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A July Pilgrimage |
The Lake family is not long-back from visiting Israel and the World Centre. Before arrival in Haifa, briefly we were able to see something else of Israel—Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea and Tiberias (Lake Galilee).
There were 130 other pilgrims, among them Marie, Eddie and Kerry Whiteside (Kerry was finishing-off her Year of Service at the World Centre) From England there were Ann and Paddy Vickers and their daughter, Helen. A number of pilgrims from the US had cancelled their visit because (apparently) they were unable to obtain travel insurance!
The Terraces are tremendous and more! Standing in Ben Gurion Street, looking up at them (illuminated in the evenings), they really have great presence! It seems significant that, in realigning that street - narrowing the carriageways, reducing the width of the central reservation, widening the pavements and centring the road on the Terraces - the City of Haifa is fitting-in with the Plan of God, devised through the Universal House of Justice! I don’t remember what were the activities in the street before, but now it is full of pavement restaurants, with outdoor, evening dining. The illuminated Terraces and the Shrine of the Báb, preside ‘at the head of the table’!
The landscaping of Mount Carmel - started by Shoghi Effendi - has been most impressively continued into the present century... The Israelis are wild about the Terraces! We were told that there had been 37,000 visitors in one of the weeks before our arrival—and they were mainly locals! With the present problems, the Israel Tourism Industry, not surprisingly, has hit rock-bottom: simply, there are no visitors (we stuck out like a sore thumb)! Local ‘tour guides’ now are employed by the House of Justice, non Bahá’ís are proclaiming, if not teaching, the Faith, to Israelis in Israel! The Shrines and Holy Places are just as I remember them, when a pilgrim in 1971. In a sweltering July, the Shrine of the Báb was much more pleasant to be in than the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh - Bahjí became uncomfortably hot! Their settings, both gardens, at Haifa and Bahjí, are simple, most fitting and make the Bahá’í Holy Places extra special…
Our guide, for most of the time, was Lesley Taherzadeh. She had some wonderful stories to relate to us. We, as well as the other pilgrims, built up a great rapport with her!
For us, Pilgrimage was a wonderful experience. At the World Centre one gets a real impression of the status of the Faith. We may be small in numbers but, in Haifa and Israel, we are really big! Put your name down, as soon as you can - I believe that the present waiting-list is five years and it’ll not get any shorter in the future!
Malcolm Lake