Overview

Drawing on his experience living in Asia and Arizona, as well as his reading of classical literature, both East and West, Frederick Glaysher invokes a global vision beyond the prevailing conceptions entrenched in postmodernism and postmodernity. 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, in a compelling struggle for spiritual knowledge and truth. 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 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, Glaysher invites readers to consider the implications of the universal, moderate form of the Bahai Teachings as interpreted by Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'u'llah's son, who had spoken throughout the West in Europe, England, and the United States from 1911 to 1913. Abdu'l-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 reflection of individual distinctiveness, not of communal identity.

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"""Mr. Glaysher, in my view, is taking some positive steps to resolve some serious issues in the Baha'i community. ...The Faith needs a total overhaul. It has forgotten what the real Faith is."" -Joel Bjorling, author of The Baha'i Faith: A Historical Bibliography. (New York. Garland Publishing, 1985).""A valuable contribution to understanding the real history of the Bahai Faith."" -Yahoo! Reform Bahai Group"

Author Information

Frederick Glaysher is an epic poet, rhapsode, poet-critic, and the author or editor of ten books. Glaysher studied at the University of Michigan with the American poet Robert Hayden and edited his collected prose and poetry. He holds two degrees from the University of Michigan, including a Master's in English, and is the Literary Executor of the Hayden Estate. He lived for more than fifteen years outside Michigan-in Japan, where he taught at Gunma University in Maebashi; in Arizona, on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation, site of one of the largest internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII; in Illinois, on the central farmlands and on the Mississippi; ultimately returning to his suburban hometown of Rochester. A Fulbright-Hays scholar to China in 1994, he studied at Beijing University, the Buddhist Mogao Caves on the old Silk Road, and elsewhere in China, including Hong Kong and the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. While a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar in 1995 on India, he further explored the conflicts between the traditional regional civilizations of Islamic and Hindu cultures and modernity. In its theatre version, Glaysher has performed more than 70 times in the USA, UK, and Canada.

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