A VALUABLE NINE DAYS
Many years later I went to a nine-day summer institute for Baha’is, members of my newfound religion. When I first heard of the institute, I had laughed and said, “Who could possibly give nine days to spend at a conference of any kind?” The reply that was fired back caught me by surprise, and I recognized the challenge. “Well, school teachers could, for example.” The institute was held at a beautiful camp surrounded with pine trees and a small lake. From this time of purification I came to see many things in a new light. Two large posters designed for my classroom that summer introduced my new Classroom Rules. Rule #1 was “Please, please, please BE HAPPY!” Rule # 2 was “Please, please, please DON’T BE UNHAPPY!” These were the rules that had worked so very well at the institute. I adopted them for my classroom. They work!
I embraced a number of concepts at this institute. Study sessions required that each group sit in a circle with a facilitator at the head. Absolutely everything was addressed to the facilitators. A frequent reprimand during the early sessions was, “Please! No cross-talk.” In this manner, everyone was free to express his/her thoughts freely without fear of interruption or judgment from others. I know the attitudes during these sessions were tempered by the vast amount of time each of us spent in prayer during those nine days. No one criticized another or told him he was wrong in his thinking, yet in the course of these sessions, each individual displayed impressive, even awe-inspiring growth. One very shy young lady that I had dubbed “little bird” in my mind was at first very reluctant to speak and obviously intimidated by the male members of the group. As she blossomed, I realized that people don’t need to be told what they are doing wrong to enable their growth.
The other principle required that, in studying scripture, one analyze one word at a time. Of course, all of the scriptures originated in languages other than English. The book we studied was revealed in Persian. There were Iranians in my group who understood English to varying degrees and who followed closely in Farsi/English dictionaries. Their explanations of the subtle differences in the two languages in most cases shed light upon the intent of the passage, even when the meaning seemed obvious from the outset. All shadings of meaning were considered as language became revered and mystifying. There could be no end to discoveries made in the practice of meditation.
I have never felt my dreams were significant enough to remember afterwards. I had, however, often awakened with a solution to a difficult construction problem that had been puzzling me for days. This outing was a time in which no television or newspapers were allowed and during which no visitors from the outside interrupted the flow of events. We were, however, permitted to call home from time to time. We refrained from sharing events from these calls. We were separated from the world at large. There was an Iranian hostage situation during these days that none of us knew anything about at the time.
Our daily schedule began at 6a.m. with dawn prayers in a circle in the meeting hall. Offering a prayer was optional, but on most days, everyone participated. After breakfast an hour for individual meditation and prayer preceded the morning group session. The small campus in northern Indiana known as La Lumiere was owned, I believe, by a private Catholic school. The tall pine trees, row upon row, inspired reminiscences of a Washington state visit just a few summers before. I claimed for my afternoon prayers a spot on a small island, reached by a long, narrow bridge, where I could be alone, yet enjoy the water, the earth and the sky.
During this solitary, prayerful hour of preparation for the second study class, events of the morning class loomed large for me. After the afternoon session, there was mingling time before dinner. Some people took naps during this time. After the evening meal there were various activities. Each group planned an inspirational act to present one night. Another night featured a sharing of talents. Spirits ran very high, so that often I felt elated when I went to my lonely bed. Rooms were private, and lights out left just enough time for a quick shower.
After a few days, I began to feel the need to commit some of the revealed Bahá’í prayers to memory and decided to use the ‘island’ devotional period for that purpose. I have mentioned dreams. I have sometimes listened to spiritual persons telling of a dream or a vision and enviously wished I could have such an experience (and perhaps doubting their authenticity). On the day I wish to share, I was learning to recite the prayer for the departed so that I could offer it up instantaneously anytime I happened to have the inclination upon learning of someone who had departed this life. I would say, “This is for my mother.” Or “This is for my brother Shirley and his wife, Louise, and their daughter, Gloria.” (He was my oldest brother, Gloria was their oldest child, and I had lost them and my father within a short span of time.)
Now I am going to share one of the kind of stories I promised myself not to drudge up, in order that you might understand that this experience altered some well-established impressions I nurtured.
I think somehow my father was simply amazed that one of his seven children attained the brilliant successes Danny has realized; Dad was inordinately proud of that fifth son. Many times I heard him declare that his children were his wealth, and he carried himself as if he were a very wealthy man. The year Danny left Indiana Central for Yale, I invited my father to come to Indianapolis for Dad’s Day, and I took him to the football game, thinking it would bring some happy memories from his short college football career. (I never heard him talk of college or football, but there was a photo in the attic of the team at the small Ohio college he attended for, I think, only one year.) As soon as the game was over, Dad spotted President Esch in the bleachers nearby. I could not dissuade him from moving in for the kill, so I tagged along reluctantly. He stepped in front of Dr. Esch, held out his hand and said, “How do you do, Mister Esch, I’m Danny Rhoades’s father.” Dr. Esch kind of looked startled, moved his head very deliberately to direct attention to me—after all it was my Dad’s Day we were celebrating.
The attempt was wasted on Dad. He was scoring on Danny’s success and wished to talk about it. Never mind that I had just directed the very successful Geneva Stunts, a student fund raiser involving more than 150 students that had raised the most money in the school’s history of that event. Never mind that I was editing the school newspaper or that Dr. Esch had arranged for me to be admitted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and knew my father had barred the way. And it was Dr. Esch who approached me working in the kitchen of the president’s mansion to ask delightedly, “Well, Jack Rhoades! Are you coming back to Indiana Central College? You know, I think you should.” And so I had.
I could tell other situations in which my father stepped on my heart as he reached out to praise Danny. But I’ll refrain. Suffice it to say that I erected a wall of impersonal demeanor which remained intact until that day I fell asleep saying these words:
“Verily, we beseech thee to forgive the sins of such as have abandoned the physical garment and have ascended to the spiritual world. O my Lord! Purify them from trespasses, dispel their sorrows, and change their darkness into light. Cause them to enter the garden of happiness, cleanse them with the most pure water, and grant them to behold Thy splendors on the loftiest mount.
Bahá’u’lláh has written that God gave us dreams to assure us of the spiritual life that follows this one—in dreams we see clearly without using our eyes, hear without using our ears, and move from place to place without leaving our beds. In my slumber I had a dream in which I was holding a beautiful baby boy that, though I knew it was not Danny or John, somehow belonged to me. I had loved this stage of infancy with each of my four children, and I was making my child smile and coo. I was loving it abundantly when the realization struck me and I became aware that this child was my father—an infant (I thought upon awakening) in the spiritual world. I knew I was being told that I must let go of those old feelings of resentment because no one could feel enmity toward a baby.
