A Team of Seven Billion Members
"Pass! I'm clear!" I was playing soccer for my school; hardly an achievement – it was a very small school, and they had trouble filling all the sports teams. The basic requirement for representing the school in the soccer team was legs. If you had legs and you wanted to play, you were a fully-fledged, card-carrying member of the team. You were in. This sounded like a very inclusive attitude; anybody willing to have a go got a run.
The trouble with sports though is they are competitive. There is a scoreboard you are accountable to and our school had just enough really brilliant athletes to make the team competitive. Nobody was going to pass the ball to me no matter how clear I was. I weighed about 28 kilograms and stood about 128 cm tall. I looked like a sick umbrella stand wrapped in tissue paper. Turning up to an athletics carnival in my body was like fronting for a renaissance painting class with a jackhammer and an arc welder.
The point was I was in the clear because even the opposition ignored me. So my position on the team involved running up and down the field, following the action more like a partial line judge than a participant, watching the real players do their stuff. On rare occasions when the score suggested the match result was irretrievably beyond doubt somebody would sympathetically pass me the ball, and in a state of inexperienced panic with four or five guys bearing down on me I'd kick it anywhere. You could hear the groans for miles.
I noticed something though. Every time I received a pass I became a little more level headed; a little more experienced and most importantly I felt a little more included. If people were willing to pass to me, I thought, I must be contributing something worthwhile to this team. I improved tremendously. Soon I was an asset to the team because I had something the other players didn't – the ability to find myself on my own.
The Bahá'í community doesn't need too many people who can get themselves clear of the opposition and shoot. It is however very much like a team and as such is enhanced enormously by universal participation. This is beneficial to both the community and its individual adherents not only in a practical sense but spiritually as well. The building of the Arc on Mount Carmel is so important to the Bahá'í community not only because of its spiritual and practical significance, but because every single Bahá'í community in the world that was able to, played a role however small in its construction. We all own the achievement.
Given that we as a race are supposed to be working together towards a single ultimate goal, there is little reason to ignore the pale little scrawny kid in the uniform three sizes too big. We need to be inclusive. We are a part of a team with almost seven billion members and the coach requires us not necessarily to be perfect or even to do our best, but to accept that everybody whatever their background, education, or goal accuracy has a role to play.
By Hawkeye
Hawkeye is a Highschool science teacher with a PhD in Chemistry. He has had columns published in Herald of the South and the Australian Baha'i Bulletin. Pearlzocreativity will include these from time to time. (C) All rights reserved by Hawkeye, email for permission to reprint.
June Paisa Perkins 