A Bahai Pilgrimage Comes Full Circle

In the spring of 1996, while backpacking on a research fellowship, I traveled to Haifa, Israel, where I stayed for a few days with a friend who was working at the Bahai World Center. I had heard a little about the Bahai faith but encountered the center by chance -- I  had no idea it even existed.

The center is a breathtaking display of architectural and horticultural beauty. Built on Mount Carmel, it features a cascade of terraced gardens surrounding the shrine of one of the faith's key figures. The shrine and gardens are widely recognized as Haifa's most striking landmark, but they have still greater significance as Bahais consider them holy ground.

While visiting the Bahai shrine, I read a passage on the wall from the faith's scriptures that I found soul stirring. After I left Haifa, although I didn't recall the words of the passage, the sense of glory I experienced upon reading it resonated with me.

In my early 20s at the time, I believed in God but was uncertain where to pinpoint my beliefs.

That visit inspired me to study and consider the religion over the next five years. Part of my investigation was intellectual. I pondered the faith's principles and concluded that they were appropriate for this stage of humanity's collective development. But I wasn't ready to declare myself a Bahai until 2001, when personal trials knit my heart to the faith and its teachings.

This past April, I again visited Haifa as a Bahai pilgrim, in preparation for the trip,  which I memorized a Bahai prayer read at holy sites.

The first day of pilgrimage, I went to the shrine I had visited years before, eager to rediscover the scripture that had inspired me. Framed and mounted on the far wall of the shrine was the passage I remembered -- the same one I had memorized for the pilgrimage. Written in homage to the faith's prophet, it read, in part:

"I testify that through Thee the sovereignty of God and His dominion, and the majesty of God and His grandeur, were revealed, and the Daystars of ancient splendor have shed their radiance in the heaven of Thine irrevocable decree, and the Beauty of the Unseen hath shone forth above the horizon of creation."^

At that moment, I felt affirmed in my spiritual search and path as a Bahai, which began a decade earlier in that very same spot.