year four

We know that in this part of the world, everyone is thinking about the Oscars, but we can pretty much guarantee that all over the world, Bahá’ís are praying and getting ready for the start of this year’s period of fasting. Some of them might be carbo-loading, others are eating sugar during the day while they still can, and still others might be stocking up on miniature tubes of toothpaste.

We will be sharing our Fast with you again this year—through our photos, our musings, and holy spiritual words—just like we did last year.

Additionally, once again we have invited talented photographers from all over the world to join us in sharing their fasting experiences and photographs with all of us. We are so excited about this year’s line-up, and we’re sure every day the photos from two different photographers will be uplifting and beautiful.

 

This year we would like to do something a little different, and that is to dedicate this year’s project to those Bahá’ís who live in Iran.

Others have written eloquently about the situation of seven Iranian Bahá’ís who have been imprisoned for three years, almost two years of which were without being charged, and their situation is representative of their co-religionists in their country.

Thinking about it for even a minute is enough to make one want to eat one’s own head. Bahá’ís in Iran are denied access to tertiary education. They are subject to arbitrary arrest and even more arbitrary accusations. There are so many crazy things happening to Bahá’ís in Iran that it’s really too emotional to go into.

But we will say that the integrity and steadfastness of Iran’s Bahá’ís is old-school. It’s the kind of thing that you can’t imagine people doing anymore, in this day and age. Or in any day and age! It’s people sticking to what they know is right, even if that means they are imprisoned, taken away from their small children and families and jobs and lawyers and put into prisons where other prisoners are ordered to ostracize them. It’s people who have such integrity in their beliefs, such purity of heart, and such steadfastness in the maturation of humanity that they continue to make personal sacrifices in their own lives that should really be beyond human endurance.

We want to dedicate the beauty that comes from this project, its prayers and its unity, to the strength and righteousness of the Bahá’ís in Iran. You are our heros.

 

Anyway, in terms of our regularly scheduled programming, please come back on March 2nd for our first set of photos, and please feel free to join our project by leaving comments, photographing your dawns and dusks, and telling us all about your Fast!

Love,

Amy, Leila & all the nineteen days guests.