Someone's East Van Apartment (Bahai)

On Thursday, June 2, I attended a devotional ceremony of the Bahai faith. Outstanding features of this 170 year-old and 6 million followers strong religion include- abandonment of all forms of prejudice, equality between the sexes, a desire to eliminate economic disparity, recognition of universal religious truths, the placement of hones on individuals to search for truth, the establishment of a global commonwealth of nations and a view of religion as harmonious with reason and the pursuit of scientific knowledge. 


Dig a little deeper and core texts include behavioural guidelines such as, no premarital sex or consumption of alcohol and followers are warned, “Shave not your heads..." and, "it is not seemly to let the hair pass beyond the limit of the ears..."

Texts also call for exile and imprisonment of thieves and "on the third offence, place ye a mark upon [the thief's] brow so that, thus identified, he may not be accepted in the cities of God." Finally, worth mention is the stand alone statement that, "semen is not unclean.”

Length of Ceremony: 2 awkward hours   

Theme: True happiness

Entertainment Factor/Ceremony: 

Before I went to this godshop in someone's home, I sent the address to a couple of my closest friends and included the words, "Im going there. If I die, these people did it."

I can understand why almost all of my friends refused to join me on this godshop... Thankfully, one friend was drunk when she received my text message invite and she agreed on the spot. When I called her the next day to arrange a meeting place she was really reluctant. So I offered to buy her a cheeseburger beforehand.

                      

We arrived early and stood by the front of the building nervously imagining what was waiting inside. 

Then, a large balding woman carrying a guitar case greeted us as she passed and entered the building (lets call her Friendly Pants). 

We waited around outside until my friend could chain smoke a couple of cigarettes, got buzzed up and... 

  holy-fuck-these-were-the-nicest-people-ever-and-i-feel-bad-for-making-fun-of-them-but-their-religion-is-really-stupid.

  We talked for a while about "why bahai?" for each one of them.
  
  One man was raised catholic and seemed to be rebelling in favor of a slightly more accepting (although in keeping with the ridiculousness) belief. Another member was raised by bahai parents in northern BC. Friendly Pants (I knew she was going to be there), was raised agnostic, but chose to go to a bahai boarding school in her teens. She was the "youngish-alternative enthusiast", that like other religious followers i have encountered, attached herself to me either by group consensus or desperation. 

  We went around in a circle and took turns reading from a list of passages from bahai texts written by the founder Baha'u'llah, his son Abdul-Baha and some buddhist teachings. After about 5 or 6 passages Friendly Pants would strum her guitar and sing about god's love and sitch. Then, we returned to reading passages. This continued for about an hour and when we were done, everyone talked about the passages that moved them most...I remained quiet. 

Promise of Heaven/Salvation: This life is seen as the womb of the spiritual world and upon death, we begin  a journey into the spiritual world that has potential to be really great. However, the exact nature of the afterlife is a mystery to Bahaists. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

death

                                                  

Space: East Vancouver apartment building from the 90's. Approximately 3 storeys. Inside, was an incredibly clean family home with the Bahai founder's image on the mantle and those expensive wooden toys that come from Germany all over the place.

Free Food: Cantaloupe, honey dew melons, oreos and chai tea. 

Equity Policy: Equity is pretty much their M.O. ... HOWEVER, Bahai marriage is defined as exclusively between one man and one woman and Bahai's stress the importance of absolute chastity for any unmarried person

  

Community Involvement: They are an army of volunteers and feel closest to god when they are helping others

$$$$$(cost): none mentioned

Participants (looks, conversation, etc.): Lots of long tangents and religious fervor, but as I mentioned really friendly and trusting....cray.

Blind Faith Factor (BFF):

               1                2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9             10

"Naw, no thanks”                   shrugs                             “All in”


Mshuxtable's rating
2
^The oneness of humanity stuff is aight, but the whole "god" thing is weird