Frederick Glaysher

Letters from the American Desert: Signposts of a Journey, a Vision Frederick Glaysher

In Letters from the American Desert, Glaysher reflects on the cultural, political, and religious history of Western and non-Western civilizations, pondering the dilemmas of postmodernity.

Fully cognizant of the relativism and nihilism of modern life, Glaysher finds a deeper meaning and purpose for the individual and the world community in the writings and global vision of Baha'u'llah, as expressed in "The Universal Principles of the Reform Bahai Faith." Confronting the antinomies of the soul, grounded in the dialectic, Glaysher charts a path beyond the postmodern desert.

Alluding to Martin Luther and W. B. Yeats at All Souls Chapel, "metaphors for poetry," Glaysher meditates on the universal, moderate form of the Bahai Teachings as interpreted by Abdul-Baha, who had spoken throughout the West in Europe, England, and the United States from 1911 to 1913. Abdul-Baha's message of the oneness of God, all religions, and humankind holds out a new hope and vision for a world in spiritual and global crisis.

Far from a theocracy, the Reform Bahai Faith envisions a separation of church and state as the will of God, in harmony and balance with universal peace, in a global age of permanent pluralism, in a world of multiplicity, where religion is a distinctive mark of the individual, not of collective, communal identity.