We did it, I think we found a new religion! Literally in both senses: a religion we had never heard of before this week, and one we very well might join. This morning started like most Sundays, when I woke Brian up bright and early at 9:45am he rolled over and murmured “I’m kinda over this whole church every week thing.” I explained that a good part of the population does this every Sunday for their entire lives, upwards of 3,000 to 4,000 times, we’ve gone about 11. He shut up and put his church shoes on. Off we were to a brand new religion; not in the sense that Episcopal would be new, in the sense that I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it new. We’d driven by the building several times, and to be honest, I thought it was something Jewish. I think because their emblem is a star, granted it looks nothing like the Star of David, but when driving by these things can be blurry. Turns out it was not a Synagogue, but the Northern Virginia Baha’i Center. Not sure what that means? Neither did we. We thought maybe it was the Shriners, but I am not even sure why. So I looked it up THANKFULLY, and I was sold right away (I will explain why thankfully is in caps later).
As mentioned in meditation week, the non Christian religions do not always meet Sundays at 10am for 60 minutes. The Baha’is were no exception, and here is where it got hilarious. So you know when you arrive somewhere too early or you’re not sure if you’re in the correct place and you just want to blend in to avoid any uncomfortable interactions. Don’t pretend, we’ve all been there, and over time we have all developed little coping mechanisms to make ourselves appear less out of place…going to the restroom, pretending to be on our phones, reading whatever is posted on a nearby bulletin board, then pretending to text…Again don’t act like you’ve never done one of these, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen one person do them all of them in about 7 minutes. To be honest, it was not even that uncomfortable. We were clearly in a religious facility, I checked the website earlier in the morning to verify there was a devotional at 10:30am. So the main auditorium room was completely empty, and although there were people milling around, there didn’t appear to be any substantial gathering, but seriously it was not that uncomfortable that Brian needed to leave me alone in the hallway to pretend to use the restroom twice! Finally, we saw people entering a small room where some chairs were surrounding a lady speaking. We said what the heck and entered the room and sat in the back, and after about 10 minutes we realized they were only talking about children’s summer camp. Brian whispered lets go, but he could tell I wasn’t ready to leave, so he pulled out the ole fake cell phone call, got up and left me by myself, but at this point I was nervous that if I didn’t follow I’d find him waiting in the car.
So we walked back out to the hall and fortunately one of us was brave enough to make eye contact with a stranger, who kindly informed us that the devotional would start shortly after the summer camp meeting. I told him so, but oh well at least he hadn’t left the building. Baha’i devotionals are typically held in a person’s home so this group was quite small. And this is why I was thankful that I’d done some research and had a serious interest in this faith, because we were asked what brought us here. Before I get into the devotional experience; I want to provide some background. By now I’m a seasoned religious author and if I knew nothing about it, I’m betting 6 of my 7 readers don’t either.
The Baha’is believe that throughout history, God (just the one, they are monotheistic) has revealed Himself to humanity through a series of divine Messengers, whose teachings guide and educate us and provide the basis for the advancement of human society. These Messengers have included Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. They believe these religions come from the same Source and are in essence successive chapters of one religion from God. Wait, dwell on that one for a minute. Religions are not exclusionary but progressive, Jesus was not the only messenger nor was Muhammad, others are not wrong, maybe instead we are all right. Maybe God is smart enough to send us the messenger we need at the time we need it. Wow think how many wars would have been prevented if everyone went to the Baha’i website. Literally two US wars that are going on right now would just end, trillions of dollars could be freed up, we could buy books for poor kids or asparagus for diabetics (type 2).
Of all these messengers, Baha’is believe that Bahá’u’lláh is the latest. Bahá’u’lláh lived in 19th century Tehran, and spent much of his life in a Persian prison. Scratch that, “Persian” prison makes it sound like it would have luscious rugs and couscous. He was in a straight up Iranian prison. That sounds more accurate. Why you ask, we all know modern day Tehran as a diverse cosmopolitan city welcoming to all faiths and religious traditions. It is almost hard to believe that 150 years ago you could lose your freedom for suggesting a profit apart from Muhammad or equality for women. Boy how time changes things, but during the time Bahá’u’lláh was living his message of unity, the oneness of God, the oneness of the human family, and the oneness of religion was blasphemy. Plus the whole prison and rags story kind of fits with the messenger from God MO.
Bahá'u'lláh said, “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens,” and that, as foretold in all the sacred scriptures of the past, now is the time for humanity to live in unity. Eventually people started to listen and I see why; it all makes sense. Bahá'u'lláh wrote many religious texts and prayers during his life, and the ones I’ve read all seem pretty logical. Although the Baha’i faith follows Bahá'u'lláh’s specific teachings, they also recognize that there will be other messengers after him, also makes sense.
So now that you have an idea of what they believe in, we can get back to our actual experience. The Baha’i members meet regularly for devotionals that involve reading prayers followed by reading from Bahá'u'lláh’s teachings and discussing the teachings. Once Brian stopped pretending to be on his phone, we joined into the devotional. There were about 7 people so we had to introduce ourselves and admit we were new. Luckily we were genuinely interested in the religion so the whole experience was welcoming and interesting.
There were two major things I took away from the devotional, well 3: #1 the reading talked about the “fault covering eye” the concept that you look at every person with an eye that covers their faults, you only focus on the good even if it is small. Brian seriously does this, with everyone, all of the time, it’s annoying. It is common sense really, but the kind of common sense thing that it helps to be reminded of periodically. We literally both mentioned the phrase twice this week so I guess it sank in. #2 the reading also mentioned that we cannot “afford to waste one ounce of energy on anything negative.” Also common sense, but also the kind that is not all that common. Oh and #3 was really the fact that this was the first service where we both took away something meaningful.
Some other fun Baha’i facts, there is no clergy, the devotionals are led by volunteers and so is the religious council. They follow a 19 month annual calendar with 19 days a month and have 19 holy days a year. The followers were very diverse, perhaps a slightly larger than average percent of Middle Eastern descent, but a good blend of everyone. They don’t recruit, and they had a library in the center with books from all faiths. I’ve really got no jokes here, just facts, so I’ll make sure that next week is funny.
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