quotations from ancient and contemporary texts that illustrate the human state.

1. SILENT VOICES
• “God grant that all men may
turn unto the treasuries latent
within their own beings...The
source of crafts, sciences and
arts is the power of reflection.
Make ye every effort that out of
this ideal mine there may
gleam forth such pearls of
wisdom and utterance as will
promote the well-being and
harmony of all the kindreds of
the earth.” - Baha’u’llah
from Gleanings

2. SILENT VOICES:
• A voice by definition is not silent. But a voice that is not heard is like a mighty
tree that crashes to the ground in an uninhabited forest - no one hears it!
• There are a lot of silent voices in the world: little children whose parents are too
busy to listen, the average man in a country that is ruled by despots, husbands
and wives who don’t know how to share and acknowledge individual
considerations and needs.
• Solitary confinement is one of the most feared punishments in a penal system.
Physical torture, food deprivation and emotional abuse are not as effective tools
to manipulate as removing a person from all human contact. Without being able
to communicate ideas, desires or wishes a person goes through mental and
spiritual anguish.
• Andreas handicap of not being able to speak her ideas or express her wishes
has locked her in a prison of solitary confinement. The grand parents who are
isolated and remote from their families and who don’t have the daily interchange
of thoughts with people who care, describe their heartache when they don’t hear
from us. What about Andrea? What about her heartaches, as she has
struggled for 34 years to be understood and having her wants heard and
acknowledged.
• That is what is so wonderful about the satisfaction that she seems to derive from
her drawings. They seem to be a medium of expression for her.
• They also can be a tool for the rest of us to learn to stop and listen - not only to
her but to each other.
• We are surrounded by silent voices. We just need to learn to pause and listen!

4. The Path:
• We live in spiritual
harmony
• Wisdom gained from the
minds of the old
• Revived in trails left for
the young.
• The path is still in
existence
• We practice it with respect
•
-Rita Joe...1991
Andrea’s vision

5. • SPIRITUAL REALITY:
• He it is who perceived a unique, a
tempered, and a pervasive nature in
things, bearing the closest likness to the
human spirit, and he discovered this
nature to be distinct from the substance
of things in their refined form. He hath
a special pronouncement on this
weighty theme. (Tablets of Baha’u’llah
146).
• FAITH:
• What does it profit, my brethren, if a
man says he has faith but has not
works? Can his faith save him? If a
brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack
of daily food, and one of you says to
them, “Go in peace, be warmed and
filled,” without giving them the things
needed for the body, what does it
profit? So faith by itself, if it has no
works, is dead. (James 2:14-17).

6. SIGNS:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek
me, not becouse you saw signs, but
becouse you ate your fill of the
loaves. Do not labor for the food
which perishes, but for the food
which endures to eternal life,
which the Son of man will give to
you; for on him has God the
Father set his seal.” (John 6:26-
27).
WORK:
AND LET THE BEAUTY OF THE
LORD OUR GOD be upon us: and
establish thou the work of our
hands upon us; yea, the work of
our hands establish thou it.
-Psalms 90:17.

7. “Within every blade of grass
are enshrined the
mysteries of an inscrutable
wisdom, and upon every
rosebush a myriad
nightingales pour out, in
blissful rapture, their
melody”
Baha’u’llah, Kitab-i-Iquan, 198.

8. Past the seeker as he prayed,
came the crippled
and the begger and the beaten.
And seeing them,
the holy one went down into deep
prayer and cried,
“Great God, how is it that a loving
creator can see such
things and yet do nothing about
them?”
And out ot the long silence, God
said,
“I did do something. I made
you.”
-Sufi teaching story

9. If when an earthquake voice of
power,
And signs in earth and heaven
are showing
That, forth, in its appointed hour,
The Spirit of the Lord is going!
And, with that Spirit, Freedom’s
light
On kindred, tongue, and people
breaking,
Whose slumbering millions, at
the sight,
In glory and in strength are
waking!
Poems-Whittier,” Pastoral Letter, pp
188-9.

10. THE OTHER VOICES:
Emily Dickinson : According to the World Book Encyclopedia, she
wrote her poems in seclusion. Her most important poems concern the
relationship between the inner self and the external world. Of the
1,700 plus poems that she wrote, only seven were published during her
lifetime- and those without her consent. She was definitely a silent
voice until the first volume of her poetry was published - four years
after her death.
John Greenleaf Whittier : Was born in Haverhill, Mass. His parents
were Quaker farmers. He is often called the “Quaker poet”. He raised
is voice against slavery and was active in the abolitionist movement.
Rita Joe : Lives on the Eskasoni Reserve on Cape Breton Island. After
raising a family and struggling in poverty and deprivation on the
reserve, her poetry became her voice.
The Apostle James: One of the twelve apostles who Christ chose from
the working class of common men to assist him with his ministry. He
was the head of the Christian Church in Jerusalem during the first
years after it was founded. He died a martyr, killed by a mob in
Jerusalem in AD 62. The Epistle of James warns Christians that the
profession of faith cannot take the place of good deeds.
The Apostle John : A brother of James was also a fishermen from the
sea of Galilee. He was a close companion of Jesus.

11. THE OTHER VOICES:
Psalms: There are approximately 150 Hebrew religious poems in the Old
Testament. For the most part, the authors are anonymous - truly
“silent voices”.
Sufi Teaching Stories: Mostly anonymous authors contributed to early
Islamic teaching stories. These stories are based on Mohammed’s
teachings and are the result of studying the messages in the Koran.
Baha’u’llah (Mirza Husayn’Ali): Imprisoned in Persia in 1853, exiled
to Baghdad, and banished with his family and some of his followers
by the Turkish Sultan to the prison city of Acre for 24 years. During
this time Baha’u’llah produced over 100 volumes of writings. The
central theme of these writings is that humanity is one single race and
that the day has come for its unification into one global society.
According to these teachings, the principal challenge facing the
peoples of the earth is to accept this fact and assist in the processes of
unification. Followers of his teachings are called Baha’i’s.