My journey on the road we call Life and my relationship with my Higher Power, the Creator

     My mother tells me I became a Baha'i when I was 4 years old.  I said something like, "Grandma's a Bahai and so am I."  I sing prayer songs that I learned as a child. O God! Educate these children... & I have awakened in Thy shelter, O my God...  I went to children's classes and Baha'i Feast (our version of church on Sunday) in San Jose, CA when my Mom studied the Baha'i Faith and became a Baha'i when I was about 7 or 8.  We moved to Lapwai, Idaho when I was in the 5th grade & the next year I was told by a friend and classmate, I would be going to hell because I didn't follow Jesus.  

     It's pretty amazing I was not upset by her statement.  Baha'is don't believe in hell.  Chuckles.  And I do believe in the station of Christ.  I also believe that God made a covenant with humankind never to leave us alone or without guidance. So pre-global village that we have become in the last 200 years, the Creator sent Divine Teachers to people all over the Earth.  I was taught Abraham, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and currently Baha'u'llah were each sent by God to teach humankind as we grew and developed over the Ages.  These are the Founders of all the major religions on Mother Earth.  In Native America there are Divine Teachers in our oral traditions, too.

     My Grandma Ruby was the first in my family to discover Baha'u'llah and His teachings that all support the Unity of Humankind.  My Grandma was raised in a Catholic orphanage when her mother died and her father was violent and absent.  She sent all her 6 kids to Catholic school, Parochial school. My Mom tells scary stories about the strict nuns.  Chuckles.  My Gram, mother of 6, divorced, abandoned by my grandfather who struggled with alcoholism.  While on welfare she was awarded a scholarship to college, in her 40's at UW in Seattle in the time of the American Indian Movement, she learned of the genocide and atrocities perpetrated by the US government and the Churches.   Our homeland stolen, women and children senselessly murdered, small pox infected blankets given to Tribes to kill them, children stolen and sent to schools to "kill the Indian and save the man". 

     In response she wanted nothing to do with White people or the church.  She got her degree to teach adult education and she was living in Neah Bay in Makah territory.  One evening depressed and very sick, she was moved to return a borrowed book to her friend, Klara.  Klara and Bill saw how sick she was, invited her in, and kept her in their home and nursed her back to health.  Klara and Bill are Baha'i and Makah.  In the next year Grandma learned of this young religion that brought a message of the Oneness of Humankind, that it was now time in our human evolution to become One People.  We believe the Creator sent a message that is perfect for today, God is One.  Humankind is One.  And all the religions come from One Divine Source.  It is time for Peace.

     I have always prayed .  I have been engaged in my Faith.  As a youth in Alaska, I was given many opportunities to be of service.  I was a a leader in our local and state wide youth activities.  As a young adult I served as a member of a 2 person Youth Desk, coordinating activities on a statewide level.  At 21 ,  moved to Yakutsk, Russia to serve the Baha'i community there.  I served on Local Spiritual Assemblies, in McGrath, AK, Moscow, ID, Juneau, Ak and Ann Arbor, MI.  We don't have clergy, in each community with 9 Baha'i adults we elect 9 adults to serve on the Local Spiritual Assembly that administers the affairs of the community.

     I would say my relationship with my Higher Power, who I call the Creator, has been strengthened the most through my personal life storm that really hit in the Fall of 2008, 5 years ago.  When I had to choose between an extremely toxic marriage and divorce.  I had to learn how to pray and listen to my inner voice to find my way out of hell.  Others could not see the hell I was stuck in, my husband, his family and the Baha'i Spiritual Assemblies.  Emotional abuse is difficult to recognize if you haven't been trained.  And I had left our home at the first incidence of physical abuse.  I had to learn how to read our Sacred Writings, interpret them for myself and be strong enough to stand my ground when others I loved, cared for and respected could not support my choices.

     Strength came through prayer and meditation.  Each morning I said prayers, read from the Sacred Writings, and planned my day, trying my best to reflect those spiritual principles I read about each morning.  One principle of the Baha'i Faith is each person has a right to interpret the Writings for themselves.  No one can tell me how I should understand " the friends of God...do not allow themselves to be objects of cruelty or transgression.... they should not allow such tyranny to visit upon the handmaidens..."  It took a lot of strength to speak my truth, to my husband, his family and Baha'i Local Spiritual Assemblies, especially when their perspective conflicted with mine.

     In 2011, I found Al-Anon.  And my relationship with my Higher Power, the Creator grew and deepened again.  The 12steps gave me a clearer understanding of how my Higher Power works in my life. And the first 3 dramatically changed my life.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (I'd add the multi-generational effects) -- that our lives had become unmanageable.

2.  Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3.  Made a decision to turn our will and our lives to the care of God as we understood him.

     2 years later, I have more sanity and more peace in my life than ever before.  I am healing from a toxic marriage and healing from the hardships of childhood with multi-generational symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism.  I build peace in my heart each day.  Build peace in my homeland in my community, which I believe has direct consequences on building world peace.  If we can't have peace in our hearts and our homes, how do we hope to build peace in the World?

     One lesson essential to this strength is my relationship and love for the Blessed Beauty, a title of Baha'u'llah, and understanding it is separate from the Baha'i community, we are imperfectly perfect humans, and even it's Local Spiritual Assemblies.  The love, grace and mercy of the Creator showers down upon me every moment of the day, and many times these showers come from people who are not Baha'i, who are not Christian, who do not believe in God, or have their own personal understanding of their Higher Power.  

Challenge:  how do you describe your Higher Power?  Could you practice Step 11 - sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out?

http://www.bahai.org/

http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/how-to-find-a-meeting

http://www.alanonphonemeetings.org/