When I was a child, I listened to the stories of the Tanakh, the Old Testament. As I listened, I had an image that always came to mind: I saw the blessing of God like a glowing ball.
That's it.
It was like a glowing ball in my mind, passed from one generation to the next.
As I listened to the story of Abraham, this ball had been given to Him, and He cared for it. Sometimes, though, it was difficult to keep this precious object. One mis-step and you could accidentally lose it, as the Jewish people did time and time again throughout he stories.
But back to Abraham. He had this great gift, and was told to sacrifice His son. As the story goes, He was stopped by the angel and told to sacrifice a ram, instead. Ok. No problem. I'm not going to get into the details of that particular story, nor my own reaction to it.
But then this precious gift, this blessing of God, was passed to His son, Isaac. At least, in the Tanakh it was, so that's what we'll go with here, since that's the version I heard as a child.
Anyways, Abraham got older, Isaac married Rebekah, and then Abraham left everything to Isaac. Presumably, the blessing of God was included in this. At least, it was in my mind.
Why? Because in the very next part of the story, Isaac passed on this blessing to Jacob. Of course, he intended to give it to Esau, but Rebekah knew that it should really go to Jacob.
Long story short, Jacob got the blessing of God, and although difficult, things went very well for him.
Finally, he passed the blessing on to his favourite son, Joseph.
This is where it got interesting to me. In every story up to this point, once the blessing was passed on we heard nothing more of the previous generation. Except here, in this story.
After the blessing was given by Jacob to Joseph, this favourite son was lost, presumed killed. Jacob's health began to fail. Famine hit the land. Everything seemed to do downhill.
For Joseph, on the other hand, everything went well. Ok, maybe not at first, but we can see the Hand of God at play here if we look. The story focuses on Joseph, but we still hear about his family. We hear about the famine. We know that things were difficult for them, so difficult that they had to seek out Joseph's favour, even though they didn't know it at the time. We, the audience, get a rare glimpse of what happens after the blessing of God passes on. We see it from both sides, the benefits that accrue to Joseph, and the trials faced by his family.
But I want to go back to Jacob for a moment.
I have to wonder what it must have been like for him. As I said, we get a rare glimpse of life after God has left us. He must have been used to having God very present in his life. And now, after this blessing passed to Joseph, things go horribly wrong. He has to search elsewhere for salvation. Whereas previously salvation was with him, easily within his reach, it was now beyond him. He had to go somewhere new, somewhere different, to a "foreign land": Egypt.
Only by recognizing that the blessing had left, and turning his attention elsewhere, could he find it again.
When I was growing up and going to all sorts of different communities, hopping churches as others hopped bars, I saw the beauty of the teachings of Jesus, but could see so clearly that the blessing of God did not reside within the churches I was visiting. They may have spoken of love and compassion, but I did not see it in their hearts. I saw condemnation for anyone that believed differently than they did. "We're right", they seemed to say, "and everyone else is going to hell."
I knew that this attitude was not of Jesus, could not be of God.
The concept that someone could lead a virtuous life, be compassionate to those around them, and help all who crossed their path, and yet still be condemned just because they happened to be born in place where Christianity was not the religion du jour, was just alien to me. It was an idea that did not speak of a loving and compassionate God. It did not speak of a God that was for the entire planet.
And so I long wondered where I would find a community that showed this love, this compassion; a community that demonstrated by their actions and effects that they were not only living the Law of God, but also blessed by Him.
There is a recent story of a group of people somewhere in the Middle East who read in the Quran that the people of Muhammad would always be blessed. When they looked around, all they saw were problems. When they compared what they read in the sacred Book with what they were witnessing in their own community, they began to recognize that somewhere along the way the blessing of God had left them. They knew that they needed to search somewhere else. It was then that they found the Kitab-i-Aqdas, and recognized that the supreme blessing now resided with Baha'u'llah and the Baha'i community. It had moved on and landed somewhere they were not expecting, a "foreign land": Persia.
Today, it seems so clear to me that this great blessing, this glowing orb of my childhood vision, not only resided with Baha'u'llah, but was also passed on to 'Abdu'l-Baha. When I see those around Him who tried to cause a schism, and both the effects they had as well as the fate they suffered, it is perfectly clear to me that this blessing was gifted to 'Abdu'l-Baha.
From Him, it obviously passed on to Shoghi Effendi, and then to the Universal House of Justice. This is so clear to me upon reading the history, and comparing it to the stories of the Tanakh that I read growing up. Baha'ullah says, in the Book of Certitude, "Consider the past..." By looking at the past, comparing the present to what I already know to be true from my own religious background, there is no question for me.
And this is also what I challenge so many of my friends to do. Read the stories of the Bible, the New Testament, if you will, and see if the church to which they belong lives up to that example. Are they being taught love or judgement? Compassion or just plain old passion?
From there, quite a few have given up on religion, deciding that if the church in which they grew was not living up to that high standard, then all religions must be a lie. But that doesn't seem reasonable to me. That's the old "throwing away the baby with the bathwater" problem.
To be fair, some decided that, yes, their church was living up to that standard, and for that I praise them.
And some, just some few, decided to look into a "foreign land". Some became Buddhist, finding peace and tranquility for themselves within those divine teachings. Others began to follow their more traditional spiritual teachings, returning to the ancient teachings of their own people, trying to discover a path to the future in the past.
But some expanded their horizons, and looked for something that would not only benefit them, but bring the world to their heart. They looked to expand their sense of community to all around them, not just those that looked like them or hailed from the same small area that their ancestors did, but to all who walk this earth. They decided that they wanted to be of service to all the world.
“Let your vision be world-embracing," were words that resonated within their very souls, "rather than confined to your own self.” They know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that "the object of every Revelation (is) to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself, both outwardly and inwardly, that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions". And that is why these people became members of the Baha'i community.
