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How do I become Baha’i?
Religion

Meeting Dan Jordan: A Most Remarkable Baha’i

David Langness | Apr 11, 2016

PART 11 IN SERIES What Baha'is Do

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

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David Langness | Apr 11, 2016

PART 11 IN SERIES What Baha'is Do

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

One of the truly wonderful things about being a Baha’i? The people you meet.

As a young Baha’i growing up in Arizona, I had the privilege and the joy of meeting and getting to know some really remarkable individuals. Because the Baha’i Faith is so diverse and so varied, with people from literally every culture and every walk of life, I met Navajos, Hopis and Apaches; I met physicians and construction workers; I met comedians and CEOs; I met black activists and Hispanic great-grandparents and Pacific Islanders; I met musicians and writers; I met Persians and Tongans and Kenyans and Alaskans and Russians; I met enthusiastic kids and accomplished adults and wise elders. Most of all, the friendly, warm Baha’is I met showed me something I had never encountered before—they were all serious, creative people trying to change the world.

For me, discovering the Baha’i community and the remarkable people it contained was a revelation in and of itself—it opened my eyes to the enormous latitude of possibilities and pathways I could potentially choose from.

If you know Baha’is, you probably know what I mean. In my pre-Baha’i environment, growing up in a large blue-collar family, my parents had few world-changing aspirations—they felt good about simply putting food on the table. My father’s family had emigrated from Norway, and they, too, struggled to just get by in America through hard labor and persistence. In some ways, my siblings and I comprised the first generation who had the opportunity to think about and potentially do something about the state of the world.

So when I encountered the Baha’i community and began to meet and get to know its incredibly diverse array of very different and yet very united people, I became intensely curious about their lives. When I met someone who interested me at a Baha’i meeting, I developed the (probably quite annoying) habit of quizzing them about their life path. Like a budding but not very savvy teenaged journalist, I asked them how they had decided to do what they did; what experiences and inner convictions brought them to their spiritual path in life; and who they really wanted to be when they grew up.

Dan-Jordan

Dan Jordan

I asked my naïve but sincere questions to heavy equipment operators, Middle Eastern studies scholars, African doctors, state bureaucrats, a Navajo medicine man, race car drivers, gold prospectors, scientists, sculptors and songwriters. I loved meeting these wildly diverse, fascinating people and discovering their worlds. One of the most fascinating Baha’is I ever asked my questions to, though, turned out to be a musician, educator and philosopher named Daniel Jordan.

I met Dan one night at a Baha’i fireside—a casual introductory meeting where he spoke about the Baha’i principles. A slight, intense man who wore black-rimmed glasses, Dan first played two classical pieces on the piano, where he had obviously developed a high level of expertise. At the time I had no clue about classical music, but I could see how Dan’s fluid and powerful playing emotionally affected the audience, so when they gave him a standing ovation I stood, too.

Then Dan delivered an erudite, witty, insightful talk about Baha’u’llah’s vision of a future state of human society. In his short, enthusiastic presentation, he laid out the blueprint of a unified, peaceful future world—where racial prejudice and hatred had disappeared; where swords had been beaten into ploughshares; where national borders had been erased; where women and men were finally equal; where science and religion agreed; where a universal auxiliary language allowed everyone on Earth to communicate with each other; where love and kindness and human creativity flourished. He asked us all to help bring that beautiful vision into reality. At the end, he quoted this passage from Baha’u’llah:

This is the Day in which God’s most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness. – Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 6.

I will never forget Dan’s talk that night. It moved me tremendously, and gave me a glimpse of what our world could become. I had become a Baha’i long before I met Dan, but in some mysterious way his talk gave me a new and deeper sense of what it meant to really incorporate the Baha’i teachings into the center of my being. From that moment on, I resolved to try to live a Baha’i life, as Dan obviously did.

Then, after the fireside, we sat down and talked. I asked my questions, and despite their obvious lack of sophistication, Dan answered patiently and kindly. I learned that he had been a child prodigy and piano virtuoso at a very young age, getting his first Bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska at 17. At the age of 18 he became the first American ever to win a Rhodes Scholarship for music. Dan earned Bachelors and Master’s degrees in the composition, theory and history of music from Oxford University in England, I found out, and he turned down an offer to play Beethoven’s “Emperor’s Concerto” with the Oslo Symphony, which would have propelled him onto the tour circuit as a concert pianist.

He spent two years in the Army in the 1950s, which helped to convince him that humanity needed a new direction, a more spiritual inclination.

So Dan radically altered his career direction at that point, to the study of human development, beginning collegiate studies all over again at the University of Chicago, where he earned a master’s degree in his new subject. In 1964 he received his Ph.D. in human development, with specialization in social anthropology and psychology. He went on to carry out a post-doctoral sequence in brain structure and brain chemistry and their relation to memory, emotion, and learning.

But more importantly than any of his outward achievements, Dan told me, he became a Baha’i in 1954 at Oxford, and his spiritual life immediately began to affect everything he did.

Next: The Anisa Project: A Baha’i-Inspired Educational Model

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Comments

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  • George Karko
    Aug 8, 2016
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    My wife Louetta and I were very fortunate to attend a Baha'i winter school in Idyllwild California nearly forty years ago. Daniel Jordan was the main presenter. We were very new Baha'is at the time and Daniel Jordan's insights, warmth and humour were inspiring and memorable. Subsequently we obtained a recording of his unique fireside talk Keys to Harmony which, as musicians, inspired us even further. We still listen to that tape from time to time. A wonderful man.
    George Karko, Toowoomba, Australia
  • Andrew B Lefton
    Jul 7, 2016
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    Thank you for this wonderful remembrance, Dad. Dan was a wonderful friend and inspiration. ~Andrew
    • Andrew B Lefton
      Jul 7, 2016
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      Sorry for the typo...I meant David (not Dad).
  • Lynne Hippler
    Jul 7, 2016
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    The first Baha'i literature I read was "Becoming Your True Self".
  • Jul 7, 2016
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    Such a wonderful article, David. It prompts me to share a personal reminiscence of Dan that speaks to the generosity of spirit and humble being of this remarkable man. He was not only a great mind but a great soul. I lived in the same community (Northampton, Ma) with him in the '70's. I was in my twenties and accompanying my husband who was a grad student at UMASS. One day, Dan asked me why I was not studying like everyone else. I told him I did not think I was smart enough. He said to me, "Connie, anyone can ...learn anything, once you learn the language." I kept that in mind all through undergraduate and graduate science studies in human nutrition. He helped me to change my life because he was more interested in me than in what I thought of him.
    Read more...
  • Billie Crofts
    May 23, 2016
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    Your article took me back to my and my families close association and friendship with Dan and his ever-so-loving wife Nancy. He used to speak at my and Dash's firesides in Los Angeles. I would hang onto every word he spoke and I still get chills when I recall him playing our piano during his talks...We were notified he was missing by a phone call at 6AM and we got up from bed, when down stairs to say prayers. thank you David for this, it took me way back...
  • Apr 12, 2016
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    I have written a Dissertation about the Bahá'í-Education in German, so I come to know Daniel Jordan. I learnt to respect him highly. He is a Scholar like Maria Montessori if not higher than she. I was so unhappy when I read about his death. He could help the mankind so much. I could not forget him until now and I will never forget him. I hope his follower would continue to develop his work.
    By the way, I thank you Mr. Langness for your excellent articls in Bahaiteaching.org.
    Dr. Zabihollah Naghashian
  • Apr 11, 2016
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    Excellent article on a practical visionary in educational theory and pedagogy. Much of this information is completely new to me. Without saying more, on June 7, 2015, I met an African American couple, both PhDs (and/or EdDs), in a hotel in Hampton, VA, where some 10,000 pastors were gathered for an annual pastors conference at the Hampton Institute (where Baha'i philosopher, Alain Locke, spoke in 1944: "Stretching Our Social Mind"). The woman was one of Daniel Jordan's former graduate students! She had a great deal of respect and admiration for Dr. Jordan. I look forward to your next article, "The ...Anisa Project: A Baha’i-Inspired Educational Model."
    Read more...
  • Apr 11, 2016
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    Something to share David.
    https://library.stanford.edu/news/2016/03/stanford-libraries-acquires-historic-daniel-c-jordan-archives
    • Apr 11, 2016
      -
      Apologizes David. You are already well informed of the above. I saw the email from Don Streets with you in copy.
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