Language

Yesterday, I was doing my volunteer stint as a tour guide at the Baha'i temple for a few hours. The diversity of people that come through there is truly amazing. Sometimes, it looks like a convention at the United Nations. 

At one point, a group of nuns dressed in full habits came in and sat in the temple for quite some time. As they were leaving, one of them asked me (in very broken English) what the Arabic script at the top of the dome meant. Here's a photo of it:

I explained that it meant "O Glory to the Most Glorious." She had a perplexed look on her face, so I said, "In Latin, it's 'Gloria ad Glorioso.'" She immediately understood and gave me a big smile. 

Afterward, I thought how ironic it was that after all those years of studying Latin in the monastery, I was finally able to use it -- only to translate Arabic.

You just never know how life is going to turn out.

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 . . .