An Interview

I decided for one of my final blogs for this course, I wanted to here from someone who really felt connected to the faith. The person who I knew would have the answers was my mom. She was really the person who introduced me to the faith and the more I thought about it the more I realized I didn’t really know why she practiced or a lot about how she felt about the faith. So I set up a series of questions to ask her and conducted the interview over the phone. I wrote out the interview but I also made comments throughout the interview. (The comments, like the questions, are in bold.)

Q: What led you to the Baha’i faith?:

A: My exploration through different world religions and readings on philosophy and trying to find meaning in life and God.

Q: What attracted you most about the Baha’i faith? What set it apart from other religions:

A: That all religions try to get back to God and that every religion tries to get back together and that the Baha’i faith believes in every manifestation. That there are manifestations that happened before anything was written. Because God is forever.
It’s like you have to take algebra I to take Calculus. You can’t understand until you take the first one. (I thought this was a really interesting and insightful perspective, about having to understand how each follows the other to be fully knowledgeable) That the Baha’i faith for me was the next step that all the religions are going toward the same thing; to get close to God together. The Baha’i faith is interesting because it is independent investigation so you don’t have someone telling you what the religion is but you have to talk about it and read about it. And science and religion are one their not one or the other. Because I am a nurse so there is a lot of scientific elements we deal with. We don’t necessary believe in faith healing but faith can heal.

Q: How has the Baha’i faith affected you, how has it changed your life?

A: I’m still new to the religion, there are a lot of things I don’t do like follow the Holy days, but I try to. I think it made me more thoughtful in what I try to be and do. I feel more comfortable in the faith because I don’t feel like I am trying to live up to people’s expectations like I might in a church. I don’t know if it changed me that much. A friend and I once said it’s like coming home, like this is where I’m supposed to be so I guess it changed me that way.

(I think that is a really interesting feeling to have. I think within any religion it should feel right to you. I don’t believe that religion should be forced; it is something very personal, a connection people make on their own level. I never really thought about that feeling in religion though and made me think that when you have a discussion with someone about religion, you have to think about what how personal the feelings are about their religion. I may never have thought about it before like that.)


Q: What do you like best about being a Baha’i?

A: It embodies the things that I hold dear like equality between men and women, oneness of one kind, independent investigation of truth, universal peace upheld by world government, common foundation of all religions, the essential harmony of science and religion, elimination of prejudice of all kinds. Everyone gets an education, spiritual solution to economic problems, and a universal language.

(She reminded that these components of the faith hung on our wall of our house, and I was thinking of how interesting it is to sort of be surrounded by a culture but not immersed within it. We talk in class a lot about participant observation, where generally people who are outsiders observe a culture by participating in the culture, but can people of a culture be participant observers too? I mean can you live within a culture or relate to a culture but be further detached from it? I think you can, I mean I lived most of life in a house that read Baha’i prayers and had Baha’i writings on the wall and I told people I was Baha’i but I never truly connected on the level my mom talks about and it’s really interesting to see how you can consider yourself something yet not fully understand that something.)



Q: Is there anything you don’t agree with in the faith?:

(I told her how it bothered me that there seemed to be a contradiction in the faith that there should be an equality of man but people who are homosexual are wrong. She retold a story to me about two men she met at an educational teaching house called Green Acre.)

A: One of the men there spoke about his sexuality and said “In my faith I don’t have sexual relations with my partner, we live together, but we don’t have sex”, they can’t change who they are, they have a deeper spiritual connection they feel.
(Something else she said that bothered her was:)
You have to have both parents approval to get married, great idea, but some people’s parents are just not good people and don’t support or help the child or there is animosity between the families. In theory I understand why but in a way it bothers my sense of free will.

(It was funny, when I asked this question I expected a very strong opinion about how people who are homosexual should be as accepted as others and there are most definitely things she didn’t agree with but in actuality her answer was much tamer, much more considerate I think is the word I would use, of all perspectives. I would not hesitate to say there are things about the Baha’i faith that bother me and if they do I just won’t pay attention to them. But I think, if I can analyze a little of what she was saying, is that it’s not just I’ll follow this or I won’t follow this and I’ll ignore what bothers me. Accepting a religion is a lot like Anthropology. Anthropolpogists don’t look at a culture and say “well I don’t agree with this part of the culture so I’m not going to study or look at, I’m not going to include it as a part of the culture.” Anthropologists are supposed to look at all parts of a culture when they study it and it doesn’t mean they have to accept it but they have to see how something works within a culture. The same for religion if you choose a religion I don’t think you have to accept every part of it, I think all religions have flaws, but I also think you have to see how it fits within the religion, and even if you don’t choose to agree with it, you have to be aware that it is a part of it. It’s like what my mom said about the marriage concept, she understands the theory, but it bothers her some how, there’s a conflict between her sense of free will and her faith and that’s not wrong at all, she acknowledge that it bothers her and she’s aware of that. I think the more aware people are about everything not just religion the more perceptive, understanding, knowledgeable, and think more thoughtful people we will be.)

Q: Do you believe you can be a Baha’i if you don’t follow all the rules?

A: I think that is a really good question. For myself I don’t follow the faith strictly and that’s not keeping with my faith, but I still call myself a Baha’i and I struggle with behavior before being Baha’i. But who’s kicking you out of the faith the people or God, when it comes down to it it’s between you and God.

(I thought this was a really good point, about it being between you and God. I believe there is a God, but I don’t necessarily believe that talking to God through a specific prayer will have him/her hear me any better. I think religion is a foundation for which people make a connection with God. Sometimes when I think about all the rules of religion I think what a hard life it would be to try and follow every single rule, and I think people for themselves need to make the decisions in their religion, what makes them feel most connected.)

Q: What do you find when you explain that you are Baha’i:

A: Everybody wants to know what it is. Even world religion classes do not teach that much they have off shoot and say it comes from the Muslim faith. I remember your father had a conversation with someone and explained the faith and the guy said isn’t that a cult and your father said well wouldn’t that make every religion the cult and the guy said oh I guess you’re right. How do you determine what a cult is?

(My mom thought this was a really interesting point my Dad brought up too about the cult. My Dad never signed the card that made you an “official” Baha’i, I remember to him it seemed like he shouldn’t have to sign his name to participate in his faith. That was a lot of the reason I never signed either, I really felt in a way I was defending my dad, but more so I think I felt the way my dad did, that I shouldn’t have to sign my way into my faith, I should be able to practice or not the way I felt most connected. My dad has an interesting way of thinking about religion and he’s really someone to think outside of the box, both my parents are and I think it’s interesting to see the way they both view their faith. The whole cult idea basically sparked an idea for me that I think you can’t put one religion up against another and say this one is more like this and this one is more like this, I think for each individual it has to be an exploration and a connection they make on their own.)


After the interview was over, I couldn’t believe I had never asked my mom these questions about her faith. She gave such insightful answers and it was interesting that she seemed to still be exploring the faith as much as I am. The odd thing was it seemed like all of the information I had gathered over these past few months of researching and reporting on the blogs, this interview seemed to sum up all I had found. The faith is meant for exploration but I think more then that is brings a sort of hope that people can find themselves through their faith.
I think the interview was a good second to last blog for the course. Not only did it allow me to connect a lot of the ideas we learned about in class to my blog in abstract ways, but it also really helped to cement a lot of what I learned about in studying the Baha’i faith and helped me to understand more of how my own culture, in a sense, was.

Note: Thank you to my mom for such earnest and open answers to my questions. You added a great deal to the exploration of my cross-cultural encounter.

Citation:
Joan Baxter, interview by Kyla Baxter, phone, Norton, Massachussets, 30 Apr 2008

Images:
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