Baha‘is believe all
religions are intertwined

A day-long fast put a special edge on the appetite for 10 people gathering Thursday for a potluck supper at a Makakilo townhouse.

Hostess Weslie Mills and her friends are members of the Baha'i Faith and, with its 5 million members worldwide, they are midway in a 19-day period of fasting from dawn to dusk.

Paying homage Members of the Baha'i Faith end the fast day with prayers such as these: "These are, O my Lord, the days in which Thou hast bidden Thy servants to observe the fast. Blessed is he that observes the fast wholly for Thy sake and with absolute detachment from all things except Thee. Assist me and assist them, O Lord, to obey Thee and keep Thy precepts." -- Baha'u'llah, founder of Baha'i Faith "These are Thy servants, O my Lord, who have entered with Thee in this, the Most Great Prison, who have kept the fast within its walls according to what Thou hast commanded them. Send down, therefore, upon them what will thoroughly purge them of all that Thou abhorrest, that they may be wholly devoted to Thee and may detach themselves entirely from all except Thyself."

At sunset, 6:39 p.m., the friends paused before filling their plates to reflect on the idea that the hours of abstinence from food and drink were fulfilling spiritually. Mills and Tom Ralya read prayers and scriptures that underscored the religion's teaching that fasting brings humans closer to God if they abstain from selfish and destructive thoughts and lifestyles as well.

While they consumed an array of dishes, they talked about fasting from the bad things that come out of the mouth -- cursing, gossip, insults -- as well as what is consumed.

"Fasting is a way to remember how vulnerable we are in this human frame and how much we must rely on God," said Mills, an administrator at Island Pacific Academy. Fasting "develops spiritual muscles. It's a gentle practice, only 12 hours," and she's been doing it for 27 years.

Construction worker Roy Simmons is embarked on his first fast, surrounded daily by fellow workers scarfing down food during the work-site lunch hour. They kid him about having an "unlunch" break. "It's not that difficult," he said.

"The biggest thing I have to work on is my language," said Simmons. After years in the Navy and then in construction, "it's easy to use adjectives."

"Fasting is something you do as part of a group and for yourself," he said. "It represents giving up a lot of things in life -- lust, greed, hate. It's like a promise between me and God."

Simmons was introduced to the religion when he followed up on a mailed meeting notice and attended Baha'i classes. He decided to join the religion last August. "I've known God my whole life, and he said it's all right," he said with a laugh. "There's rules in the Baha'i lifestyle. I will be changing for the rest of my life."

Said Mills: "All Baha'is work and struggle to live up to the laws. We struggle to be clear from backbiting and gossip. The tongue is the heart-stone. We are not to use the tongue in an awful way by hurting another soul."

WESLIE MILLS / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN Weslie Mills, right, hosted a potluck supper Thursday for fellow Baha'i Faith members after a day of fasting. "Fasting," she says, "is a way to remember how vulnerable we are in this human frame and how much we must rely on God."

Hae Jun Chung, born in Korea, said her Buddhist parents weren't impressed with her first foray into religion, following a special young man into the Methodist Church, nor her choice of Baha'i. "One day my mother said, 'You don't talk back like you used to.' I told her we're not allowed." That's when her parents saw the merit of her choice.

The Makakilo break-the-fast supper is a traveling feast. Tonight it will be at Rowhan Najibi's house. Born in Iran into a Baha'i family, she was the only one without a story about leaving some other faith or lifestyle to join the religion. Najibi's family fled Iran in 1970 as the government became more militantly Islamic. She remembers other children there harassing her because of her religion.

A Persian nobleman, Baha'u'llah, founded the religion in the mid-1800s in what is now Iran. Baha'i members believe he was the latest in a line of messengers from God who also included Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Zoroaster and Mohammed. He taught that there is unity in all the world's religions and that their fundamental purpose is to promote harmony and peace. He was imprisoned and exiled by the Ottoman Empire.

There are members in 230 countries, led by elected lay people at local and international levels. Its headquarters is in Haifa, Israel, at the site of the mausoleum of Baha'u'llah's precursor, a teacher known as "the Bab," which means "door."

Three of the supper crowd shared memories about the Bab Shrine on Mount Carmel, which crowns a steep terraced hillside. Tom and Jacque Ralya and Carter Smith were among hundreds of volunteers who planted grass, flowering shrubs and trees on the three-quarter-mile promenade. It was completed in 2001 and attracts not only Baha'is, but thousands of tourists to the seaside Israeli city.

Jacque Ralya, who grew up in Moiliili with Chinese Buddhist parents, chose to become a Baha'i at age 15, which the religion considers the age of maturity, the earliest a person can make the choice. By doing so, she said, she bypassed typical teenage struggles. "Everyone else was searching, trying alcohol, etc. It was nipped in the bud for me," she said.

Alcohol is the only dietary restriction in the faith, and, said Simmons, following that rule is another change in his life.

Jacque Ralya said: "If a Baha'i drinks, it's between him and God. We don't go, 'Shame on you.' We don't police."

The Baha'i Faith teaches that all religions will eventually unite in worshipping the one God, and the world will reach a time of permanent universal peace.

It was that hope-filled outlook that colored Tom Ralya and Hartson Doak's dinner conversation about world events. Ralya finds every small step away from dictatorships in the Middle East a positive sign.

"It may seem unbelievable, but who would have ever believed that the Soviet Union would just dissolve itself?" Doak said.

"We've just seen how the terrible tragedy of the tsunami mobilized help from around the world," Tom Ralya said. "When everyone is able to see another's pain as their pain, as everyone's pain," that's a model for the peaceful world they believe is coming.

Contemplating the idea that "the human race is maturing toward a more peaceful, just and united future," as their faith teaches, makes the fasting easier to bear and the dinner easier to digest.