Arts Examples
It is the hope of the National Assembly that friends who have an artistic inclination are ... being moved to contribute artistic endeavours — whether musical, dramatic, poetic, literary, visual-graphic, story-telling or other — to the rich tapestry of the commemorative activities. — National Spiritual Assembly, letter to all the friends in Aotearoa, 24 June 2021
Please send in your contributions for this page! Scroll down to see items already received.
Creators of artistic works — musical, visual, dramatic, and literary — are invited to submit items to this page. Please send to the Bahá’í National Office a very brief description, along with an image or other file (e.g. pdf), or a link to other media, such as a video or blog post.
Poems and a song from two friends in Far North District
Poem: ‘Contentment’
Di Scott wrote this poem for sharing at a Feast in her community. Below it, more of her poems are listed for viewing or download, two of which are accompanied by stories. “Contentment” has been made into a song by Steve Lockie (see right), and more songs are planned.
CONTENTMENT.pdfMore poems by Di, inspired by the centenary:
“A Selection of Poems for Feast” - 19 poems in a single booklet.
Splendour (with story)
Words (with story)
Prejudice (with stories)
Song: ‘Contentment’
This song by Steve Lockie features lyrics from Di Scott’s “Contentment” poem (see left). Steve is currently composing more songs based on Di’s poems.
Contentment Abdu'l-Baha.mp3Miscellaneous productions
Prayer Booklet
This colourful booklet is an individual initiative by Azeen Tashakkor of Christchurch. It contains the English translations of twenty-six prayers revealed by the Master that were recently translated into English.
Prayer Booklet.pdfFred Mortensen’s story
Mina Sabour published this video on Facebook, explaining: “Here is a short film our family put together inspired by a true story of how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s love transformed the life of a young boy named Fred.” Fred’s life is recounted on this web page.
Fred .mp4Prayer Video
The prayer read in this video is one of the twenty-six prayers from the booklet at left.
Writers’ reflections
Personal reflections - ‘The Portrait’
By Lynette Thomas - first published in ‘Bahá’í News Auckland’ / ‘Ngā Rongo Bahá’í o Tāmaki Makaurau’
The Portrait.pdf
Music videos
Song: The Photograph
A song composed in 2012 commemorating the centenary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s travels to the West.
Music and words: Alan McKay/Sonbol TaefiArrangements: Stephen SmallVoices: Grant Hindin-Miller. Sonbol Taefi, Elika Mahony, Luke SlottChoir: The Masque Choir – Auckland New ZealandProduced by Sonbol TaefiSong: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
A musical tribute to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá from Australia. The song was inspired by the Heroes Teaching Conference in Queensland, 2019.
See more information on Bahá’í BlogInspirational booklet
Booklet of meditations
“Walking in the Footsteps of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá” presents a few of the Master’s attributes. The booklet is designed for the reader to each week select one of the attributes, meditate on the included quotation and story, and put into practice some of the suggested actions.
This resource was created by a study circle in Singapore.Following His Footsteps.pdf