Building Community

A new book of prayers and meditative passages designed especially for junior youth and youth. The period of adolescence is a potent time of change, and this compilation aims to support youth to make time for prayer, meditation, and reflection. Beyond that, it is also meant to inspire young people to feel spiritually empowered to Strive, that their “actions day by day may be beautiful prayers.” It is organized thematically around a number of topics, such as trust in God, joy, difficulties, justice, service, and more.

This book describes a journey of search that enabled author Viv Bartlett to navigate around the obstacles that he calls ‘materialistic minefields’. Written in a conversational style and often drawing on his personal experience, it nonetheless explores profound questions.

Among these are the views, opinions and attitudes of a society that has disconnected its thinking from higher realities, so that individuals everywhere are tending to sink into a materialistic way of life that is in the last resort deeply unsatisfying. The increase in materialistic assumptions about reality has also led to general skepticism about humanity’s capacity to rise to a higher level of civilization.

But the choice between a materialistic or a spiritual perspective is a daily personal one. Looking at history as an evolutionary process and drawing on the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, Bartlett sees the ‘knowledge of the oneness of mankind and the fundamental oneness of religion’ as necessary and inevitable to the gradual emergence of the maturity of humankind.

Born of the need to address the plight of men of African descent in the United States, and the unique afflictions imposed upon them, the Black Men's Gathering was founded in 1987 as an individual initiative. From its humble origins in a Greensboro hotel room where the original twelve participants met, the Gathering would grow and evolve over the course of a quarter-century to embrace hundreds in an atmosphere of love, fellowship, and devotion to the Cause of God. Anchor of Faith gives us a glimpse of the vibrant spirit of the Gathering; details its history, evolution, and influence; and brings to light the countless avenues of service pursued by its participants both at home and across the globe.