Fire, Ice, Courage, Sacrifice

The fires of hatred, born first in ignorance, transform into percieved competition.

They burn into the hearts and minds from seeds among the refuse planted by men afraid to be wrong or admit it.

Icy cold those hearts who find comfort only by subjecting innocent, incorrupt to a literal cold, in a prison that chills the bone to the marrow.

In such blind igorance, how could they know--they had lost before they began?

Fires of hate-filled and loveless hearts have no power or weapon stronger than courage.

Courage strong enough in some to BE the change they believe in. Strong enough to keep their tongue from uttering hateful words in offense or their limbs from striking back.

Strong enough to keep the fire that does not burn, alive, within their soul.

Courage that stands before such fierce ignorance can only lead to sacrifice.
The hatred of the accusers has no choice but to consume the object of their fear.

Sacrifice of the pure and innocent also has a consequence, that these unknowing ones will never comprehend.

From each drop of innocent blood thrown in the face of God, a thousand -- maybe tens of thousands sleeping souls will awaken.

They will arise around the globe in places unreachable by that hate and proclaim with one voice..."One God, One People, One Faith".

What Abdul'Baha Says...

This quickening spirit has spontaneous emanation from the Sun of Truth, from the reality of divinity and is not a revelation or a manifestation. It is like the rays of the sun. The rays are emanations from the sun. This does not mean that the sun has become divisible; that a part of the sun has come out into space. This plant beside me has risen from the seed; therefore it is a manifestation and unfoldment of the seed. The seed, as you can see, has unfolded in manifestation and the result is this plant. Every leaf of the plant is a part of the seed. But the reality of divinity is indivisible and each individual of human kind cannot be a part of it as is often claimed. Nay, rather, the individual realities of mankind when spiritually born are emanations from the reality of divinity, just as the flame, heat and light of the sun are the effulgence of the sun and not a part of the sun itself. Therefore a spirit has emanated from the reality of divinity, and its effulgences have become visible in human entities or realities. This ray and this heat are permanent. There is no cessation in the effulgence. As  262  long as the sun exists the heat and light will exist, and inasmuch as eternality is a property of divinity, this emanation is everlasting. There is no cessation in its outpouring. The more the world of humanity develops, the more the effulgences or emanations of divinity will become revealed, just as the stone when it becomes polished and pure as a mirror will reflect in fuller degree the glory and splendor of the sun.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 261)

From transcendent God to finite and imperfect world

To explain the relation of a totally transcendent God to a finite and imperfect world, the belief in emanation denies that God directly created the world but maintains rather that the world is the result of a chain of emergence through emanations. From God (the One, or the Absolute), the one prime principle, flows the divine substance; his own substance never lessens. As the flow proceeds farther from God, however, its divinity steadily decreases. When a stone is dropped into water, the circles ever widening from the point (God) where the stone fell are emanations, becoming fainter and fainter.

The above paragraph is directly from an encyclopedia.

Contemplating such concepts brings the question --where does mankind fall in those infinitely widening circles? Assume for a moment, YOU are the center of the universe, still a human being, still on this planet, but in relation to everything and everyone else -- you are the center. Where in the steady decrease of divine emanations are you? How can that be determined? Does it matter at all? Does humankind have a special dispensation of divine emanations coming to them? Why should they? What on earth would we do with it.

Does it suffice to put this nugget of potential descriptions of God's power in our understanding? What am I missing? What questions remain? Send them to me.

Emanations

Doing some research on this...fascinating topic more later...soon I hope.

Bahai's of Iran --Please pray for them

People who know about suffering and intolerance; people who believe that if one is suffering, we all do: people who speak to a higher power and ask for help; people who work for peace and justice any where and everywhere on our planet...please pray for the Baha'i's of Iran. Those that are in a literal prison, those that live in that land because they cannot leave and are in a larger prison because of it, and those who have left family members who are being imprisoned and denied all basic human rights...pray for them all.