One of the compliments I get a lot is how open I am, how I am really good at small joy and delight and making people feel cozy and comfortable. I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and what that means and how it works and how I make it happen...and my brain just stops. Like...I don't know! There's no secret sauce, it's just...I think about all the times in my life I felt like I didn't fit, that I was unhappy and lonely and how much that hurt. So I seek joy, first and foremost, and I make sure I can make room for people to also feel that joy.
Can it be that simple?
I have been praying with some friends lately, just because. I kinda forgot how to pray for a while, which sounds silly because as a Baha'i, we have all these amazing prayers that Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha and The Bab revealed for us, but there's a difference, I think, between "I can read these words out loud like a parrot repeating stuff they've heard but don't understand" and "My heart is using this to talk to God". But slowly, I am figuring out how to open that part of me again. It feels good to sprinkle those drops of joy into the world, slowly, on my own terms.
This quote has been on my mind a lot, too. It feels like a HUGE ask, to be a centre of attraction, just by...being. How does that even work?
At first I decided I couldn't ever do this, that I wouldn't ever be enough of the right things. I think of all the ways Baha'is talk about Abdu'l-Baha as like our best and brightest example of how to do all of the Baha'i everything, and my brain just stalls out. I might like cats and I might be good at sharing cake, but I can't ever do all of these things! I can't! It's impossible! I'm never going to get all of these things right enough to ever have the people of a city unquestionably say I'm a Baha'i....can I?
One of the things I'm re-learning lately, though, is that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition. Sure, I might be SUPER bad at things some days, but God made me and wanted a me just like me in the world, so I might not be perfect, but I'm here for something.
So I will keep loving on people, I will keep dancing to my music when I walk, I'll keep sharing cake and helping neighbours figure out Zoom, I'll keep being all of my authentic self, because I think that's how we do this. We exist, we breathe, we love, we admit we don't have it all together, but that we're going to keep trying. And we say prayers, we cry, we laugh, we dance, we tell people how awesome we think they are. If we keep showing love, compassion, and honestly share of ourselves, then that's how people will see how Baha'is are.
We're not perfect. And that's okay! We don't have to be. In fact, some of my best conversations about Baha'i life have come from me admitting how often I feel like I am secretly three trash pandas in a trench coat desperately pretending that we're a whole and functioning adult. Because it takes off some of that weird expectation that faith needs perfection. It doesn't! We're all messy.
Love yourselves, friends, even when you're messy. You're always worth that love. I'll remind you of that, endlessly and always.
