On Her Big Fat Baha'i Party: I totally dug the idea of meeting some people in a casual atmosphere before attending the Ruhi sessions
UU Dayna is up for Ruhi, but first a paaaaarty. -gw
Entry tags: religion
I'm all about trying new things, y'all. Will has this friend John, who he went to college with. John and his wife Jana are members of the Baha'i faith and they hold these sessions to educate anyone who is interested in the Baha'i teachings of the prophet Baha'u'llah. These sessions are called Ruhi. So Pam and Will attend Ruhi to learn about things, though they do not consider themselves Baha'i. I've been interested in attending too, for I am a Unitarian Universalist, and our religions are very similar. And I am always interested in learning more about different religions.
So tonight Will came down and said that Pam was working, but he was going to be attending a Baha'i party, and would I like to join him. I totally dug the idea of meeting some people in a casual atmosphere before attending the Ruhi sessions, so I went along. Even though it was a beach themed party and I had to wear shorts.
The party was to celebrate Ayyam-i-ha. , which is a very important time to Baha'i. It directly precedes their month of fasting, so lots of food is served ad fun is had.
I had a very good time! No religious things were really specifically discussed, although pictures of Baha'u'llah were placed on the food table, and I had several interesting conversations about parallels of UU and Baha'i faith. Mostly it was just a party though. The Baha'i don't drink, so we had shirley temples instead. And we ate, and then we played Charades and then we had a limbo contest. I won the limbo contest. One person was like "Wow, you're so bendy, that's not fair!", to which I replied: "Dude, what's not fair is that I can't reach the top shelves in my kitchen, and all I get to make up for it is winning a limbo contest."
The majority of attendants were Persian and South African, but there were plenty of Caucasians too. It was very cool and ethnically diverse, which was great. I am interested in learning more about their faith, although from what I understand they have some things I don't agree with, primarily their thoughts on homosexuality. They're all in all a very non-judgemental religion, but they do believe that homosexuality is "wrong", and I obviously could never agree with that. My own minister used to be a member of the Baha'i church, but left because, as an openly and comfortably gay man, he disliked the disapproval of his sexual preference. That aside, the religion - from what I understand- is quite beautiful and positive on the whole. ...
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{Re-posted with permission}
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