We have observed with particular interest how a pronounced community spirit can increasingly be felt among all those involved in the pattern of activity in third milestone clusters, even when it is not very strong in the wider society. It is often expressed as a feeling of belonging and a sense of common endeavour and mutual support. This and other advances at the level of culture are becoming especially evident in the cluster’s centres of intense activity—not only where participation can be measured as a significant proportion of the population, but in any neighbourhood or village where large numbers are attracted to the programmes and activities of the community. There is a rise, too, in various collaborative arrangements, which are doing much to build or reshape a shared social identity and collective purpose. These arrangements include the groups of families and households we mentioned in 2021 and also other natural groupings such as women or youth, farmers or educators, and animators or children’s class teachers, often with a supportive network of friends. Groups of this kind set about organizing their own efforts to improve some aspect of the life of the community, and they promote broader participation in those efforts. In other words, they are helping the growth and development of the community to become self-perpetuating, and they are doing so without the need for new layers of administrative structure. This is consequential. It demonstrates the emerging capacity of the community to be a visible protagonist in the Plan. Buttressed by the full confidence and loving guidance of the institutions, the community is steering the trajectory of its own development with creativity and ingenuity, and exploring how the principles contained in Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation can be applied to the issues that confront it within its immediate reality.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a message dated 31 December 2025:to the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors; online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)
