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 Lily Arzt.
Un Alma, Dos Idiomas Written by Juliet Bogan
“Tía! Tía!” I cross the street, jumping streams of cold water running down the mountain. The girls greet me with little kisses on my cheek and fight over who gets to hug me—“Es mía!” says Daniela.
“Language has had a deep Santiago de influence not only on my religion Chile is my home. I feel it and Faith but on my view of the in the kisses the niños give cultural unity we as humans on this Earth, esta Tierra, share.” me. I feel it when I am cleaning toilets in the Temple. I feel it in the time I spend with the youth I’ve met, with the family I’ve made. I was always a Baha’i. I always knew I wanted to do a year of service, just like my mother. I even remember thinking for a long time that I would go to Chile. I wanted to learn the language, to serve in the Temple, to work in the communities. When I was a child, my parents taught me to lace my fingers together and close my eyes to pray. In my children’s class we practiced lacing our fingers together to concentrate on the prayers, and they taught me about virtues and we did yoga. I learned about my religion as I learned to speak. I was raised a Bahá’í. And as such, I never had a doubt in my mind that I was a Baha’i because being a Baha’i brought me joy and a community of incredible people who loved me and who I loved.
But arriving in Santiago in June, the dead of Chilean winter, thrown into independence and service and a new community, I realized that while I called myself a Baha’i, while I knew I was a Baha’i, I didn’t actually know what that meant. And so there I was, in June, unable to fully communicate, unable to hold my parents, discovering anew my Baha’i identity. Abdu’l-Bahá says that religion is logical. “If religion were contrary to logical reason then it would cease to be a religion and be merely a tradition.” Religion is a balancing act of structure, coherence, reason, and faith. In Santiago, I am learning that this means having the discipline to connect the aspects of my life through regular prayer, systematic service, education, and love for God. And while I have associated logic, discipline, joy, and education, with my Faith, I now have servicio, pruebas, and jóvenes. In my head swims English—my first language, my childhood, my passion for writing—and Spanish— unexpectedly, my spirituality, my home, my love story—in imperfect but interconnected unison. Conocer la gente de Santiago, to get to know the people here, has opened my eyes to the wondrous unity of the human race. I have discovered, in English and in Spanish, that among the many differences of our cultures, the humans here are just as human as those in the United States. Language has had a deep influence not only on my religion and Faith but on my view of the cultural unity we as humans on this Earth, esta Tierra, share.
“La Tierra es un solo país y la humanidad sus ciudadanos” Bahá’u’lláh
In the barrio where I work, Lisette and Daniela fold their fingers just as I used to while reciting their prayers in our clase de niños. They sing the song I used to sing as a child, but on their tongues it sounds like tiny pebbles tickling a stream, whereas on mine if feels like soft whispers against my lips.
“Bendito es el sitio, y la casa, y el lugar, y la ciudad, y el corazón, y la montaña, y el refugio, y la cueva, y el valle, y la tierra, y el mar, y la isla y la pradera, donde se ha hecho mención de Dios y se ha glorificado Su alabanza.”
“Blessed is the spot, and the house, and the place, and the city, and the heart, and the mountain, and the refuge, and the cave, and the valley, and the land, and the sea, and the island, and the meadow where mention of God hath been made, and His praise glorified.” Bahá’u’lláh
“Reveal then Thyself, O Lord and the mystery of Thy d ecstasy of prayer may fill ou rise above words and letters of syllables and sounds—tha into nothingness before the Baha’u’llah
d, by Thy merciful utterance divine being, that the holy ur souls—a prayer that shall s and transcend the murmur at all things may be merged revelation of Thy splendor.�
A prayer for everyone I love Written by Anisa Tavangar
Everyone I love. Everyone I have loved. Everyone I will love. Bent over in prayer in the Most Holy Spot, I think of names. I call on their souls to receive a bounty of calm and remembrance and care.
Everyone I love. Everyone I have loved. Everyone I will love. My parents, my sisters, my grandparents, my cousins, aunts and uncles, friends‌
Everyone I love. Everyone I have loved. Everyone I will love. Old friends, old neighbors, someone I used to ride the school bus with, my elementary school principal‌
Everyone I love. Everyone I have loved. Everyone I will love. A women who served me tea in another country, a man in a red sweater I walked by in another city, people who might need the prayer, people I barely recall.
Everyone I love. Everyone I have loved. Everyone I will love.
But what of the people I haven’t met before? The ones I will hope I could have prayed for?
Everyone I love. Everyone I have loved. Everyone I will love. Too many names swirling. Who am I to deny someone this prayer? To forget them in this moment?
Everyone I love. Everyone I have loved. Everyone I will love. But the Divine knows my soul and every other. And time is no limit. And space is no limit. So the future is as familiar as the past. And the distant is as intimate as the close. And so instead of names, I say, “Everyone I love. Everyone I have loved. Everyone I will love.� And I stand up and walk out to say it again tomorrow.
"Words are a p r e t e x t . It is the inner bond that draws one person to a n o t h e r , not words." R
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cantos de AjE Written by Catherine Feliz / PrieSTusSSY EN LA CUEVA black sails fly the ship breathing out fire in the cooling coos of the river. one uglied storied bird, neck coral, is chewing images to digest into words. sense cents count too many unnamed. you are the rebirth vulture spirit cleaned a path for. the one who will free our bellies up from silent rage. we dreamed and fed on the spark of rebellions. tres ojos wept our bitter tonics for desires unexpressed. we now enter the depths of the caves _ again _ to pick up our power and reemerge with gold dripping from ori. oh daughter, water is born from your well. awó, compartimos otra vez. let them drink light. at the source of all knowing, with the ever pregnant unknown. BEFORE SUNRISE dam all the fish that can swim to you. dam all the fish gracing the depths of larynx cervix. mouth. asses. los muertos say i carry the stories, but I’m not meant to stay with them down en la cueva. the other side isn’t a side at all. memory is a house. monte y rio.
mami is a cuervo. she stores painful jewels in her bellies. lifetimes spent between endings and beginnings. las mujeres feliz lloran rios de melaza. between salt and sand. entre las manos que limpian el cuerpo sagrado. estamos aprendiendo el nombre que llevamos. mami cuervo offers up a gem. a gift for working in the dark. DAWN. flooded. an unflinching break that isn’t a halt. but a haul. ing. the one who is tasked with remembering. feeling. alchemizing. gushing cracks. tasked to work the craft of creation. hands brilliant with new suns. howling. mouth swelling with lavandula menstrum. roaring. y the cave enterings. diary entries. dysenteries, lest we let the world know without fear. be it a witness. you placed us right here. to soak it up. where could we go if not here on this island of our making. dumb. no tale this park doesn’t close. MORNING SKY bring your gold. pick up your power.
"Among His proofs are the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colors. In these, there are signs for the knowledgeable." Quran
[30:22]
a boundry and bounty Written by Gabe Turner
I had a lovely conversation with a friend recently about knowing oneself and the spiritual capacity of art. We spoke about why we watch movies, why we look at paintings, and the ineffable essence of art that allows us to relate and become closer to those around us without language. The nonverbal binds us, it allows us all to feel something together, “This is the human and relate to one another. It’s how we condition, the process attempt to understand of trying to understand the infinite and one another and our describe the eternal in an ultimately futile own thoughts through attempt to know the wordplay and metaphor.” Unknowable. But despite our acknowledgement of its limitations, we love language, it helps us define our motivations, name the qualities of our beloved, tell stories, and convey information. In many faith traditions, including my own, a fundamental element of understanding God is recognizing that God cannot be understood. We can only know God by trying to grasp God’s attributes or qualities using metaphors or analogies. This in a sense is also a gift. This is the human condition, the process of trying to understand one another and our own thoughts through wordplay and metaphor. It is
why we love saying “fish out of water,” why we embrace poetry, and connect to rap music. Collectively, we lament not speaking German for its descriptive metawords like Freundschaftsbezeigungen (demonstrations of friendship), or on the other end of the scale, marvel at the metaphors retained in four character Chinese chengyus like (a blessing in disguise). We don’t argue when people tell us something doesn’t translate and we get frustrated when we cannot express ourselves. We know that our comprehension of one another is limited. In short, our humanity is universal, but our language is still far from it. This is a bounty; it is our opportunity to work together. An opportunity to use language to better help one another to understand God’s will, helps us accept our imperfections and the imprecision of the very tools we use to know our Creator. It acknowledges that the essence of spirituality is an art, not a science.
"And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." Genesis 11:6
Anxiety of distance Written by Jennifer Li
I’ve watched my mother and her three younger sisters at one table and wondered for years what life would be like among them and their children. I am envious and I am privileged, I am immensely saddened. I would not be the way I am today if my parents had not moved to America. If I was raised here, would Logan carry less weight as the eldest cousin of our age group? Would family feuds over property still happen if I were here to claim it? Never have I felt such anguish over language barriers. My grandfather still asks me if I can speak Mandarin, in Mandarin, and I reply every time that I can and I am listening. I want to spoil my younger cousins but they take care of me, ordering food and taking me out to local markets. I do not speak in these public settings for fear of my American accent and the potential for unwanted attention by strangers within earshot. I have constant, intense nostalgia for Taiwan. I wonder if my cousins think about me like I think about them and I wish I could train myself to stop forgetting family member titles.
"A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men. It is the bread of the spirit, it clotheth the words with meaning, it is the fountain of the light of wisdom and understanding..." Baha'u'llah
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