Shrine of Baha'u'llah and Gardens at Bahji (Akko)

Every year Lawrenceville hosts a fantastic interfaith service the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Every one of the over 30 faith groups in town are invited participate, about a dozen accept the invitation. Through this service I learned about the Baha'i faith from Tahira and her husband Brett.

The founding principles of Baha'i are unity and peace. Their particular faith community meets in peoples' homes, though I suspect each group looks different, just as every Presbyterian and Jewish community I know looks different.

I'm currently in Israel on a four-week dig at Tell Keisan between Akko/Ako/Acre, and Naharya (spelled too may ways to list) in Western Galilee. Trust me, this fits with the story. We are staying at the Kibbutz Lohamel HaGetat'ot (apologies to my librarian friends for linking to Wikipedia, it is in English and coveys what I want to convey), a 30-minute bus ride away from the dig. I passed a sign for Baha'i Gardens. It looked to be a 20-minute walk away. Walk being the key word because on Shabbat (Friday night and all day Saturday) mass transit does not run. I walked there, only to find out my bare knees were unacceptable. I walked back to the dorm, grabbed a skirt to toss on and walked back. While I could walk around the gardens in my shorts, I could not visit the holy site where Mirza Husayn-Ali is buried. His shrine is only open Friday through Monday from 9-4, though the rest of the grounds are open most other days. The website has a link to the exact days they are closed, including July 10, due to Holy Days.

Baha'i is a new religion, dating back only to the early 19th century. The founder

was a Persian nobleman who took the title of Baha'u'llah, Arabic for "The Glory of God." He was imprisoned for his religious teachings and kicked out of Persia. He was imprisoned in Akko (then a prison-city under Ottoman rule) and condemned to be imprisoned forever.

 According to the pamphlet given to us by the guard before we were allowed to enter the holiest of holy Baha'i sites, where Baha'u'llah is buried, the conditions of his imprisonment was eased and he moved into the Mansion of Bahji in 1979. We were allowed to peek into the room where he is buried. No we did not see his physical body. There are several empty rooms covered with Oriental rugs in the same building where Baha'i can hang out and pray longer. We were allowed to stay as long as we wanted. The rules were pretty simple -- no talking, no photography, do take off your shoes, and do absorb the peace of the place. I will admit it felt pretty peaceful.

The grounds of his home are beautiful. The inside of his shrine was exceptionally peaceful. The main area is an atrium that smells heavenly. The fresh roses and manicured garden would seem out of place anyplace else, but here it felt peaceful.

Of note, the eagles, peacocks, stars, and other things that look like symbols are not. They are there because of their beauty.

 My particular group was about a dozen Russians and me. The guard seemed uncomfortable speaking Russian, so he handed a pamphlet to a member of the other group and had her read to her friends and family. He then told me the same thing in English, but embellished it. I was glad I returned for that skirt.

There is another Baha'i site about a 90-minute bus ride away in Haifa, which I visited the following week. 

A week later I returned to the gardens in Akko. I wrote the following thoughts:

* A feast for the eyes, the ears, the nose
* The colors range from green, to purple, to red, to orange, to yellow. The roses are so colorful, as are the trees.

I found a shady spot to just be. While sitting there a guard from Cameroon came to check up on me. I was fine, just enjoying a patch of solitude.

The garden was busier than when I went the week earlier. I returned a third time to say good-bye. For the most part, this was the closest I had to a spiritual experience in Israel.