What should we do when we are faced with a Baha’i law or teaching that we do not understand?
I really liked this article, and I want to thank Philipe for posting a link to this blog on his site. Please click on the link to this blog. It ties in with what I was talking about in my previous blog, albeit a bit indirectly. There are a lot of difficult questions in life, and while I have found answers to some, others remain beyond my ability to comprehend. That's way it is--an never-ending search. I began the search as child, and while I can't say that I've found the definitive answers to life's perplexities, I believe that I have developed a relationship with the Eternal Source that will provide me with the answers I seek when I am ready for them. Only God knows when I am ready. I certainly don't.
I would also like to invite any Baha'i reading this blog to post a story detailing why they made the decision to become a Baha'i. I do have a few suggestions (hint,hint) that you could include. No pressure, of course. ;-)
1. When did you become a Baha'i, and what prompted you to declare your belief in Baha'u'llah?
2. What was your religious affiliation growing, and how did that belief system play a part in your decision to declare?
3. How has your life changed as a result of being a Baha'i? Or has it changed at all?
4. What is the biggest challenge you have in your life when it comes to putting the Faith into practice every day?
5. If you have children, is it difficult to teach the Faith to them? Do they object to the teachings because they are don't want to be ostracized by their peers (my kids did that), or do they embrace the Teachings to the best of their ability?
All right, I'm going to do something obnoxious here--I'm going to tag a few Baha'is specifically to answer these questions on their blogs, and I will post links to their stories here--Liz, Philipe, Barney, Malik, SMK, Monday's Child--I'd like to read your stories. Ok? Like I said, no pressure! And please click on the link to the story below!
What should we do when we are faced with a Baha’i law or teaching that we do not understand?
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I would also like to invite any Baha'i reading this blog to post a story detailing why they made the decision to become a Baha'i. I do have a few suggestions (hint,hint) that you could include. No pressure, of course. ;-)
1. When did you become a Baha'i, and what prompted you to declare your belief in Baha'u'llah?
2. What was your religious affiliation growing, and how did that belief system play a part in your decision to declare?
3. How has your life changed as a result of being a Baha'i? Or has it changed at all?
4. What is the biggest challenge you have in your life when it comes to putting the Faith into practice every day?
5. If you have children, is it difficult to teach the Faith to them? Do they object to the teachings because they are don't want to be ostracized by their peers (my kids did that), or do they embrace the Teachings to the best of their ability?
All right, I'm going to do something obnoxious here--I'm going to tag a few Baha'is specifically to answer these questions on their blogs, and I will post links to their stories here--Liz, Philipe, Barney, Malik, SMK, Monday's Child--I'd like to read your stories. Ok? Like I said, no pressure! And please click on the link to the story below!
What should we do when we are faced with a Baha’i law or teaching that we do not understand?
Posted using ShareThis
Comments
1. When did you become a Baha'i, and what prompted you to declare your belief in Baha'u'llah?
I became a Baha'i in 1986. How is rather a long story for another time.
2. What was your religious affiliation growing, and how did that belief system play a part in your decision to declare?
Childhood loosely Catholic (kicked out of Sunday school for asking questions about Galileo.) Rebellious teenager and refused to go to Church around 13. Semi-atheistic through early college. Fell in love with philosophy and discovered the meaning behind religions. Hinduism then Buddhism then Christianity then Islam.... So I was all set with the idea of progressive revelation... then my own study of Baha'i and Zoroastrianism....
3. How has your life changed as a result of being a Baha'i? Or has it changed at all?
Incalculably, which implies the small and the large. I'm the only Baha'i in my entire extended family out through second cousins (as far as I've asked.) A very few of my family have supported the idea, most have said nothing to me. I did find I was not the first to hear of it - roughly the time I went through the stage of not going to Church my aunt investigated the religion.
My involvements have not seemed stand-outish to me, but compared to my social-family circle I guess the most stand out action I did was help found a MLK observance that wasn't all black in a countryside county of NC. We've moved and aren't involved anymore but it's grown significantly and is the only significant multiracial audience and multifaith presentation I've heard of for MLK Day. No way I would have gotten involved in actually doing it if I weren't a Baha'i.
4. What is the biggest challenge you have in your life when it comes to putting the Faith into practice every day?
I used to think it was my own failings and while not unheard of (!) and hard to overcome(!!) in recent days it's been the aggravations of less than celestial virtues shown by superiors and coworkers.
5. If you have children, is it difficult to teach the Faith to them? Do they object to the teachings because they are don't want to be ostracized by their peers (my kids did that), or do they embrace the Teachings to the best of their ability?
My daughter is four so we've not gone far down that road yet. She spontaneously emulated prayer behavior at Feast a few times. She seemed to pick up doing prayers easily enough when we really began to say them. She's created something of a personal hodgepodge of lines from a couple prayers. But while she does them meaningfully now in private mysteriously she's stopped doing them in public (Feast) and strongly resists doing them with others. She's also very very focused on the other kids at any meeting and since she's the baby of the community the kids almost fight eachother to play with her. She's a terrible distraction to them. I'm warming up to the idea of spending the time necessary to read with her through the Hidden Words.....
I laughed out loud about how you got kicked out of Sunday school for asking about Galileo. You would think that after all this time, the Church would be over that particular issue! Well, it's not quite that simple, I know. And I know what happens when you start with the questions, and how tense everyone gets if you want to understand spiritual concepts that should be simple, but for some reason, become unbelievably abstract and convoluted. It's almost like the oxygen gets sucked out of the air.
So many Baha'is seem to be of the inquisitive, rebellious type! I also went through a semi-atheist phase in college. I was an English major, and after studying the classics and the history of literature in the Western world, I became convinced that organized religion has been the oppressive force of tyranny throughout history. My grown children are struggling with that concept right now, and they are weighing it against what they have learned about the Baha'i Faith growing up. I have to remember to let them do their own investigation. I did it, and they should have the same option available to them with no pressure from me. But still...oh, well.
Now, I'm relieved to realize that what I was learning about in my college day was the eternal cycle of Divine Revelation that appears to enter a season of winter before God renews His Message to humanity with the dawning of a new Holy Dispensation. Reading the history of religion in the world makes so much sense from that perspective to me.
Anyway, I'm off on another tangent, as usual. Thanks again for posting your story, SMK, and I hope you do write more about your spiritual journey. Oh, and your daughter seems like she is precious! Enjoy these years; they don't last very long!
As for my spiritual journey it really began with Galileo - a kind of microcosm of the struggle for truth. Of course there were echoes of this process in my daily life as I was growing up in an alcoholic family. My father was able to break that circle but at no little cost. So while I abandoned religion I was heartfelt about looking for meaning. By high school I was able to see that science didn't well explain some things - the paranormal, the mystical, the dream, the love of life, in any kind of satisfactory way. In college it kind of hung in the air like that until I was introduced to the philosophy side of religions which introduced me to some of the actual teachings of Buddha and Jesus and so on. Of course they made sense. And of Socrates and Aristotle and so on too. My college days resulted in a BS of Physics and Philosophy majors, Math and Psychology minors. And a profound focus on progressive revelation and theology such that I considered creating my own personal religion. Then I found the Baha'i Faith and while it is not something I would have designed it is something that encompasses and breathes into life what I was struggling to envision.
Since then challenges of thought have come and gone, including the issues of the history organized religion, and the extent of humanity's waywardness. But I feel my faith has always deepened and I struggle to reform my character. It's amazing how children provide a hard focus on such issues.