 Okay. Good evening, everyone. Ah, very good. We're putting a light up here so I can see. I was smart enough to print it in large fonts because I'm an old man now, but I didn't expect the darkness. Okay, I think that will... I'll have to probably do some ad-libs, but we'll see. I can see the top half and the bottom half I can't see, so you'll see me just talk for a while and turn the page, and then you'll know that I can't see any more of what's down here. So friends, I'm very excited and honored to have been asked to address you this weekend, especially because this is my first ABS conference ever that I've ever attended, so I'm quite pleased to be able to come. And for years I've been wanting to attend, and yes, it's true. It had the reputation, well, that's where all the eggheads go and all this sort of thing, and even though I'm sure I'm not in that category, nevertheless, I just wanted to see what they all talk about when they get together every year. And every year though, I just couldn't do it because of scheduling problems until I saw the dates this year, and I had already decided to myself that I would come only then later to get the invitation also to speak, so it was really a wonderful confirmation of that, and I'm also very pleased that my very beloved wife, Mojgan, and my two children also were with me for their first ABS conference as well. Well friends, it's hard to know where to begin on a theme like this because the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is this wonderful and vast emanation from the mind of God. It's likened by the blessed beauty to an ocean which calls to mind its beauty, its depth, its impenetrable mystery, and its overwhelming and inevitable power to shape the course of human affairs. As difficult as it might be to imagine, we know that its influence will overshadow all future revelations for 5,000 centuries to come. So it's impossible then to conceive any capacity on our part today, fully to understand its implications. And we know that it's futile any attempt on our part to fully appreciate the nature of the changes that this cause will make to the social and the spiritual evolution of humanity. How mighty then must be the covenant and the institutions ordained by Bahá'u'lláh to ensure the integrity of its teachings, the unity of its followers, and the harmonious and systematic development of the divine civilization which it is destined to create. And in a sense, the cause of God has always been like this, whatever the dispensation throughout the course of human history. It has always shaped history according to its own mysterious ways, often not even dimly understood by the masses of humanity. But now, at this time of the coming of age of the human race, we are challenged to be more conscious of the process of spiritual transformation unleashed in this way of God and to approach our service to the cause very thoughtfully and with a keener awareness. Individuals, institutions, and communities, the chief protagonists of this divine plan, must act with unity, coherence, and steadfastness. Devotion to principle, all of these things, of course, being the hallmarks of what building a civilization means. So when we think about such concepts as administration, we do so in the full understanding that Bahá'u'lláh brings a new meaning to the word administration. But also that we are only at the beginning of understanding what will be a centuries-long process of building and working. We go into this work aware that Bahá'u'lláh challenges many of our current assumptions about the nature of reality, of human behavior, and human potential. Some of the implications are very easy for us now to discern and to identify, but others we might not even be conscious of because we are very immersed in the current ways of thinking and doing that are the products of the societies in which we live. So now we have the wonderful message of Resvan 2010, which along with the December 28, 2010 message to the conference of the boards of counselors are the key documents that will guide us in the plan now newly launched. And to study these letters makes very clear a reality for which we can be deeply grateful because within the faith we now have an established tested and proven framework for growth. At the heart of it is the institute process which is characterized by the Universal House of Justice as an instrument of limitless potentialities. Now friends, this is an amazing statement an instrument of limitless potentialities. The institute process itself embodies an approach to human development that incorporates principles centered on Bahá'u'lláh's teachings about reality. It provides a systematic means for human beings to take charge of the development of their own capacities through interaction with the word of God and service in the field of action. It helps us to harmonize and coordinate the talents and services of the friends. Organic in its nature, it provides the basis for a steadily expanding and increasingly complex, vibrant and varied community life. And in its essence it is a deeply spiritual process. It begins as the House of Justice so beautifully describes in this guidance as an interaction between souls an intimate spiritual conversation deeply rooted in the word of God and imbued with the spirit of the revelation for today. From there it develops along lines that while adapted to local circumstances yield the same end result, which is a nascent pattern of community life upon which steady expansion and consolidation this process of transformation can be founded. It increases in complexity as more and more souls are attracted and become involved but always it addresses and serves the deepest spiritual longings of the human heart always encouraging every soul wherever they are in their journey towards their Lord to move closer to him. It is always inclusive. It invites all whether believers or not to join in humble service toward the building of a new civilization. The following extract from the booklet commissioned by the Universal House of Justice which we've already heard an extract from, Century of Light expresses this same vision in these memorable terms. This is what the House of Justice or the book commissioned by the House of Justice says in Century of Light. And I quote, throughout history the masses of humanity have been at best spectators of the advance of civilization. Their role has been to serve the designs of whatever elite had temporarily assumed control of the process. Even the successive revelations of the divine, whose objective was the liberation of the human spirit, were in time taken captive by the insistent self. Were frozen into man-made dogma, ritual, clerical privilege, and sectarian quarrels and reached their end with their ultimate purpose frustrated. Baha'u'llah has come to free humanity from this long bondage. And the closing decades of the 20th century were devoted by the community of his followers to creative experimentation with the means by which his objective can be realized. The prosecution of the divine plan entails no less than the involvement of the entire body of humankind in the work of its own spiritual social and intellectual development. And we end the quote. And we also know friends that it's a learning process and we can already see how profoundly this learning is beginning to affect our outlook and our way of doing things. To give an example of this, and there are so many that it can hardly be done justice to tonight, but to give a couple of examples we're no longer talking about the number of people going through the sequence of courses as if that were an end in itself. Rather what we're seeing now beginning to happen is that people are going through the sequence book by book, thinking about the concepts they contain relating to those concepts through service and exploring their implications. And no longer do they see themselves as simply doing activities, but rather as part of a movement. and experiencing, sharing with, and accompanying one another. The House of Justice wrote, the abundant experience which has since accrued, that is in the 15 years since this institute process was globalized, enables the believers now to conceive of the movement of a population propelled by mounting spiritual forces in terms of a rich and dynamic continuum. Another thing is that we appreciate more clearly than ever that the process of teaching does not end with a declaration of faith however critical it is in the spiritual life of an individual it's just one more milestone on a lifelong path of learning an eternal one in fact. And because it is a step that can occur sooner or later, depending upon the individual receptivity is no more gauged by how quickly a person becomes a Baha'i, but rather by whether that person is willing to work together with us in a process of community building. And as to community building itself, we now have the basis for lasting achievement. In neighborhoods where receptive populations enter into these activities, we have the potential to foster patterns of community life that include people of every age, from children to adults. And this is a far crime from the experience that we had a generation ago of door-to-door activity which did not have such a result. Now to be sure we still have a long way to go in North America as far as this is concerned because we still don't have communities where large numbers of the inhabitants of a neighborhood have taken charge of their own development. But although this is an achievement yet to be attained, we are well on the road to attaining it even in the current plan. And what we have experienced demonstrates the assertion of the universal house of justice where I quote, without exception, having witnessed the transformative effects of the institute process first hand, the friends in such clusters are striving to gain a fuller appreciation of the dynamics that underlie it, the spirit of fellowship that it creates, the participatory approach it adopts, the depth of understanding it fosters, the acts of service it recommends, and above all an alliance on the word of God. And in another passage where they say to me very excitingly in virtually any cluster now it is possible for an expanding nucleus of individuals to generate a movement toward the goal of a new world order. Now friends of course a great deal more than this could be said about the institute process and how it addresses concepts of human identity and of empowerment, of access to knowledge and interaction in the wider world. And these issues will be addressed in greater depth by many of our other speakers this weekend so I won't attempt to do that. But as far as the institutions are concerned, which is the theme of the talk, we can see our own experience reflected to some extent in the observation that the house of justice has made. And perhaps the best way that I could illustrate this theme would be as it were to take a walk down memory lane to 15 years ago when this process was first being globalized and when the house of justice set this expectation that the ensuing 25 years, that is to say from 1996 until 2021 would be a focused period of time where we would focus our energies on advancing the process of entry by troops. And at that time in 1996 I was serving as secretary of the United States National Teaching Committee and in that capacity I frequently had occasion to interact with our national assembly and had a responsibility to contribute with my colleagues to its thinking about the growth of the faith. And although we had heard of the institute process, of course, and we had read the guidance about the institutes, I think it's fair to say and I suppose I'll only speak for myself, but I think it's fair to say that on the committee we did not have a full grasp of the implications of the institute process for successfully addressing the challenge of growth of the Baha'i faith. And although I think that we did understand the need to be systematic in our planning, interestingly our focus was not so much on building capacity within the community of the Baha'is, but rather it was outward looking on the society at large. And again very interestingly but at the time the really big question that seemed to exist among the Baha'is was whether, not so much whether we had the capacity to teach, but whether there were any receptive souls in the United States to be taught. And this was the question. Now it may seem funny now, but that was a really big debate going on at that time when we were on the teaching committee because there was a widespread feeling that a big reason for the slowdown in growth that we had seen since the early 1980s up until the 1990s was due to a decreased interest on the part of Americans in general for religion and spirituality. So one of the first things that the committee did was to investigate, to read everything we could get our hands on about the issue of religious change and religious interest in the United States. And so the members of the committee did quite a lot of reading about it. I personally read, I once counted about 60 different books by various academics and other writers about the current patterns of religious affiliation and interest. And what we found, what the committee found to our amazement was that virtually every one of the knowledgeable commentators of different backgrounds was of the same opinion that the U.S. was at that very moment on the verge of one of the great spiritual shifts in its history. And the main characteristic of it was that conditions were going to give rise to what one writer famously called a generation of seekers who would be interested in new spiritually based solutions to their life issues. And by new solutions was met that they would no longer be satisfied with traditional definitions and dogma. Indeed they would openly reject them in favor of a new more inclusive spirituality with both personal and communal aspects but with less sectarianism and with greater awareness of current social issues. And I remember one book that listed the top issues of concern to these alleged seekers who were supposedly out there and I remember looking at it it was all on one page and it looked just like one of the old classic presentations of the 12 principles of the Baha'i Faith. I mean it was that much of a match. And so the good news was that we discovered we didn't have to invent a religion for these people. You know, we had one that seemed to suit perfectly well to these issues if those people really existed. So we went to the National Assembly and proposed that we craft messages to these people on television. And the idea of course was to find out if it was possible to create a message on a particular principle of teaching that would attract people to investigate the faith in a tangible way. That is to say by either going to a website or calling the national telephone number that we set up to ask for further information or even better for contact with the Baha'is. So the assembly agreed and over the course of time quite a few of these 30-minute videos were produced by various teams and also a number of commercials. And each of them was broadcast multiple times on various national cable channels and local affiliates. And we also had a well-established means with that of gauging the response. We knew very clearly the precise effectiveness of each video of every channel and every time slot. I mean it was very scientifically put together. And the process unfolded over the course of several years. So to make a long and very interesting story really short, let me just cut to the three big things that we learned from it. First we were stunned at what we did not know about effective communication in this process. Even the Baha'i media professionals, and they were all professionals who produced the videos. And these were videos you may remember Power of Race Unity, Power of Prayer, Power of Family, all of these videos, some of the commercials too. Even these professionals had to learn a great deal about how to present the faith in an effective and attractive way. And this they did through detailed and repeated focus group tests moderated by non-Baha'is so that we could see how people actually reacted to the content in real time and give us feedback. Not to Baha'is but to others so it would be non-biased. And of course this makes sense if you think about it, because communication is a two-way street. We don't just talk, we hear. And we want feedback. We want to know if we're coming across. And I'll just suffice to say that we could have written an entire book about the difference between what we think we are communicating when we are presenting the faith and what is actually coming across to those with whom we wish to share the message. At least in this way. So it took a long time to be able to create them effectively. And even today I would say that there is much to be learned that would apply to our teaching efforts. And we're going to come back to that point a little later in the presentation. The second thing we learned was that there was no shortage at all of people who would respond to the message of the faith. In fact in our relatively modest tests and I want to say that we didn't have any commercials on the Super Bowl or anything. These were all very small, you know, limited range. They were national cable outlets but not the big ones. Usually they were the very small ones. So even in these modest tests we were literally overwhelmed with interest as thousands upon thousands of people expressed the wish for information and for direct contact with local communities. And it completely put to rest this question of whether there were any one out there really who would listen to anything that we had to say. But finally and the most important lesson of all friends by far was that we had almost no capacity to deal with this interest at the local level. For some reason we had always assumed that if people would express interest then we would easily and naturally teach them. But we completely underestimated the need to create a culture of community life at the local level that could embrace and nurture and welcome people. And so we simply didn't have that and we quickly began to realize it that there were few activities for people to attend and a shortage of skilled teachers. And so as we discovered this and the NSA realized it, we ceased these national media broadcast and just switched our focus to the main elements of the plan until such time as we would build that capacity again. So the imperative of grassroots development was there and it was very clear of course in the guidance that that should be the focus. But we didn't entirely abandon those people coming to us and making interest in the faith on the internet. In the years since then, it's been 10 years now since those broadcasts, we have systematically tracked the path of inquiry undertaken by visitors to our public website so that we could learn how content, opportunities to obtain further information and invitation to join local communities could assist the journey of those who are attracted to the Baha'i teachings and wish to seriously investigate the faith. And we've learned much about each of these facets of an online exploration of the faith so that now our presentation to seekers and our follow-up have gained greatly in their effectiveness. And so today nearly all visitors to the site who express interest now receive a rapid and welcoming response from well trained individuals living in their vicinity who are able to befriend them and often successfully connect them with core activities and other local Baha'i community events. And of course that same 10 years parallels a development of far greater significance which was the capacity for teaching and for welcoming these people that was generated directly as a result of the institute process. Measured against our standing a few years ago, we have much greater collective skill in nurturing the interest of seekers and have developed a new pattern of community life that more readily embraces them as active participants in the life of the community. And I can give a very good example that dramatically illustrates that this is a true thing that we're seeing emerging. The history of online declarations is the example. And I'll tell you about that because I think it's a very good way of showing what has changed in at least the US Baha'i community in these past few years. In 2004 the National Spiritual Assembly decided to experiment with the idea of allowing individuals to express online their desire to become Baha'is. Not just having further information or contact but even to say I want to become a member of the Baha'i community. And in one year in 2004 some 500 people did this by this means. Some had already had contact with believers and were actively investigating the faith through traditional well-established means such as firesides or core activities. But most appeared never to have had any substantive interaction of that kind. Instead they had either investigated and become attracted to the Baha'i faith entirely on their own or years before had had an encounter with the Baha'is and with the faith. But in either case to ensure local follow-up these people were put in touch with local assemblies or cluster agencies so that they could ascertain the degree of understanding and their commitment before a formal enrollment actually took place. So the act of asking to be enrolled was not an enrollment. It was the opening like any other person to the door to the local activity. But this is what happened the first year. Unfortunately the majority of the 500 never received timely local follow-up. And of those that did establish contact with local believers most never became regular participants. Some did enroll in the faith about 18% of the 500 but in the long run most did not maintain contact even of that 18%. So for this reason after the first year this option was removed from the website and we returned to the normal process. But then after several more years in April 2009 the assembly decided to try the experiment again to see whether our capacity to respond to these online declarations or online interest had improved. And over the next two years that is from April 2009 to April 2011 this past April just over 1,000 individuals made online requests to become members of the Baha'i faith. But this time the resulting follow-up was far more timely and effective. About 100 of these requests resulted in enrollments after local contact and a recent survey indicated that half of them are participating in the training institute process and quite a few we know of who have now emerged as active teachers, leaders of core activities, members of ATCs and so on already. So this shows there's some standout lessons that come from this. One is that the increased ability to nurture seekers did not happen by accident. It was the result of deliberate disciplined and a constant process of learning that has gone on for more than a decade and which still continues today. We've had national, regional and sub-regional meetings devoted to learning how to foster the interest of people who express that interest via internet or other such means and as a result of much trial and error we're now beginning to have an idea of how to do this in an effective way. But just as vital to this is the second thing which is that the potential for growth has changed so dramatically as the result of new capacities that have been generated at the cluster level through the institute process. You can invite them to the party but then you've got to have a party, right? You know there's got to be something for people to come to. Well now there is. And this is a wonderful thing that we can now say, that we have an ability and an orientation that allows us to welcome and really embrace this community of interest. But the other thing, the third, was a new understanding of the nature of proclamation itself. A simple ad campaign as it was originally conceived really didn't work because the effectiveness of media wasn't very good until it was integrated into the framework of the plan in a coherent matter. So in other words what we had to do was we had to learn how to think of an old concept, proclamation in a new way. Not in isolation or as a disparate activity but as a complement to the main process of movement going on at the grassroots of the community. And of course this has big implications when we talk about other areas of activity such as social action or advancing the discourses in society. And there are I think also a number of implications for those who serve on institutions of the faith. And these are some of them. First to appreciate the importance of the learning process. I'm trying to read my own notes here. And of course these apply to everyone but particularly to members of institutions as well. The community has always been in learning mode of course. It's not as if learning just began. This has been going on ever since the days of Baha'u'llah himself. And as I already stated we're just now learning to be more conscious of this and to foster it in a more systematic manner. But the good news and the thing that proves the effectiveness of the learning process is that we can see how our collective understanding is becoming more refined over time. If we look at the guidance concerning the institute process itself for example we can see how the concept has evolved considerably in just the past 15 years. And some examples of that you may recall in the very beginning when the House of Justice first talked about the institutes it was envisioned that there would be a physical facility where people would come and receive the courses. They would come and attend and go through the courses and then go back out into their home communities to engage in these various acts of service. And then it came to be seen that in certain clusters when the tutors instead of inviting people to the facility went out into the field and assembled with groups of people that it was far more effective to study, the study circle was born. It was a new concept born out of experience. Similarly this idea of the institute process primarily was designed to address the consolidation needs of the community. That is to say it was primarily to address the believers and to confirm them in their path of service. But again in several clusters it came to be seen that even when people who were not members of the Baha'i Faith attended many of them found it to be very rewarding and it would engage with us in various acts of service. Many of them even became Baha'is and thus was born the concept that the study circles could be open to all whether they are Baha'is or not. And again this was a learning that came through experience. And yet a third was the idea that it would be more convenient to break down geographic areas into manageable pieces so that we could better coordinate and administer this process and clusters were born and this was about ten years ago. So you can see that the House of Justice in monitoring the growth and the development of the community reflects back this learning to all of us and we all incorporate it. So the proof of the learning process itself is the capacity to rise to higher levels of understanding over time and this we're actually seeing. And there will always be questions as we pursue the process but we just hope that the questions of tomorrow will be different from those that we have today and that will be a sign that we're truly in that mode. The second concept is creation of learning spaces. There is a critical importance in creating space to learn in this process. And of course in the institute process we all know we have the cluster reflection gatherings and our challenge there of course is to increase their effectiveness. We also have tutor reflections and the 19-day feast and other meetings focused on particular aspects of the plan but learning spaces are also being organized at the regional, the national the international and even at the global the continental levels and one of the outstanding examples of this has been the systematic creation of learning space for the junior youth spiritual empowerment program. And in just two years this systematic plan has led to nominal growth in the number of junior youth groups in the U.S. serving just a few hundred a couple of years ago now to serving several thousand junior youth in the United States. And the approach was very straightforward and really rather simple because it just provided opportunities for friends from various clusters to come together on a regular basis to learn from each other's experiences to deepen their understanding of the junior youth curriculum and to encourage each other. And in certain clusters where the number of junior youth groups has grown to the point where they can serve as learning sites each one has a full-time coordinator. So junior youth animators come from various clusters in a region to the learning site and together through action and study they increase their insights and skills and their capacity they go back out to their cluster and later they receive follow-up visits from those same learning site coordinators and it's a marvelous thing that's showing great results not just here but in Canada and throughout the Americas throughout the world. And in this plan national spiritual assemblies around the world and I know Canada is well along in this process as are we will be inaugurating processes similar to this to address such issues as emerging social action and advancing the discourses in society. Now of course each of these will follow their own particular path which is that the discipline of learning through action and shared experience will be the key to our progress and of course all of us will be working very closely with the House of Justice and its agencies so that's not just a local or a regional or national learning process but truly a global learning process to which we are contributing. The third point is cultivating an attitude of learning. The House of Justice offers essential guidance as to the proper attitude that individuals and institutions should take in their approach to the plan. And there are many beautiful things that are written in the Reson message and in the December 28th message. I'll confine myself to just a couple of examples. The House wrote for example, as an increasing number of believers participate in the teaching and administrative work undertaken with a humble attitude of learning they should come to view every task, every interaction as an occasion to join hands in the pursuit of progress and to accompany one another in their efforts to serve the cause. And again all of the institutions and agencies promoting the aim of the current series of global plans need to exercise the measure of agility that the birth of such a dynamic process demands. In this as in all their work they must display breadth of vision and clarity of thought, flexibility and resourcefulness. And another example as to the attitude that should characterize those who are called upon to serve in administrative capacities. The House of Justice says this among other things and it's a beautiful passage. They should not imagine that such service entitles them to operate on the periphery of the learning process that is everywhere gaining strength, exempt from its inherent requirements. Nor should it be supposed that membership on administrative bodies provides an opportunity to promote one's own understanding of what is recorded in the sacred text and how the teachings should be applied, steering the community in whatever direction personal preferences dictate. Referring to the members of spiritual assemblies, the Guardian wrote that they must regard utterly their own likes and dislikes, their personal interests and inclinations and consecrate their minds upon those measures that will conduce to the welfare and happiness of the Baha'i community and promote the common wheel. Baha'i institutions do exercise authority to guide the friends and exert moral, spiritual and intellectual influence on the lives of individuals and communities. However, such functions are to be performed with the realization that an ethos of loving service pervades Baha'i institutional identity. Qualifying authority and influence in this manner implies sacrifice on the part of those entrusted to administer the affairs of the faith. So it's clear from these references friends that institutional service begins with the personal commitment of the members of those institutions to learning through direct involvement in the plan. The service of institutions as a whole takes on greater importance and complexity as they attend to the spiritual welfare of a steadily growing community which of course includes support of the teaching work. And there's also an implication that we must understand institutional roles not in isolation but rather within the context of systems of relationships. If we think in terms of an organism for example we might conceive the embryonic level of growth as one that begins with the multiplication of cells. Now I was humanities major so pardon me all you scientists out there but I believe it does begin with the multiplication of cells and these cells are neither very differentiated nor are they very integrated with each other but as growth continues cells begin to specialize. Systems of organs begin to develop and greater integration of the whole begins to take place. So for example we can ask the question what is the role of a local spiritual assembly in the plan but this can't be answered without thinking in terms of the local assembly's contribution within the entire system of growth. The kinds of relationships it needs to have with other institutions with the community and so on. One can see in this profound significance for the relationship of local assemblies and auxiliary boards for example to take just one instance of that but of course you also have the other core agencies. It is no longer sufficient then for an auxiliary board member to be called in only when there's trouble afoot but now should be a constant and ongoing partner in this partnership of learning together and there's much that could be said about this one word that is used in one of the passages I read which was accompaniment and all that that implies for the nurturing of human potential and I think we're only just at the beginning of understanding what this means to the work of society building and I think we're beginning to see that grasp of accompaniment take hold. I can speak of my own experience in the institute process where in the beginning I think we treated these books as deepening books that we went through and we were just filling in the blanks and you know answering the questions and moving on to the next book and so on later and that was accompaniment if you were a tutor you just help people get through the exercises. Later we attained a bit of a deeper grasp but of course we understood oh well there's the service component and we learned that that was intrinsic to the experience of the process for people who were going through it but accompaniment I think more often than not is still limited to the time it took to take the book so if we were in book 6 on teaching the Baha'i Faith for example we would be with each other through the book and maybe through some teaching experiences in the book but then after the book we might disperse and it might not stay together but now we're beginning to think of this as a more long term process of interaction and being with each other and you'll be hearing more about this I think from some of our other speakers but what I'd like to add from my own perspective first these two points first is the recognition of course that we have from Baha'u'llah that each human soul is a mind rich in gems of inestimable value, rich in gems of inestimable value this is one of the beautiful passages from the writings of Baha'u'llah but if we recognize this we might also recognize that the gems in each person are not necessarily identical each person has innate talents and capacities and a unique contribution to make so we can't approach the building of capacity as an assembly line process which produces interchangeable workers we must have the sensitivity to nurture each person according to his or her own inclinations and talents yet at the same time we have the challenge of harmonizing the services of the friends so that the work of civilization building moves forward in an orderly and a deliberate fashion so the question is one of proper balance and we will have to learn this I think more expertly in the coming years and accompaniment of course is not a master pupil situation if you're accompanying me in my service it's not necessarily that you have something to impart to me but now it's true that in any group of people there will be people with more experience and more skill leaders but the fundamental attitude is one that we're all learning together and we have things we can learn from each other and there's a freedom that comes with this a joy that comes with this not having to know all of the answers in advance particularly in service on an institution of the faith in fact not knowing where the next great insight will come from while having at the same time full confidence that it will come is a wonderful thing and probably it won't come from somebody sitting at a desk and will met like me it'll be somewhere else that the insight will come but the challenge of an institution is to recognize the insights when they do come and to have the ability to build on that that new strength that is acquired that new capacity for the good of the entire community I'd also like to say something about the implications for outreach there was a brilliant seminar earlier today that Holly Hansen facilitated about the way that the House of Justice is helping us in its language to understand how we define ourselves and how we talk about ourselves so I don't want to repeat all of those concepts but I would like to say that if we conceive of ourselves as a learning community that is as people striving to translate into reality the teachings of our faith this enables us to work with others in a spirit of true partnership and humility it's one thing for us to believe with all of our hearts that Bahá'u'lláh is the divine physician and he has the remedy for the ills of the world but it's another thing to say that we understand the remedy as well as the divine physician we have to learn this over the course of time so with this conception the distinctions about who is a believer and who is not fade into the background as we welcome and work together with people who are interested in the betterment of the world the more we work with others the more we will learn from them and indeed we often discover that insights from people of other backgrounds can greatly refine our understanding of what it was that Bahá'u'lláh taught but at the same time we can remain true to our beliefs and increasingly learn how to distinguish those ideas which are not compatible or at variance with the teachings of the faith and another feature of this outreach is that we will increasingly become a community that is able to share our experiences in applying spiritually based solutions to the problems of society our discourse at the local, national and international levels will include not only statements of principle of what we believe but also increasingly will be able to convey to others what we have learned through experience and through action so this opens up a world of opportunities for Bahá'u'lláh scholars and of course what makes this conference so exciting so another responsibility of the institutions will be to encourage the intellectual life of the community in this context of building a new civilization and will be challenged in so doing to adhere to the same disciplines of learning and that same sense of coherence that has been established with the teaching work there are sections of the December 28th letter in which the House of Justice addresses certain trends that are to be encouraged at the level of culture as well as certain potential pitfalls and challenges that we face in our efforts to advance the plan and in this connection it's important to understand that the supreme body is completely aware of the tests the tensions, the mistakes, even the disunity that has occasionally surfaced as the result of our attempts to advance this plan but if we read the guidance and we can see this we can also see that there is no attempt to ignore these realities on the ground there is no desire to deny mistakes or to exaggerate our progress but at the same time this does not prevent the House of Justice from appreciating the legitimate accomplishments of the community and it never ceases to remind us of the way in which we should deal with difficulties when they do arise the limits of thoughts in this context that the House of Justice says must be transformed one of these which is implied in the December 28th letter is to conceive of the institute process as something entirely out of context with everything that preceded it in the history of the faith as if everything that was done before was wrong but now what we're doing is right. Before we were not a learning community, today we are a learning community this is nonsense. What we're doing is what is required today at this stage of our development just as previous plans address the needs of those times. The learning goes on it has always gone on and what we're building now will lay the foundation for new approaches that will emerge over the course of time to address challenges that we will face in the future. So in a sense one might say that the challenges of today are the result of the victories of yesterday we're cautioned in this guidance about reducing an entire theme into one or two appealing phrases as well as the tendency to perceive dichotomies where in fact there are none and we certainly have ample experience of that. You all have your list here's mine is it study circles or firesides? Do local assemblies have full responsibility for the teaching work or no responsibility? Can we have deep innings yes or no? Should we focus on only neighborhoods or throughout the cluster? Should we always be involved in other aspects of the life of society or just stick to our core activities? Is proclamation to the key to our teaching efforts or is it meaningless to our teaching efforts? Are Baha'i centers essential or unnecessary? And these are the kinds of questions that we receive but we're being explicitly challenged to achieve a much more profound level of understanding and to avoid the kinds of discourse that is so prevalent in our own society. The central questions have to be different and based upon a better appreciation of how the processes at the heart of the plan should be integrated and coherent and of how the three protagonists, the individual, the community and the institutions act in mutually reinforcing ways. The process as was said earlier is not susceptible to formulas or to shortcuts and we certainly can't afford to be simplistic. Now related to this, the house says, is this concept of process. We say the institute process, the process of entry by troops and great progress has been made in this regard and those of us who have been active in the faith over the course of say the past two decades or more can well remember a time when there was no common language no common understanding, no framework at all upon which we could build a lasting growth process and associated with this was a tendency to rush to judgment on the effectiveness of every teaching plan instead of thinking of our plans as works in progress subject to refinement and learning through action but now the situation is very different and for the first time in our history they can truly be said that the world community of believers is united in its conceptual framework and able to persevere along the same path and above all is an appreciation that the process is not mechanical. It's not something that we can boil down simply to technique. It's not about the number of activities but whether those activities, the things that we are doing are really building human capacity and nurturing the spiritual potential that exists within every soul looking at the society around us raises another issue of great importance and this is the receptivity of our fellow countrymen to investigate and embrace the faith now I've talked about this earlier already but over the years the house of justice too has repeatedly referred to the receptivity that the friends have found in their teaching efforts and we have certainly seen it in the united states and there's very much the case here where it could be said that certain populations have proven more receptive than others there's no population that has shown no receptivity we've received countless reports of devotionals, junior youth groups children's classes and study circles attended by receptive souls from every stratum of society in the U.S. without exception now we might say is it the majority, well maybe it's not the majority but let's say it's 5% of America 1 out of 20 people, 5% well 15 million people then 100 times as many as there are Baha'is, I'll take it that would be a good start and certainly if it's just 5% if it's nowhere near a majority still it's the basis upon which to have tremendous achievements so these observations friends as I begin to conclude are based upon the guidance and we don't pretend in this presentation to have done it justice but now I'd like to come to the critical question friends we know that the faith must grow substantially in the next few years and that this is an unequivocal expectation that has been set by the universal house of justice and friends of course it's not a matter simply of having more people it's about having more people committed to building a new world it's not just numbers it's about what we need to have in order to have the effect in the world that the revelation of Baha'u'llah must have so whatever the efforts of sincere people and people of goodwill around the world we know ultimately that the situation is dire for humanity and that the divine physician is there and his remedy must be applied and so we have to urgently advance these frontiers of learning at the most recent U.S. National Convention the assembly echoed the call of the house of justice and I'm so glad that Judy talked about this earlier this sentinary because we also talked about it at the convention that as we approach this hundredth anniversary we should think not simply in terms of commemorative events but instead the National Assembly said to the delegates let us invite the master to be with us again in the very highest and most real sense let us display such love and such unity such resolve and such energy in pursuit of the plan that his spirit will truly live among us will permeate our lives and our communities will inspire and strengthen our institutions and will attract confirmations to our teaching efforts and as we look to the exciting years ahead and there's no reason friends that they can't be the very best in our history let us ask ourselves what have we become what will be achieved that is worthy of his confidence in us let us then consume every obstacle in the fire of our love for him and achieve for him the greatest victory in the illustrious history of this Baha'i community and there is no reason at all again friends I say to you why this is not possible so perhaps we can envision these years to come as a time when the various threads of activity that have been encouraged and developed by the house of justice for many years whether in teaching, social action scholarship external affairs public discourse and so on will now be woven together into a tapestry of community life so that people will be able to see a full pattern of a new world order emerging before their eyes that will be a community where the talents and capacities of the friends are encouraged developed and deployed for the betterment of the world a community whose institutions know how to wisely guide lovingly encourage allocate resources wisely harmonize and coordinate the talents of the community administer with justice and integrity it will be an inclusive and vibrant community for all the world to see the cause of God by its very nature challenges us to attain the highest degree of spiritual maturity and excellence neither we nor it can progress except to the extent that we embody in our individual lives in our communities and in our institutions the spirit of the revelation it is in the very nature of the order ordained by Baha'u'llah that the more we advance the greater are the demands upon us for unity for steadfastness for commitment to principal and for selfless service but if any should doubt the reality that that spiritual power exists in this revelation we have the example of our dear brothers and sisters in the cradle of the faith to inspire us none of us who ponder for a single moment what is transpiring there in terms of the steadfastness of the friends and the effect of their deeds on their countrymen could possibly doubt the living and unconquerable power of Baha'u'llah so we have this supreme opportunity greater than any ever given to any people in the entire history of the world we have the most favorable conditions imaginable a country of freedom and of receptivity and a single plan around which we are all united we have the unfailing guidance of the universal house of justice and the assistance of the supreme concourse so friends if these are our blessings then imagine how great is the responsibility that goes with them so now we end where we began where Judy began us tonight talking about Abdul Baha'u'llah throughout his ministry the guardian of the cause of God Sharia Fendi reminded us of our connection with Abdul Baha'u'llah in his final letter to the American believers in characteristic fashion he hailed with joyous appreciation its many achievements in the prosecution of the tenure crusade but he then issued a sober reminder of the need for sustained effort on the part of the friends especially on the home front reminding us both of our legacy and our potential he closed with an invocation that the master would continue to watch over us and so friends I'd like to close now with the last sentence of the last letter addressed to us by our beloved guardian on September 21st 1957 he writes may he who through the irresistible operation of the will of his almighty father called this community into being nursed it in its infancy through the inestimable benefits conferred by a divinely appointed covenant infused through his personal contact with its members and the proclamation of its own station a new spirit into their souls conferred subsequently through the revelation of his tablets the spiritual primacy designed to enable them to assume a preponderating role in the propagation of his father's faith graciously aided them following his ascension to inaugurate their God given mission by fixing the pattern creating the institutions and vindicating the purpose of a divinely appointed administrative order and by launching subsequently the preliminary undertakings in their homeland as well as in all the republics of Latin America in anticipation of the formal inauguration of a systematic world crusade for the furtherance of his father's cause and more recently assisted them to embark in concert with their brethren and other continents of the globe upon the first stage of their world encompassing mission and to win victories of victories unprecedented in the annals of the faith in their homeland may he through his watchful care and unfailing grace continue to sustain them individually and collectively in the course of the remaining stages of the plan and enable them to bring to a triumphant termination the initial epoch in the infoldment of the divine plan which he has primarily entrusted to them and on the successful prosecution of which their entire spiritual destiny must depend thank you very much