Baha'i

Here in the Chicago area, there’s a large Baha’i temple in the northern suburb of Wilmette. There’s even an exit on I-94 that says “Baha’i Temple”, so I’ve been curious to see it.

Yesterday after work, I took a little excursion out to the suburb of Wilmette to see this place. I have fond memories of the Baha’i faith, actually. During my first semester in college, the local Baha’i community had a recruitment gathering on campus that I attended. It was my first  encounter with a non-Christian faith and that was pretty exciting to me at the time. Also, the people seemed really nice. 

Baha’i for Dummies: They believe that God continually manifests Himself through successive messengers and religions. Abraham, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed were all messengers. The most recent one was Baha’u’llah in the mid-1800s who founded the Baha’i faith in Iran. All religions are manifestations of God; unity of humanity. It’s actually quite appealing. 

Also, they seem to like apostrophes a lot. 

I took the EL north to the end of the line. Five blocks away, the temple emerged. 

Oh my gosh, it’s huge! I can see why it has its own freeway exit. 

All Baha’i temples are nine-sided. 9 is the highest “single” number so it signifies the unity of religion and humanity; or something like that. 

It’s surrounded by really pretty grounds with lots of fountains. The place is practically a bird sanctuary. I even saw a very large deer ambling about.

And here’s a Baha’i bunny. 

I took the tour in the visitor’s center, learned a lot about them, and then sat in the temple for quite a while. I watched the sun slowly inching its way up one of the nine sides as it set.

Photo from Wikipedia (Photography is not allowed inside)

Thoughts of how I was on this tiny, revolving planet in a solar system, in a galaxy in the cosmos, and probably in an infinite number of universes came to mind.  It’s quite a tranquil place. 

I didn’t want to leave. 

Knowing myself, I’ll probably end up converting . . .