If you have ever wanted something different for your devotional programs, something unique, this is it.
If you've wanted something unique for your Firesides, public meetings, or Holy Day Observances, something that touches the heart of the seeker, this is also it.
The first of a series of devotional DVD's we plan to produce over the next several years, Praise Be to God has ten video devotions (six compilations and four tablets). The Bahá'í Writings are read to music while images from our personal library, plus archival video footage from both the United States Bahá'í National Assembly and Bahá'í World Center Audio-Visual Departments, flow across the screen, reinforcing what is being read. In all there are over 72 minutes of devotions on the DVD.
Many of you are already familiar with our video work from watching The Light of Unity, An Introduction to the Bahá'í Faith, and our photography from our ArtPrints and ArtPrintCards CD. The Light of Unity grew out of our beginning work on the Praise be To God DVD. We put the Praise Be to God project aside to fill what we believed was a more urgent need for a video introduction to the Faith that could be given to people easily and affordably.
Appropriate for Feasts, devotions held in your home or at your Baha'i Center, Holy Day Observances, conventions, and conferences, to name a few possible venues, the programs on Praise Be to God can be used any time a devotional program is needed. They also make excellent programs to show at public meetings and Firesides, especially City of Certitude (drawn from the Tablet of the True Seeker). Their extensive use of images from the Bahá'í World Center and Holy Places, as well as the Wilmette House of Worship, will stimulate questions that can lead to discussions that arise from the viewer's spiritual experience with the devotion. In essence, then, Praise Be to God can be used as a teaching tool that touches the heart, complimenting The Light of Unity's more informational approach that is aimed at satisfying the seeker's intellectual needs. Using both at Firesides and public meetings, gives the planners of these events many options to keep their programs fresh.
These videos project well on movie screens using a DVD player and LCD or home movie projector. They can be used alone or in combination with other components of a devotional program such as music, prayers or other readings by those present. A unique feature of each video is a 5 second pause at the end of the program before the credits are shown. This provides a few moments for reflection as well as allowing the DVD operator to stop playback, if desired, to extend the spiritual atmosphere created by the program. He or she can then restart playback whenever it is appropriate to watch the credits, which we have made an artistic extension of each program in an effort to continue that atmosphere as much as possible.
At the suggestion of several friends who previewed these videos as they were produced, we have taken the soundtracks from each video program and put them on a CD, which we include as a bonus, so you can listen to them in your car or play them on those occasions when a video program is not possible or doesn't suit the situation.
Because a printed booklet of all the passages used in the devotions, with their source references, would be too bulky to fit in any of the disk cases, unless we made the print unreadably tiny, we created a PDF (Acrobat Reader) file of the booklet. As the disks have no place on them for the file, we made it a free download. Simply Click here to download the Praise Booklet PDF.
The video titles are listed below with their total run time in parentheses. Click on either the Compilations link or the Tablets link to view excerpts from them.
A Pure Heart (6:47) The Tablet of Ahmad (6:27) Broken-Winged Bird (5:44) The Tablet of Carmel (7:26) City of Certitude (13:31) The Tablet of Visitation, 'Abdu'l-Bahá (3:58) Love Is... (6:48) The Tablet of Visitation, Bahá'u'lláh (7:12) The Rose of Love (5:06) The Work of a Bahá'í (5:47) If you do not receive a confirmation e-mail from us, please check your spam, bulk, or junk mail folders. If you find the e-mail there, your ISP or your own software spam-blocker or filters are diverting our e-mail. If you have the option to set exceptions in your spam filter, set an exception to accept shipping@schoolmarmwood.org.
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