Baha’is believe in the power of prayer and you’ll find Baha’is and their friends, throughout the world, getting together to pray. This is often referred to as a ‘devotional gathering’ or ‘devotional meeting’, and they happen in diverse settings, whether in cities or villages.
Baha’i Blog’s “Personal Reflections” initiative started in 2017 to honor the bicentenary of the Birth of Baha’u’llah, and we shared 200 photographs of Baha’is and their friends, each coupled with an extract taken from an interview about what the Baha’i Faith means to them personally, and how it has touched their lives.
The photographs were taken around the world by volunteers, and we intentionally chose not to use the names and locations of those being photographed so that the focus remained on the person’s face and what they said, rather than allowing any connotations to arise of where they may be from and who they are because of their name.
To date, the “Personal Reflections” initiative has been extremely well received, and it has been our hope that by sharing these photographs and quotations, we will help answer the call from the Universal House of Justice to communicate “a sense of what it means for humanity that these two Luminaries rose successively above the horizon of the world” and we hope that such “initiatives, coupled with widespread celebrations that are both uplifting and reverent, are also sure to spark the curiosity and wonder of many who may as yet be unfamiliar with the names of the Bab and Baha’u’llah.”
After sharing 200 portraits in honor of the bicentenary of the Birth of Baha’u’llah, we decided to share a second set of 200 to celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of the Bab’s Birth! We are so grateful to everyone who participated in this project, and to those who supported this initiative!
You can find all 400 ‘personal reflections’ using these links:
In her innermost heart, Sonjel is a stay-at-home parent and a bookworm with a maxed out library card but professionally she is a museologist with a background in English Literature. She currently lives on Prince Edward Island, an isle in the shape of a smile on the eastern Canadian coast. Sonjel is a writer who loves to listen to jazz when she's driving at night.
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