Metro Baha'i Faith members prepare for celebration
Metro-area Baha'i Faith members are inviting the community-at-large to help celebrate an important occasion for Baha'is around the world.
The group will host a free community event on Nov. 3 commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Bab.
The Bab, which means Gate, foretold of a messenger of God who would bring a message of universal peace. This proclamation was made in 1844 in Persia, which is now the country of Iran.
Terri Angier, a member of the Edmond Baha'i Faith Center, said the Nov. 3 event will be at the Memorial Union Ballroom at the University of Oklahoma. She said it will include people from diverse cultures marking the special occasion through song, dance and other activities. Recently, several metro-area Baha'is joined together to discuss the upcoming celebration.
Taraneh Wilson, a Norman attorney, said Baha'is around the world will be hosting devotional
gatherings and sponsoring special events like the one planned in Norman. Both the Norman Baha'i Faith Center and Edmond Baha'i Faith Center each will host smaller celebrations in the coming days that also are open to the public.
She noted Baha'is celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Baha'i Faith founder Baha'u'llah (1817-1892) in 2017 with a community festival at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond.
Wilson, 48, said she was born in Iran to a Baha'i family that fled persecution to make their home in the U.S. She said the Baha'i Faith community is remarkable because of its unity and diversity.
“Our Baha'i community, we're like a family,” Wilson said.
Other Baha'is at the recent gathering shared similar comments.
“I love the way the faith treats minorities — it is into justice and the elimination of racism,” said Lethika Richter-Addo, a Norman nurse who was board in Singapore to Hindu parents. She also said she was drawn to Baha'u'llah's message because it was similar to the message of Krishna, a revered Hindu god.
Retired hospital administrator and halfway house director Dwight Dunkle, 72, said he was raised by Southern Baptists on a farm outside Enid. Like Richter-Addo, he
said he was drawn to the Baha'i Faith because of its emphasis on unity.
“Being a Baha'i to me means there is one race — the human race,” Dunkle said.
Artist and civic leader Cindy Van Kley, of Spencer, became a Baha'i in the 1970s. She said she moved from another state to Oklahoma and immediately found a welcoming
Baha'i Faith community to join.
“It is like a big extended family,” she said.
Meanwhile, as the youngest member of the group, Chase Angier, 26, son of Terri Angier, said he liked the exposure to different cultures and the faith education that is emphasized in the Bahai' Faith community.
This wasn't surprising to his mother. “You want your children to believe the tenants of the faith, but in Sunday school they are educated about all the other faiths. We believe in the investigation of the truth,” she said.