A friend of mine in San Jose Occidental Mindoro (Jeff Lomat) composed a very beautiful song in honour of the upcoming Bicentenary Birth Anniversary of Bahá'u'lláh. It's a song about how knowing Bahá'u'lláh and serving His Cause has inspired him and changed his life.
"When I was younger, I always busied myself with worldly things. In 2011, at the beginning of the previous 5-year plan, I was invited to attend a conference, and from there I was given the opportunity to serve as a mobile tutor. I felt so blessed that despite my shortcomings, I was given the bounty to serve. A month into serving, my view of life changed! I realized that my persona life becomes better when I think of the well-being of others and when I participate in activities that contribute to community-building process. I would like to share a particular quotation that really touched my heart "Let each morn be better than its eve and each 'morrow richer than its yesterday". For me, this change happened when I knew Bahá'u'lláh, and I wanted to offer my life in the path of service for Him." - Jeff.
This morning, Jeff posted on Facebook that he had composed a song for the Bicentenary celebrations, and if we wish to hear it, we should send him our e-mail address so that he could send the file, and so I asked for a copy. 10 seconds into the song, I was already in love with it!
The melody... and then his voice (his voice is really really good! flawless)
I'm not fluent in Tagalog, therefore I didn't get the lyrics right away, so I thought to myself why don't I get the lyrics and make a video? That way, he can share his music...
because Facebook doesn't give us the option to post audio files, so I thought if I make a lyrics video to go with his music, everyone will be able to hear his beautiful creation. I told him my idea, then he sent me the Tagalog lyrics (and even English translation) and granted me permission to put together this video:
It's so beautiful, isn't it? It's such a personal song which I think many Bahá'is can relate to (because I definitely can). Preparing this video means I listened to the whole song almost 20 times and every single time I pressed replay, it moved me. It struck deep... the message, the melody, his soothing voice. I'm suddenly reminded of what Abdu'l-Bahá said:
"A fine voice when joined to beautiful music causes a great effect, for both are desirable and pleasing....Musical melodies form an important role in the associations, or outward and inward characteristics or qualities of man, for it is the inspirer or motive power of both the material and spiritual susceptibilities. What a motive power it is in all feelings of love! When man is attached to the Love of God, music has a great effect upon him."
Click the links below to listen to more Bicentenary-related music
from all around the world
and from my childhood friends back home in Nigeria (Charles, Zabi & Olinga)