a website for members of the Bahá'í Faith in Norman Oklahoma

Why I became a Bahá’í

Posted by admin in Featured Articles, News on Sep 21st, 2009 | no responses

By Kathleen Norris Park

Originally published in the Norman Transcript August 20, 2009

As an Arkansas teenager in the ’50s, I joined a church, loved the youth group activities and showed up, as my uncle said, “every time they opened the doors.”

But soon I started asking questions. The preacher quoted Christ: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” But what I saw all too plainly was what he meant — what all the people in our little white church meant: Make sure your neighbor isn’t black.

The black people just down the street, clearly neighbors, were not welcome in our little white church. And clearly, we did not love them.

I had more questions. Was I to believe that all those souls who lived before the advent of Christ, or who never had a chance to hear about Him, let alone accept or even consider His teachings, were damned to eternal hell? That didn’t seem like the edict of the loving God the church folks were telling me about.

Soon I came to understand that my questions were unwelcome. I dropped out of church. I called myself a “creek bank Christian.” I could feel closer to God somewhere out in His beautiful creation, nowhere near a church.

After many years of spiritual drifting, composing my own conclusions, guesses and beliefs, I saw an article in Life Magazine about the Bah?’? Faith. Reading the captions under the photos, I said, “That’s what I think, too.” But it would be another three years before I came upon Bah?’?s and fireside meetings where I could learn about the Faith.

The first and most striking concept I heard was one I’d guessed when I was 14: “God sends His messengers to mankind in a progression. They aren’t in competition with each other; it’s men who create all the ruinous divisions and enmity in the name of religion. Not God.”

His messengers, or manifestations, have, each and all, declared their missions as fulfilling the one before and foretelling the one to follow. Each manifestation brings two kinds of messages. One is a social or temporal kind such as dietary and social laws meant for the people and time of its era. Christ was killed partly because He abrogated some of those outworn social laws. And each manifestation brings a spiritual message, which builds upon the spiritual teachings of the past.

For example, Moses brought law. The Ten Commandments remain as valid as ever. But there was more. Christ later added love and personal salvation to the spiritual teaching. Mohammed instilled a sense of nationhood, resulting in huge strides of human accomplishment in many fields. He expanded our sense of responsibility to each other. Whether we can see it very often or not, humankind does progress. And the spiritual message of each Manifestation addresses us at successive points in our ever-maturing spiritual capacity.

My frustration and sorrow came from what I began to see simply as the mess human beings have made of each Manifestation’s message. What a relief it was to learn that God has kept His ancient promise never to leave us without a teacher. In the 1800s, God sent His latest messenger, Bah?’u'll?h, whose message is meant for mankind coming into maturity. His world-embracing teachings center on justice. “The best beloved of all things in my sight is justice,” He wrote. Of course, there’s more. See www.bahai.org. Ask your questions, too.

Ruth Loeffler Talk

Posted by admin in Featured Articles, News on Sep 17th, 2009 | no responses

Please join us this Friday evening for potluck dinner and a public meeting. Dr. Ruth Loeffler is our guest speaker.

Ruth Loeffler, Ph.D. and long-time English teacher at Norman High, will speak about fostering creativity. Even though she retired in 2006, she has remained an ardent proponent of the student anthology called Soupstone that she and her home room students started 35 years ago. Guidelines allowed any kind of creative writing, art, photography, This year the contest was named the “Ruth Loeffler Writing Contest” to honor her.

Loeffler will speak about encouraging creativity and creative thinking, not only in the young, but in all of us. Her primary belief holds that creative writing strengthens logical thinking. And that creating metaphors is a very advanced form of logic. When young people can think of a concrete image that has two or more meanings, they have grown in their abstract thinking. It’s true for older people, too. All of us are being forced these days to think logically and metaphorically to find our values.

Potluck dinner starts at 6:30pm. Norman Bahá’í Center is located at 526 Iowa Street.