George Davis grew up on the South and West sides of Chicago, and he moved along with his dad and mom to suburban Maywood, simply west of Oak Park, when he was 13.
On the time, Davis solely had expertise with Christian denominations and teachings. However sooner or later, throughout a up to date historical past class he was taking in highschool, his trainer requested a Baha’i pupil within the class to speak about a number of the core values of that religion and the way they associated to subjects in fashionable society.
The coed spoke about how Baha’is imagine within the oneness of humanity, the place all people make up one individuals, stuffed with various backgrounds and cultures however nonetheless able to coming collectively beneath the frequent objectives of peace and unity. As a religion, Baha’i teaches that science and faith can stay collectively in concord with out inherently contradicting one another, the scholar stated.
“All of those concepts and different associated issues, I used to be so compelled by that I simply began speaking together with her afterwards,” Davis stated. “There have been just a few Baha’i college students in my highschool, and I began spending a while with them socially, after which finally realized extra concerning the Baha’i religion’s teachings.”
At present, many years after he got here to the religion as a 17-year-old excessive schooler in Maywood, Davis is the director of the Baha’i Temple in Wilmette, which was the second Baha’i Temple ever constructed and nonetheless the one one in North America.
After a 43-year profession in case administration and human providers, largely in Rockford, he and his spouse moved to Evanston when he turned the temple director final yr, the primary individual to carry the brand new title. Evanston is dwelling to the nationwide Baha’i workplaces, positioned on Central Road close to Evanston Hospital. These days, Davis’ most important job entails eager about group constructing and utilizing the temple’s assets to attach with native residents.
On the finish of July, I had the possibility to sit down down with Davis to speak about his journey to the Baha’i religion, what the faith teaches and the temple’s historical past within the suburbs north of Chicago. We met in his workplace within the basement of the Welcome Heart subsequent to the temple, which may additionally function a museum, with footage of the Baha’i temples world wide and details about the religion’s historical past.
Davis is a slight man with wire-rimmed glasses and graying hair. He has a deep, sluggish voice that instantly attracts your consideration once you hear him discuss. He can spend an hour discussing the tiniest of particulars in Baha’i scripture, however he may also inform you all about how the primary time anybody talked about Baha’i in a public speech in North America was throughout an handle by a Lutheran minister on the 1893 World’s Truthful in Chicago.
Davis stated he desires the area people in Evanston, Wilmette and surrounding cities to know that the temple is there as a peaceable and delightful place for everybody, no matter faith or beliefs.
“This can be a place that we not solely hope that individuals admire from a distance, and even simply from driving by, for its exceptional magnificence, however [we hope] that additionally they see it as a spot for them, the place they are often and actually expertise what the temple has to supply,” he stated. “There’s a particular power that’s right here that’s not frequent, sadly. But in addition, we predict that it’s attainable for that very same power to turn out to be increasingly more frequent, the extra individuals deal with those self same beliefs of collective progress in their very own communities.”
The temple’s historical past
The prophet-founder of the Baha’i religion was a person named Baháʼu’lláh, who was born in present-day Iran in 1817. From an early age, he deviated from Islam and preached his personal beliefs in a single God and one humanity, which led to his exile in Iraq and eventual imprisonment in modern-day Acre, Israel, the place he died in 1892.
Throughout his lifetime, he wrote greater than 1,500 letters about his beliefs, his imaginative and prescient for the Baha’i religion and his understanding of God, and people letters turned the muse of Baha’i scripture.
His eldest son, ʻAbdu’l-Bahá, was additionally imprisoned in Acre till 1908, on the age of 64, when the Younger Turk revolution lastly freed him. 4 years later, he went on a tour throughout North America, stopping a number of occasions within the Chicago space.
His followers in the USA had proposed constructing a temple in Chicago, however they have been divided between setting up it inside the metropolis or on a website alongside Lake Michigan north of Chicago. Throughout ʻAbdu’l-Bahá’s go to to town, he chosen the positioning in Wilmette for the placement of the temple, the place it nonetheless stands at present.
Staff broke floor shortly thereafter, however they didn’t end development till 1953, when Baha’is held a dedication ceremony on the website. The temple was the second Baha’i Home of Worship ever constructed – one had been constructed earlier in Russia, however the Soviet Union destroyed that temple. In consequence, the Wilmette temple turned a central monument within the Baha’i religion.
“Somebody as soon as stated that the temple helped to construct the Baha’i group because the Baha’i group constructed the temple, as a result of it turned an organizing and rallying level of unity for Baha’is world wide,” Davis stated.
At present, there are eight continental temples and 4 native or nationwide temples world wide. The Wilmette Home of Worship attracts an estimated quarter million guests yearly, based on Davis, which makes it the third most-visited temple after those in India and Chile.
Every temple has its personal distinctive design and construction, however they’re all nine-sided as a result of a part of Baháʼu’lláh’s identify will be derived from an Arabic phrase with 9 letters, so the quantity 9 has turn out to be a theme throughout the religion.
For instance, the temple in Wilmette options 9 sides, 9 gardens, 9 fountains and 9 entrances, which established a precedent for the opposite temples world wide.
“[ʻAbdu’l-Bahá] stated that Chicago was a metropolis and a spot of nice significance as a result of it was the center of the nation, and that no matter flows from the center will contribute to the well being of the complete physique,” Davis stated.
Constructing group at present
As I walked by way of the gardens and sat on the red-cushioned chairs lining the within of the temple itself, I used to be struck by the serenity and calming power that Davis had advised me about in our interview. Contained in the Home of Worship is a large dome with these chairs, a lectern, a small carpet and quick phrases from Baha’i scripture carved on the partitions like “ye are the fruits of 1 tree and the leaves of 1 department.”
The simplicity of the house additionally displays the simplicity of the religion as properly. Baha’i providers and prayer conferences by no means have a speaker or a sermon, as an alternative that includes readings from scripture and quiet time for reflection and meditation.
In contrast to the bureaucratic buildings and hierarchy typical of many different organized religions, Baha’i doesn’t have clergy or clergymen of any variety. Actually, the one governing our bodies overseeing operations of the temples world wide are an elected worldwide council known as the Common Home of Justice, and an elected Nationwide Religious Meeting in every nation.
The American Nationwide Religious Meeting appoints a five-person temple board for the Home of Worship in Wilmette; Davis serves on that board with 4 others.
Below Davis’ management, the temple is changing into extra of a group gathering house for varied functions. One native synagogue, Temple Jeremiah, held a Rosh Hashanah service within the temple final yr, and in July, Davis met a gaggle of faculty college students from California who ended up enjoying music for a Sunday devotional service.
Temple Jeremiah carried out a modified service for Rosh Hashanah as a result of solely music and scripture readings are allowed contained in the Baha’i Home of Worship.
Through the first two weeks of August, the temple can also be internet hosting facilitated conversations and actions for a gaggle of greater than 40 younger individuals from Evanston and Rogers Park.
“What we want is to have extra individuals see this as a spot that’s their place of refuge, their place of reflection, prayer and meditation,” Davis stated. “We’d prefer to see individuals, whilst households, small teams or mates, come and maybe supply prayers on the podium in the event that they want to categorical one thing out loud, or simply to sit down quietly as some extent of renewing their reference to one another.”
Davis and different Baha’is say they hope to make the temple a useful resource and a gathering place for any function, no matter religion affiliations or traditions.
“We don’t see ourselves as a temple as selling the temple based mostly on providing applications a lot as we actually wish to join with the encircling group about how they wish to use the temple,” Davis stated, “and the way they’ll see this as a spot that’s theirs.”
