The Snowflake Chronicles

Do you have something you�d die for?

4 Jamal 164 B.E. – Tuesday, May 1, 2007

This is an interesting question. I presume we’re talking about death in the literal form and not it’s symbolic form. If we’re talking about the symbolic form then each of us die everyday we choose to take an action or a step we’ve never taken before. The very act of moving forward into the future requires that we die to the present or the past and are reborn into the future. In addition, the act of changing or converting to another religious faith is an act of dying and rebirth. The thing is that when I think of death I can’t view it as final or dieing for something as a final act.

I don’t believe that death is the end of human existence. Death in its literal form is the end of the body not the soul. The soul ascends into the next world, the spiritual world, and the body descends into the ground and its components become part of the planet again. However, the question here is what would I die for? The answer has changed over the years. There was a time when I would die for someone because of a romantic involvement, but not any more. There are much more important things to die for beside men and chocolate.

OK, I’ve been know to say “I’d die for a chocolate bar,” but the truth is I probably wouldn’t. Lately I’ve said “I’ll die for a piece of prime rib,” out of the question as well. However, I still haven’t answered the question.

What would I die for? I’d like to think my religious faith, but I’m ask to live for it, which is much harder if you think about it. Beginning in 1844 over 20,000 Babis and Baha’is were killed in Persia and the surrounding countries because the accepted the claims of the Bab and Baha’u’llah. They were killed many different and brutal. Some were beheaded, an entire village was put into a cave, the cave sealed and then a fire was set in front of the cave to burn everything, and one man was marched through the streets with candles inserted into his body and lit. In one case, a mob tossed the husband’s head the family’s house and landed in front of his wife and mother. They were killed because the refused to recant their faith.

Would I die for my faith, for Baha’u’llah? I would like to think the answer is yes. I’m sure I wouldn’t recant my faith, because nothing else satisfies me spiritually. I’m attempting to live for Baha’u’llah, which means overcoming self, ego, and the fears I carried with me from childhood. Each day is a process of overcoming something, which essentially is dying to the past and being reborn into the present and the future. Each day I find that there are hurtles to over come in the process of living, of changing, of resurrection and rebirth. I feel like a butterfly in its cocoon, as it changes from the larval stage where it crawled on the ground and ate leaves to the butterfly, which flies and sucks nectar from flowers.

So the answer to the question: Do you have something you’d die for? is yes.

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