This morning I'm at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Gipsy Lane, helping out with a visit of Year 5 pupils from Sandfield Close Primary. I arrive here hotfoot from BBC Radio Leicester, where I was recording a Thought for the Day earlier this morning (a Bahá'í comment on the upcoming G8 Summit in Northern Ireland).
This is the third of four visits in two days to local places of worship, arranged in association with The Mighty Creatives (a charity based in Leicester's LCB Depot, working across the East Midlands to champion young people's creativity and innovation).
The group is kitted out with cameras of different kinds (for stills and video), digital voice recorders and good old fashioned paper, pens, pencils and crayons. Artwork that the children produce as an outcome of their visits will be on display under the title, "Faith in Neighbours" in the Mezzanine at Curve as part of An Indian Summer later this month.
Our host today, Dipak Kalyan, wastes no time in getting us started on the guided tour. Photography and video recording is not permitted anywhere inside the mandir, so the children get the chance to do more drawing and sketching here than at the other venues.
One interesting topic that comes to the surface this morning is the symbolism of colours. Orange robes on statues of spiritual enlightened figures signify the fire that burns away worldly attachment, for example. We relate this to the bright red jumpers of the children's school uniform. Why is their top red, when other schools have other colours? How does it make Sandfield Close stand out? Does it make them different from other schools which have other colours? Does it make them better than other schools to be red?
A little correspondence that strikes a chord is when Dipak mentions about there being 108 beads on the rosary that devotees use, representing 108 names of God. There's a show on Cartoon Network called Hero 108 that might be said to draw on some themes of spirituality, oneness and the conflict between humankind and nature, which are not out of place with the kind of things we learn in the mandir today.
One of the children asks why we should remove our shoes in the mandir. Dipak starts with the standard answer, about not bringing (literal and metaphorical) dirt from the outside world into a sacred place. then he says that it's also because shoes are normally made of leather, which comes from a dead animal and we shouldn't bring that before the deities. Now, goodness knows how many times I've come into a place of worship and removed my shoes without thinking beyond the first of these reasons, the most obvious (most superficial?) one. It comes as a bit of a shock to realise that I usually wear a leather jacket and have never thought that I should remove it. Nor has anyone ever asked me to remove it in a place of worship either, I should point out. It's an uncomfortable moment of self realisation and as I speak about this, sharing my thoughts and feelings with the group, Bipin leans over and tugs at the shoulder strap of my leather messenger bag. Now that I know, it would be hard to carry on regardless. Later, someone asks about leather belts. I've never seen anyone remove their trouser belt in a place of worship. This reason for removing your shoes (and possibly other leather or suede items) won't apply in every place of worship of course, but still - food for thought I'm sure you'll agree, faithful reader.
This afternoon the group moves on to the Islam Information Centre, Highfield Street. Yesterday morning we were at the Jain Centre, Oxford Street; yesterday afternoon, Leicester Cathedral.
Our friends at BAPS Shri Swaminarayn Mandir were able to squeeze our group in this morning due to a last minute cancellation. Thanks to Narendra and Dipak for doing that.
Early this morning (on the way out to the BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir on Gipsy Lane to meet up with the Year 5 pupils from Sandfield Close Primary) I pop into BBC Radio Leicester to record a Thought for the Day with John Florance.
When we met at Cathedral AM last Wednesday, John asked if I would do one of these 90-second spots this week. He told me then that he could trust me to pick my own subject. I asked him which hat he wanted me to wear for this: speaking as a local Bahá'í or as an employee of Leicester Council of Faiths. He said that I'd have been on for the Council of Faiths often recently (which is true) so he asked me to make it on from a Bahá'í perspective. So here it is:
Good morning
Shortly, the
G8 summit takes place in Northern Ireland. Leaders of the world’s wealthiest
nations will meet to discuss ways to restore strong and sustainable growth to
the world economy and mull over how to address the most pressing issues of the day.
The summit
takes place under the presidency of the UK. But is it right that we should be
concerned with social and economic problems in other countries when there is so
much to be fixed here at home?
Bahá'ís would
say that it is not only right, but necessary. Indeed it’s a moral and political
obligation of the strongest nations to lend a hand to those struggling even
more than we are right now.
These
increasingly common and frequent summits and conferences represent unsteady,
faltering steps toward the realisation of a truth stated by Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í Faith, more than a hundred and fifty years ago. Bahá'u'lláh said then that, “The earth is but one country and mankind its
citizens.” This memorable phrase is the foundation of what Bahá'ís believe and the
inspiration behind how we work for positive change around the world.
If this Bahá'í could offer a word of advice to the great and the good gathered at the
G8 summit next weekend, it would be this quotation from the writings of Bahá'u'lláh: “Let your vision be world-embracing, rather than confined to your own
self.” If such an attitude informed their discussions, then we might see effective
action that brings about genuine change for everyone in our world.
It sounds a bit flat on the first take, so John asks me to read it again, just to vary the tone and put a bit of bounce in it. I don't feel much bounce in myself this morning (probably because I was still up writing this in the wee small hours), but give it another go; it comes out much better the second time.
I arrived at Radio Leicester this morning at the same time as Martin Gage from Christian Aid, who is leading the regional arm of the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign. He's here to record his own Thought for the Day, for broadcast later this week, about the Hunger Summit that precedes the meeting of the G8. Martin is sitting in the small studio with John and me while we record my piece. He offers a helpful comment that would certainly improve it, so I rerecord a couple of sentences, incorporating Martin's suggestion.
After I've done and John is showing me out of the building, I suggest that my son Harry come in and record a Thought for the Day, to be broadcast toward the end of next week, just before the release of Man of Steel. John is a fellow comics fan, so I don't have to work too hard to persuade him.
