I really have a problem with all the suffering in the world, including my own. Abdu’l-Baha wrote that this world is a storehouse of suffering but it is not as bad for some people as for others and some people do not even seem to suffer much at all. The unequal distribution of suffering bothers me more than anything else. Sure, according to Baha’i we are supposed to be better off for our suffering, particularly in the afterlife, lots of good that does us till we get there.
However, I have to admit I am a lot stronger and more spiritual because of all my suffering, so that validates what the Baha’i Faith teaches.
You have lived in some of the same places I have.
I attended my first two years of college in Santa Barbara. During Christmas vacation 1970 of my first year of college I went to visit my older brother in Bellingham, WA and he had been a Baha’i for about two years. He had all the books that had been published in English and I read most of them, and two weeks later I declared. I went to grad school in Moscow Idaho in 1975-1977 and I lived in Coeur d’ Alene for about a year after that, then I moved to Salt Lake City, then to Redding, CA, and then to the Olympia, WA area, where I have been since 1988.
So I am very familiar with all your stomping grounds and I might even know some of the Baha’is you went teaching with. My mother and brother lived in Port Angeles, WA for about 20 years, so I visited there often and I have also been to Nanaimo on vacation… It sure is a small world.
So when you went to Bible studies you became convinced the NT was true? And then when you realized that your friends were not living up to the standard Jesus taught you were disappointed and put religion on the back burner for a while? I tend to be very outspoken about sexual matters because I consider it a big problem. I am a person with a lot of restraint and morals, so it was never a problem for me until after I got married and then I proceeded to make up for lost time. Had I read the fine print in Gleanings I might have thought twice.
I do not think Baha’is understand the high standard to which we are called, even if we are married. Being married does not give us an excuse to live for the flesh. I know full well where that leads so I am grateful I am no longer in its grip. Suffice to say that I finally discovered what Baha’u’llah and Jesus said, that the heart cannot be divided between God and selfish desires. At a certain point we have to choose or else we are only nominal believers, even hypocrites.
I put Baha’i on the back burner for decades for personal reasons, some of which nobody knows about except my husband. Beginning at about age 31 I went for help and was in recovery for my childhood issues for about 15 years; counseling, 12 step programs and homeopathic treatment. During those years that and college was my focus so I did not have time for Baha’i activities and was not interested. It is not as much that I felt unworthy as that I was not interested because I am not a social butterfly. I still believed in Baha’u’llah and the way I planned to serve was to be a counselor and homeopath, but that did not work out owing to things that interfered.
Then I lost my job of many years in 2002 (I still had a job but I was demoted into another field owing to state budget cuts) and that was very traumatic, so all I did was look for jobs for eight years, until I finally got the job I have now, the best job I have ever had and will retire from. I was pretty angry at God all those years, for that and other reasons. Then I went through my real estate phase from 2008 – 2012, and having three houses and two with tenants took most of my time, that and the double digit cats we had, in addition to working full time.
It was not until January 2013 that I stumbled upon the Planet Baha’i forum and that started a whole new phase of my life. I realized I could see and socialize with Baha’is without having to go to Feasts and other activities sand I also learned a lot from those Baha’is. I then branched off onto some other forums, primarily for teaching purposes but also to socialize. I also started my own forum which was active for about a year, before I got really active on a believer/nonbeliever forum and did not have the time.
The more I learned about Baha’i from reading and talking to the Baha’is on PB, the more I knew it was the Truth from God, and that hit me alike a ton of bricks once I realized what Baha’u’llah had written, since I had not seriously read His Writings before, nor had I understood them. Suffice to say, my entire life now revolves around God and Baha’i, and my husband who is also a Baha’i (since 1964) takes care of the cats and other stuff around the house, so I can be on the computer.
On the other forums I have posted on, there are a few Jewish posters. One is a very progressive Jew and she is agnostic and the other two are elderly men and theyare orthodox Jews. So I have learned a lot about Judaism from them. I know why they did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, because He did not fulfill most of the Torah/Tanakh prophecies, and they do not believe there were ever going to be any more prophets after Malachi so Jesus could not be a prophet either. Also, they believe the NT is just a made up storybook and there is a lot of truth to that. Abdu’l-Baha said that the Torah is more authentic than the NT and it seems that way to me, although it is still very difficult to interpret, since there are many possible meanings.
The Jews do not have a legitimate case for rejecting Baha’u’llah just because everything in their prophecies has not been fulfilled yet. Some of the prophecies were to be fulfilled when the Messiah came and during His lifetime and others were to be fulfilled during the Messianic Age, which is going to extend far into the future. So that is why they have not all been fulfilled yet.
The Jews do
exactly the same thing as the Christians do; they have specific interpretations of their scriptures that are very narrow and nothing else will do. This is just so obvious, from an outsider observing them and what they post. On the forum I still post on, the Jews and Christians have been arguing for decades. They take the same scriptures and disagree about the meanings. It gets to the point of insults often and since there are no rules enforced there it gets ugly.
(Continued on next post)
