The Wisest Amongst Us and Fair

The world is bound by a lot of rules. The rules of the road, the rules of the classroom, the rules of common etiquette, there are rules everywhere. Sometimes the rules are easy and they make a lot of sense - they're there for our safety, to protect us and keep us from injury, harm, sickness, or death. Sometimes, they're less obvious, but we're still expected to follow them. We're told so often that rules are there for our own good, even if we don't understand them. There will always be rules you like, and rules you don't; rules you are willing to follow and rules that are dealbreakers for you.

When I mention to people that I'm a Baha'i, if they know anything about the Faith, they usually ask about the rules. (And even if they don't, people generally realize that religion = rules). They ask what they are, or they mention ones they know and ask me how I cope with obeying. (For me, a lot of the time the "no alcohol or other intoxicating things" is the one that people tend to get stuck on.) Why would I choose to be a part of something with rules like that? There's rules about prayers, about how to live, there's whole books on it. The world is full of enough people telling you what to do , why would you willingly listen to one more?

I stumble over this a lot. The no intoxicants one is easy - I've struggled with that sort of thing in the past, so this, to me, is a convenient way to take the temptation out of my own hands. I never made what people might consider "huge mistakes" with anything, but I know I've made some pretty ungood choices in my past when influenced by those substances. So now, it's nice. I can just go "I don't drink because I choose to trust that Baha'u'llah asked me not to for some very good reasons", and it's done. It doesn't matter if you agree with the decision, but I feel better and more okay with sitting with it. It's not about me trying to keep myself away from something that I struggle with (although that's a nice bonus), it's about me trusting that He asked me to do this, so I can keep a clear head and help the world be a better place.

Some of them are trickier. I'm not always great at remembering my prayers, backbiting and gossip are often very, very tempting, but I try. I try because I want to - because when I was seeking, the rules felt manageable, like I could try to do it, and as I've continued to try my very best, I have seen so many ways following Baha'u'llah's rules have helped me be a happier, kinder, safer person. I've been able to do more, and be more, and I've been able to serve my community in ways I'd never ever ever thought I could.

The rules give me structure, and structure makes my brain happy. My brain *likes* knowing what's next. It keeps my anxiety dinosaur from roaring quite so loud, it keeps my brain spiders from skittering around making messes of things. So now, I can go to Feast even though it means more people than I'm technically happy with in terms of crowds and social stuff and small talk. I can make the newsletter, I can speak up during consultation, I can make friends in my community, I can live and breathe and sleep a little easier, because I get to give so much of the hard decisions to someone else. Baha'u'llah's already told me what to do, so I don't have to stress about it. Baha'u'llah said to "Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday", and to me, that just means that hey, every day is a new day where we can do a little more, try a little harder, and make the world a little happier. And His rules help me do that.

Last night I was talking with a dear friend about some stuff in my life, and he reminded me of another quote I like a lot: "Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning" - in context, it's talking about the fact that we are all going to die someday, and will be accountable for the choices we make, but to me, it also is a nice reminder to think about the day I've had. What did I do well? What was good? What did I learn? What would I change the next day? It helps me refocus myself, and to think about how I am using the rules and guidance that Baha'u'llah has given us, for myself, and for the world around me.

The rules are there because I am loved, because He knew what I'd need to be able to be my best self, what humanity would need as it grows and changes. They're not there to put me down, to subjugate us, but to give us hope, and life, and the tools we need to make the world more awesome. They're an audacious ask, a act of care and compassion. They're an act of trust - trust that we will follow His guidance, that we will trust that He knows what we need, even if we don't understand it yet.

So yes, there are rules. Not nearly as many as you think, and it's surprising how many are just natural extensions of trying to be a good person. But they're rules I can sit with, and that's all that matters.

The Old Voice Warning Me

When I like a thing, I tend to...really like it. Almost to the exclusion of everything else. When I was in my Hamilton (the musical, not the city) phase, I read Chernow's book about Hamilton (that was SO LONG), I memorized the whole soundtrack, I followed every Twitter thread and video and anything I could find that was remotely related. I listened to literally almost nothing else for months.

Then...at some point, I stopped. I was done. My brain wandered off to something else, and I haven't really listened to the soundtrack since. I still like it, I want to see the play eventually, but when I had the chance to join people in the random lottery style lineup for tickets for the eventual Toronto debut of it....I didn't really bother. (Saved me a bunch of money, I suppose, I heard tickets weren't cheap.) It's no longer a hyperfocus.

This is how I like things. I get into them, with my whole self for a while, then I'm done. I've done it with numerous craft projects (cross-stitch, crochet, among others), languages (Russian, mostly), I do it with stage plays (Hamilton, RENT, In the Heights (that one's still an active focus)).

When I found the Baha'i Faith...I kinda fell in with both feet. There are a few days around when I declared where I didn't sleep a lot, I was just kinda floating in a lot of reading and a lot of wondering and some very patient friends who let me ask them a lot of questions. I have read (and continue to read) as many books about the Faith I can get my hands on. (Yes, I did read Lights of Guidance cover to cover. It was actually pretty interesting. I learned a lot.)

I hyperfocused, hard. I wanted to know everything all at once. I still do, although I've kinda realized there's more than I'll ever know, or fully understand and that's okay. I read a lot and I tried to be everywhere and do everything and I reached a point right after the Bicentenary in October where my body was like "okay, enough, breathe a little".

So...I've been breathing a little. I still love Baha'u'llah and His message with my whole heart, I still go to Feast when I can and I usually have at least one Baha'i adjacent book in my book rotation (right now, it's Creating a New Mind, by Paul Lample). But maybe I don't go to every single devotional that's within reasonable transit distance, maybe I let myself read a few more romance novels before tackling more Adib Taherzadeh.

It's hard not to feel guilty. I keep hearing the voice in the back of my head that tells me that maybe this is just another hyperfocus. Every time I forget my obligatory prayer, or I can't make it to Feast, or I don't go to someone's devotional because I have something else I'm doing, I worry. I worry I'm just going to some day just...drift out of this.

It's kinda scary to admit that, out loud. I talk about how the Faith has changed my life (and oh my gosh, it really has, but that's another story for another day), how I love my community, how I like that I have a way to participate within my own capacity for service with the newsletter and the social media bits. But I don't talk so much about how I am scared my brain is just going to decide I'm done, someday.

I know people will tell me that if it's important, it will stay. The way I've kept friendships alive and my marriage alive and my cat alive - they're important, beyond hyperfocus. The things that are part of the very core of me, those don't go away. I'd love to believe that my Faith is in there too, in the core of me. But I don't know yet. In the grand scheme of my life, I've been doing this Baha'i stuff for....maybe 3 percent of my entire existence?

I know the answer is to just keep on keeping on, the way I do. To keep finding ways to serve the Cause, to keep connecting with my local reality and my friends and my life, and to keep integrating the Baha'i concepts into my everything, as I've been doing. But I thought it might be good to also talk about being scared. I don't think we do that enough, admit we're scared sometimes. We all want to be good people doing good things in good ways that don't let people down.

So hi. I'm Ash, I'm not always good at this, and sometimes I get scared. Sit with me, if you're scared. We don't gotta even talk about it, we can just be scared together, and then we can maybe keep walking, lanterns held high, pushing back the dark.