When I was a child, I remember curling up under a blanket or even pulling a rug over myself during long meetings, or Feast, or any activity in which adults were talking and I stayed in the room. I remember being small, but assertive. (Nothing has changed about the assertive part.) I remember my parents telling me that I needed to have a voice, even if my voice was small and my thoughts not fully formed. That this was my Baha’i community and that participation from individual community members is one of the things that made the Baha’i Faith different from other religions.
I remember having a voice. I remember that sometimes people struggle with that voice, that nothing has changed since then, that we still fight against the influences of a failing society, with its flaws and racism and misogyny. But that I had a voice, and a community, and that was more than a lot of people I knew. And now I am more aware, and I can speak up, and bring up the tough conversations.
We are learning, as a community, how to give others a voice, and what consultation truly looks like. We are human, and therefore flawed, but we are learning. And I promise that I will always try to hear everyone’s voice.
