 Well, I now have the pleasure of introducing to you a man who has come to be a very dear friend of mine, one who I greatly admire and respect, Ludwig Tumann. In addition to his work as a writer, Ludwig is by profession a composer, pianist, music educator, and producer. As a composer, Ludwig has written for varied media including orchestra, chorus, chamber, and solo. He studied composition and liberal arts at Harvard University where he graduated with honors. He continued his musical studies at UC Berkeley and under the composer Roger Nixon at San Francisco State University. His study of the piano was under the internationally recognized artists, Otto Fahler, who turned worldwide with violinist Yehudi Mayugin, and under Esplan Madoch himself a prized piano pupil of Barton. Ludwig has been a faculty member of the Chicago Conservatory College where he designed and taught courses in composition, theory, and non-western music. His works range widely in style from Renaissance choral pieces to ragtime to songs inspired by elements of traditional music from various continents. His compositions have been presented in several television and radio broadcasts as well as in venues in the UK, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida, and Venezuela. And in the latter country he spent many years as a pioneer and served on the auxiliary board. Today he will begin by performing for us an original work for piano and immediately afterward will share with us reflections on the numerous ways that the arts can contribute to the process of community building. Friends, please join me in welcoming Ludwig to. Now it's my privilege to share with you some thoughts, some observations on the theme of the arts, and how they can contribute to the process of community building. You might be wondering if there's a connection between that theme and the piano composition we just heard. Well, I would say yes to a certain extent. The music was suitable I think for a gathering such as this conference and it might be appropriate for certain kinds of outreach activities to which the general public would be invited. But the piece we heard was fairly long and complex so it would not lend itself to be used in most community activities. Certainly not in most children's classes so it was probably not typical of most of the contributions the arts can make to community building. What I have in mind when referring to contributions of the arts involves in the vast majority of cases artworks produced by people who do not practice an art form for a living. They are far more likely to be arts enthusiasts, amateurs or students developing their talents and offering their services to the community. At this stage in the Baha'i community's development professional artists are not abundant but there is an abundance of individuals with artistic gifts that are waiting to be discovered, tapped and developed. And personally I feel that making use of such talents is a key part of raising human resources in the arts. The variety of activities for which such individuals have already begun to offer their services include devotional gatherings, study circles, activities for children and youth, feasts and holy days. Moreover with the new five-year plan calling upon us to give more attention to outreach through social discourse and social action this is another area where the arts can make a contribution. To get a better feel for the potential of the arts to contribute to community life it might be helpful to consider the extent to which we are already influenced by them. The potential of the arts is far reaching. They have the ability to attract and edify, to broaden vision, to touch the heart, to strengthen divine morality, to spiritualize the sentiments and galvanize the will of humanity. They can interact with and support virtually every facet of social and economic development. The arts touch our lives in countless ways. When used appropriately they can uplift and inform, lighten our burdens and be a source of comfort and tranquility for troubled souls. Beyond this the arts throughout the world have always helped to shape and reinforce a people's identity to transmit an outlook on life and its associated beliefs and values from one generation to the next. Their influence is impossible to calculate. Further still when we consider the wondrous vision of the arts that shimmers in the Baha'i writings when we consider their elevated role we find the most compelling reasons to make an effort to appreciate the spiritual nature of arts essence and to better grasp the magnitude of the service it can render. For from various sources quoted in the compilation on the arts we learned that arts and sciences generally should, quote, result in advantage to man ensure his progress and elevate his rank. That music is a ladder for our souls a means whereby they may be lifted up unto the realm on high. That the art of drama will become a great educational power that when a painter takes up her paintbrush it is as if she were at prayer in the temple. That the arts fulfill their highest purpose when showing forth the praise of God and that music, art and literature are to represent and inspire the noblest sentiments and highest aspirations. The arts have always played a major role in the life of individuals and communities. Our human environment is filled with a variety of art forms to such an extent that we may take them for granted and not even notice them. See the lamps above? The design on them? See the pattern on the rug? Below? Without touches like this we would be sitting in a bare box. You know? Every building we step into is a piece of furniture. Every device, painting, carpet piece of music and novel that we interact with had its beginning as an idea in the head and heart of an artist. The combined effect of all such art forms is to create an environment in which we are immersed practically all our lives. This environment is physical, intellectual and spiritual at the same time. And it affects us in many ways both obvious and subtle influencing our perceptions, our emotional state, our attitudes and indirectly our values. Whether we are aware of it or not we are surrounded by the arts every day from morning to night from birth to death. Now before we go on I'd like to offer a few slides that make the point of the influence of the arts in a rather graphic way. Here is a picture of Mount Carmel in the early 20th century about a hundred years ago. Let's just consider for a moment if there were no such thing as architecture landscape design and related art forms Mount Carmel would still look this way today and would continue looking the same indefinitely into the future. It would still be a holy mountain of course and it would remain in a state of natural beauty but it would not be able to reflect through the arts humanity's sense of beauty, awe and reverence in the presence of the beauty of God. But fortunately such art forms do exist and when they are masterfully applied by artists such as Hand of the Cause, William Sutherland Maxwell who designed the superstructure of the Shrine of the Bob and Hossein Amanat who designed the seat of the Universal House of Justice and other major structures on the Ark of Mount Carmel and Faribar Sahba who both designed the terraces and served as project manager to raise the remaining buildings of the World Center on the Ark. Then the result is this and here it seems a brief digression would be in order you know it's not every day that a talk about the arts and the differences to the terraces of the Mount Carmel has within its audience an artist who has given the world gifts of this magnitude. It's true that there were many hearts and hands involved in the great undertaking of bringing the terraces into being but the primary artistic inspiration had to flow through someone's mind and to become materialized through his tireless efforts. So Mr. Sahba as we remember the terraces and the House of Worship in India and the other gifts we have received from you please allow me to say on behalf of all of us and from the bottom of our hearts thank you. So now returning to our main theme the integration of the arts into the process of community building for the remainder of the talk I'm going to be focusing on a more limited group of arts of the kind that particularly lend themselves to involvement in community activities primarily but not exclusively but have in mind the performing arts such as music, theater and dance literature such as storytelling and poetry and visual arts such as painting, calligraphy photography and computer aided graphics and including weaving, embroidery quilt making banners and other crafts which like painting produce an image on a two dimensional surface the theme of integrating the arts into community life I believe is vitally important not only to those of us who already have an interest in the arts but to the community as a whole this is because artworks when informed and inspired by the divine teachings can reinforce and amplify their effect thereby helping to move the hearts and ennoble the conscience of humanity the arts are thus capable of significantly enhancing our advancement toward the community's developmental aims which are outlined in the new five year plan but to have this effect the arts would need to become more fully integrated into core community activities a fuller integration of the arts can come about I believe only if certain limiting habits of thought regarding the arts are overcome only if the spiritual nature and social dynamics of the arts are better understood in the light of Baha'i teachings and only if the community systematically channels the vitality of the arts into its activities throughout history the arts have contributed to the development of society not through the efforts of artists alone but through the collaboration between them and a receptive sensitized and informed community and that is why it is a matter that concerns us all friends in order to get some perspective on this subject I think it would be helpful to place my remarks in a broad context that of the worldwide development of the Baha'i community from messages of the universal house of justice addressed to the Baha'i world it's clear that the community is entering a very significant stage in its long-term development and the multiple ways that the arts can now contribute has everything to do with this juncture where we presently stand the house of justice has drawn our attention to some of the characteristics of this stage such as the culture of learning which has taken root in the community the systematization of the community's growth and consolidation the growing diversity and complexity of institutions that make up the administrative order and increasingly our outreach and interaction with the larger society to see this development from a long-term perspective it's helpful to use an analogy employed by Shoghi Effendi who wrote that the divine order Baha'u'llah is bringing into being is in an embryonic stage picking up on his analogy of the embryo perhaps we could compare the early evolution of the faith to an embryo's development within the womb we might compare the administrative order to the central nervous system which along with the child's defenses is the first system that an embryo needs to develop and the path leading toward a world order is perhaps analogous to the next stage in the embryo's growth where the nervous system continues to develop and the vital organs are beginning to take shape that is the stage it seems that the Baha'i world community is now entering through most of the 20th century the focus was necessarily on building the administrative order the embryo's nervous system and now that the basic structure of the administrative order is in place it's time for the embryo to develop its body and its vital organs this development of body and organs is partly reflected in new institutions and processes that have been emerging such as regional Baha'i councils regional training institutes clusters and the entire institute process but it is also reflected in the emphasis that the new five-year plan places on less tangible goods the quality of Baha'i community life the ennoblement of human relationships at the level of individuals institutions and community and the penetration of divine teachings into society to begin gradually transforming it into a new civilization in all these areas the arts have much to offer in fact the arts are sure to become deeply and directly involved with the building of the new civilization it has become clear that the institute process and other modes of learning that the Baha'i community is now engaged in worldwide are intended not only to spiritualize the community's size but also to establish the roots of the new divine civilization Baha'u'llah founded through his teachings the characteristics of that civilization will gradually emerge as the teachings are carried into action thereby transforming the lives of individual believers along with the life of the Baha'i community and beyond that eventually the life of society as a whole across history each of the manifestations of God including Moses the Buddha Jesus Christ and Muhammad released into the world energies that crystallize into a new civilization and it is important to note that in the building of each of these civilizations the arts played a vital role when we look at the examples provided by history we find that the period of transition to a new civilization the period when the embryos body and organs are beginning to develop is precisely when the arts begin to play a key role promoting that civilization's highest interests and giving visible expression to its ideals now to some extent what I'm saying is nothing new thanks to the encouragement that the Universal House of Justice has given over the years to involve the arts in Baha'i activities and with the resulting initial efforts made by the friends I think it's fair to say that overall the Baha'i community is coming to recognize that to include the arts in community life is beneficial there are indications however that in the community there is perhaps still a widespread sense that the use of the arts is a non-essential activity that the arts are somehow removed from the central priorities of the faith in a previous stage of our development when the central priority of the world community was to build a creative order perhaps the arts were non-essential and tangential at that time and perhaps the less than congenial attitude toward the arts that one can still find among some members of the community is a vestige perhaps of that earlier stage in our development it's an attitude that basically says music, skits, stories and the like are nice to have they're a pleasant addition that we can do without them in the new stage that the Baha'i community is entering though I would like to suggest that the arts will be capable of contributing greatly and in many ways every time the community's development arrives at a new stage there are some habits of thought that need to be examined some attitudes that need to be adjusted and regarding the arts if some adjustment were called for by our new stage of development I would suggest that it is the need to move beyond the limited view of the arts as merely a pleasant but non-essential activity for only when this view has been replaced by a more positive perspective will the arts have full scope to infuse their inherent vitality into the community's spiritual life and into its outreach to society described in the simplest terms the effect we could anticipate from giving more attention to the integration of the arts is this all activities in which the Baha'i community is involved we could expect to see become significantly more spiritual more attractive more dynamic and more effective let's take a look at some of the reasons why the arts can claim to possess such extraordinary potential and how they influence the human mind and heart there are two statements from Abdul Baha'i about music on one occasion he said music is an important means to the education and development of humanity but the only true way is through the teachings of God music, he said is like this glass and the teachings of God the utterances of God are like the water is absolutely pure and clear and the water is perfectly fresh and limpid then it will confer life on another occasion he wrote thank thou God that thou art instructed in music and melody singing with pleasant voice the glorification and praise of the eternal the living I pray to God that thou mayest employ this talent in prayer and supplication in order that the souls may become quickened the hearts may become attracted and all may become inflamed with the fire of the love of God note that music alone would not be able to produce the effects mentioned by Abdul Baha'i but when music is combined appropriately with the sacred word the combination can cause the hearts to become inflamed with the fire of the love of God in Abdul Baha'i's words we might almost say then that one of the powers of the word of God is that it's like a fuel that propels the divine cause and that the arts when added to that fuel can assist it to release more of its inherent energy the next point to which I'd like to invite your attention is that the arts are incredibly adaptable though the arts could never substitute for any of the current core activities they nonetheless can be molded to a company and invigorate such activities and can infuse them with additional spiritual potency and they can do this in ways that are appropriate for any culture and for any age group this allows the arts to serve universally as a kind of force multiplier if you will it's an ability unique among humanity's many vocations let's consider for a moment as essential as medicine is for humanity's well-being does it lend itself to being regularly practiced in the context of children's classes as indispensable as engineering is does it lend itself to become an integral part of devotional programs or trade and finance in study circles the arts may not be inherently concerned with children's classes or study circles than other professions are but one thing that all the arts we are talking about have in common is the ability to address themselves to humanity's spiritual life because of that they can be adapted to all such core activities and in the process can increase their effect for some examples of how the arts can contribute to community building let's look at some slides of artistic activities one area where the arts can be integrated is devotionals, feasts, and holy days when adequately employed the ability of the arts to touch the heart can make such events more inspiring for instance here we see a group in Colquith Lam, British Columbia who brought the arts into play for their observance of Rizvan by creating an interpretation of the garden of Rizvan in a home before guests entered some rose water was put on their hands and they were given a selection the arts also have the ability to simultaneously engage multiple regions of the human brain therefore their use can make the learning process in children's classes far more effective here we see a dramatic enactment by children in Apple Valley, Minnesota recalling the letters of the living and their search for the promised one and as you can see there are creative ways of conjuring up a 19th century robe and turban on the other hand the ability to strengthen bonds of friendship group identity and social cohesion makes activities for youth and junior youth far more appealing here we see a youth activity involving music and singing in Mendota Heights, Minnesota and here junior youth performing an Indian drum song at the Brighton Creek Conference Center in Washington what's more the arts expression of beauty through the senses design, light, color sound and motion can also make activities of outreach to friends and neighbors far more attractive in this connection it's helpful to keep in mind that the arts do more than simply affect our feelings rather they engage our minds as well as our hearts this is one reason the arts are so potent in its letter of December 27th 2005 to the continental conference of the continental boards of counselors the Universal House of Justice observed that the arts can enhance a surge of energy that mobilizes the believers this stems not only from the ability of the arts to stir the emotions but also from their capacity to be instrumental in the process of learning whenever Baha'i communities bring into play art that embodies or reflects the divine teachings in some way the artwork's educational and edifying influence will be felt not only in study circles but equally in other regular activities of community life not normally associated with learning such as devotionals, feasts and holy day observances now let's briefly consider how the arts can contribute to social discourse and programs of social action the natural ability of the arts particularly performance arts to reach out, touch the hearts of inquirers capture the imagination of the public and galvanize its will allows them to play a key role as a bridge between the Baha'i community and society at large for example imagine a proposed program to plant trees within a village or within a high density urban neighborhood to gain local support the program could be easily and effectively promoted to the residents of the area through storytelling and songs about nature skits about climate change or paintings portraying the residential area as it would look after the trees were planted building the Baha'i community not only entails growth in size resources and outreach but it also involves lifting the spiritual quality of life the significance of the arts like that of the core activities is not limited to their ability to directly promote growth in numbers they are also important for their ability to uplift and enrich the spiritual facets of individual and community life as a fundamental aspect of the new civilization further still the arts can also elevate the quality of a community's life on the social level to mention one of the many ways they do this the arts can powerfully reinforce the sense of belonging the sense of common identity and Baha'i identity shared by members of a given community this is especially the case when the arts involve participation in a group singing together dancing together or making a theatrical presentation together a special area in which the arts affect the quality of life concerns beauty it's true that the arts can be of great practical value to the cause of human unity at this time by proclaiming the divine message helping to accelerate the advance of clusters increasing the effectiveness of core activities attracting education educating and galvanizing the will of large numbers of believers and inquirers but transcending all such considerations the arts can also play a unique role in human life by satisfying our innate hunger for beauty this hunger is closely related to the appetite and search for spiritual truth in fact perhaps the two could be regarded as two sides of the same coin the God given capacity for attraction to beauty and attraction to divine truth is one of the most distinctive powers of the human soul and by developing this capacity arts that serve the spiritual aims of religion can increase our attraction to the beauty of God and thereby help fulfill the very purpose of our existence which the sacred writings tell us is to know, love and worship our creator today humanity's hunger for beauty is mounting as beauty in the human world becomes harder to find on all sides one is accosted by ugliness in its many forms moral degradation greed and callousness in the financial world environmental destruction the violence and abuse regularly portrayed in news and entertainment and a decline of civilization generally in such a world when our friends and neighbors find a setting where uplifting beauty is presented to them through the arts it is as though they have stepped into an oasis in the desert or set foot in the enchantment of a national park further still there is something about beauty that is central to religion for beauty touches the very roots of human motivation in the final analysis what is it that motivates a human being to make efforts to translate the teachings of God to reality is it fear of divine punishment is it hope for a reward Bahá'u'lláh calls us to a more elevated kind of motivation in the Kitab-i-Aqdás he writes observe my commandments for the love of my beauty so when the beauty expressed in an artwork is associated with divine qualities when it becomes a reflection of the beauty of the creative word of God then it stirs within our hearts a love for the beauty of God and the effect is light upon light there is no way to measure the value of such a spiritual and artistic experience friends we've been considering a wide range of potential benefits the arts can provide for those I'd like to observe that for this potential to be realized the Bahá'í community needs to have a systematic way to develop human resources in the arts to spiritualize the community's understanding of the nature of the arts and to gain skills in their application at the grassroots level a resource that could be of help in this regard is presently under development into the spiritual power of the arts and is intended for the general public rather than solely for artists it's designed to help lay a foundation for the integration of the arts into all aspects of Bahá'í community life the course is currently entering its fourth year of development and is sponsored by the Wings to the Spirit Foundation a Bahá'í inspired non-profit organization based in Gulf Breeze, Florida the course is being developed and refined at the grassroots through the evaluations of a growing body of volunteer participants in multiple countries for those who are interested in learning about it I'll be describing the project to develop this course this afternoon as one among the many attractive offerings in the breakout sessions thank you very much