Discovering the Sun by BahaiBookstore.com

Discovering the Sun

Discovering the Sun “Verily, the religion of God is like unto heaven; fasting is its sun, and obligatory prayer is its moon.” —Bahá’u’lláh

Jacqueline Mehrabi illustrated by Susan Reed “O my Lord! Make Thy beauty to be my food, and Thy presence my drink….” —Bahá’u’lláh

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mehrabi, Jacqueline. Discovering the sun / Jacqueline Mehrabi ; illustrated by Susan Reed. pages cm Summary: Upon starting boarding school in Scotland’s Orkney Islands, fifteen-year-old Fern fears that her Bahai faith, and especially the upcoming fast, will make her an outsider, but soon new friends are not only providing support, they are revealing ways in which each is different, including their own faiths. ISBN 978-1-61851-079-2 [1. Boarding schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Bahai Faith—Fiction. 4. Fasts and feasts—Bahai Faith—Fiction. 5. Individuality—Fiction. 6. Friendship—Fiction. 7. Orkney (Scotland)—Fiction. 8. Scotland—Fiction.] I. Reed, Susan (Illustrator), illustrator. II. Title. PZ7.M5146Dis 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2015000822

Cover and book design by Patrick Falso Illustrations by Susan Reed

Contents Note to the Reader............................................................ vi Preface............................................................................ vii 1. Time to Go............................................................... 1 2. Leaving the Island..................................................... 3 3. Initiation................................................................ 11 4. Days of Giving........................................................ 15 5. Preparation............................................................ 19 6. A Celebration......................................................... 27 7. Fire and Light......................................................... 35 8. The Letter Há......................................................... 39 9. The First Day.......................................................... 43 10. Remembering the Destitute.................................... 47 11. Not of God............................................................. 51 12. “The Holy Three”.................................................... 55 13. Boys..................................................................... 59 14. To a Deepening...................................................... 63 15. The Wisdom of Fasting (1)...................................... 71 16. Pearls of Beauty..................................................... 81 17. The Wisdom of Fasting (2)...................................... 83 18. Being Happy.......................................................... 91 19. Exams................................................................... 95 20. The Wisdom of Fasting (3).................................... 103 21. The Presence of God............................................ 109 22. The Hidden Gift.................................................... 117 23. Lunchtime with Liza.............................................. 121 24. A Truce................................................................ 129 25. Drinking from the Cup.......................................... 133 26. The Feast............................................................ 135 27. Naw-Rúz.............................................................. 143 *** Passages from a Prayer for the Fast............................... 151 Passages from a Prayer for Naw-Rúz............................... 155 Selected Quotations...................................................... 159 Glossary....................................................................... 163 References................................................................... 169 Bibliography.................................................................. 175

Note to the Reader Discovering the Sun is a work of fiction inspired by the Bahá’í Faith, an independent world religion that began in 1844 in Persia (present-day Iran). Since its inception, the Bahá’í Faith has spread to 235 nations and territories and has been accepted by more than five million people. Bahá’ís believe that there is only one God, that all the major world religions come from God, and that all the members of the human race are essentially members of one family. A brief glossary is included on p. 163 for readers who might be unfamiliar with some of the terms used.

Preface Discovering the Sun tells the continuing story of an island girl called Fern, now age fifteen, as she experiences her first time living away from home and her first BahĂĄâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ă Fast. The story is set in Kirkwall, Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. There have been several changes in the islands in recent years, including the introduction of modern ferries which have replaced the older passenger boats mentioned in this story, but the general character of the people and the place is much the same. All the characters portrayed are imaginary, and any resemblance to anyone is coincidental. Some of the names used are common in the islands but should not be associated with any particular people. The cover picture is of standing stones in Orkney, where our ancestors are thought to have worshipped the sun and the moon five thousand years ago. This book is the sequel to Discovering the Moon (the Long Obligatory Prayer). A third book, Discovering the Sea (the Covenant), completes the trilogy.

vii

-1-

Time to Go

ow Fern was fifteen, she was leaving home to go to the Kirkwall Grammar School on the main island of Orkney. The small island school she usually attended did not have the teachers or facilities for older pupils to take the full range of higher exams. She had waited as long as possible before leaving, but it didn’t make it any easier when the time came. She was excited but also a little sad as she would only be coming home during the holidays and on two weekends each term. Alice, who was fourteen and her best friend, had tried to cheer her up. “Never mind,” she’d said. “I’ll be coming next year.” Fern had nodded. She knew that Alice wanted to stay another year with her father as she was all the family he had. Fern would miss sharing her thoughts with Alice, who had recently become a Bahá’í. She would also miss her family: her three-year-old twin brothers, Nabíl and Badí; her sister, Moira, who was nearly eleven; and Magnus, another brother, just turned thirteen. And Mum and Dad. Not to mention Papy, her great-grandpa. She had noticed that Papy was finding it more difficult to get about 1

lately and spent much of his time dozing, either by the peat fire inside or, on warmer days, on the wooden bench under the willow trees in the garden. He was nearly ninety but his mind was still sharp, and he and Fern often had long discussions about the important things in life. He had helped her discover some of the secrets in the Long Obligatory Prayer just before her fifteenth birthday. She wondered who she would find to talk to now. Moira was helping her to pack her cases. The twins were busy taking everything out again, not wanting her to leave. Fern gave them her collection of different colored pebbles from the seashore to play with, and repacked everything.

-2-

Leaving the Island

here were several other pupils on the boat that sailed to Kirkwall on the day Fern left home, including a tall, dark-haired boy called Callum who came from the most northerly of the islands. Fern knew him slightly as he had an uncle on the island she came from and sometimes visited him during the holidays. Callum and the others were below deck, but Fern stayed on top watching the figures of her family growing smaller and smaller as they waved from the pier. Mum and Dad were shading their eyes with their hands to see better, watching as long as possible as their oldest child left home for the first time. It was early morning and the dawn mist was still clinging to the sea, shrouding the fields and hugging the houses along the shore. Fern smiled, remembering how her little brother BadĂ had looked disapprovingly at the mist that morning, saying it made the world look dusty! Actually, Fern thought, the mist was very beautiful and the nearby low-lying islands looked like giant green lilies floating on a pond, making her think of a delicate Japanese painting.

The mist muffled every sound: the slap of the water against the pier, the seagullsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; cries, the throb of the boatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s engine, the voices calling out a last goodbye. Everything felt unreal, like a dream.

The now-peaceful islands had had a turbulent history, she thought, as the boat chugged slowly round the headland. Until around 1000 BC they had been repeatedly invaded by Vikings from the north. Villages had been pillaged, farmsteads burned to the ground, and young men taken off to fight in foreign wars. For a few years there was relative peace after a Viking king had been on the rampage through Europe and arrived in Jerusalem, where he was converted to Christianity. On his return home to Denmark he promised not to kill the inhabitants of Orkney if they agreed to be baptized as Christians. They were soon persuaded, not wanting to lose their heads. It didn’t stop all of them secretly believing in their pagan gods, though, despite the efforts of a few Christian priests who had already found their way to the islands, and for several centuries they continued to worship Thor, the god of thunder, and Sif, his wife, plus a host of others, like Odin, the Viking god of war, who was reputed to wear a flowing robe and broad-brimmed hat and ride a white horse on the wind. Fern thought how many religions were still full of superstitions, and how many had been spread through war after the death of their Founders. Bahá’u’lláh had clearly said that the teachings of God should be spread through the power of the tongue, not the sword,2 but fanatical followers of past religions were still fighting people in many parts of the world. The names of some of the young Bahá’í martyrs came into her mind. All of them had willingly died rather than deny what they knew was true: Rúhu’lláh, just twelve years old; Badí, a youth who was killed when he took a Tablet revealed by Bahá’u’lláh to the Sháh of Persia; and, 5

a hundred years later, Mona and Peymán, both sixteen. Fern’s eyes filled with tears at the thought of Mona kissing the rope that was going to hang her, and smiling at her executioner. Fern wondered whether she would have had the courage to give her life if she had been Mona. She probably would never know as being a martyr wasn’t so common nowadays. But the first Bahá’í to come to Orkney in the 1950s had been laughed at by adults and had stones thrown at him by children who didn’t know any better. His name was Charles Dunning. He had come from a poor family, and been a sailor on merchant ships in his younger days. Shoghi Effendi named him one of the Knights of Bahá’u’lláh because he was the first Bahá’í to pioneer to Orkney. And when Charlie later went on pilgrimage to the World Center of the Faith in Haifa, Israel, Shoghi Effendi welcomed him with the greatest joy and love. The boat stopped at the sleepy islands to pick up more passengers, animals, and goods. Several wind-tanned farmers and their wives came on board, laden with eggs, home-cured fleeces from their sheep, and a chicken or two—all gifts for their relatives on the main island, which was confusingly called the Mainland. At one island, Fern watched as a flock of sheep was being driven onto the boat. There was a great deal of shouting and hitting with sticks as the sheep were reluctant to go up the gangplank. They were halfway across when one of them suddenly scrambled onto the backs of the others and leapt over the railing and into the sea. As it swam to the shore, one of the men muttered in exasperation that this was the third time that ram had escaped being sent for slaughter. 6

When it reached dry land, staggering under the weight of its wet wool, the sheep buried its nose in the sweet grass, and Fern was sure it was laughing. She knew just how it felt. At that moment she would have given anything to be back on her home island, and she smiled when the boat left without it. The rest of the journey was uneventful, except for occasional sightings of seals on sea-washed rocks, their sleek, wet bodies glinting in shafts of intermittent sunlight. One meaning of the name Orkney was thought to have come from the Old Norse word Orkneyjar, which meant â&#x20AC;&#x153;seal islands.â&#x20AC;? Fern loved the seals, which were known as selkies in folklore, and believed to be seals by day and, by coming on land and taking off their seal-skins, humans by night! Sometimes, it was said, a fisherman would fall in love with one of the beautiful selkies playing on the sand, marry her, and then hide her skin so she would remain human forever. The selkies were known to make kind and loving wives, and on stormy nights you could hear them singing from the top of the cliffs, guiding their fishermen husbands back home, although some folk said it was just the sound of the wind in the grass. And if one day a selkie happened to find her skin, she would put it on and become a seal again and return to the sea. However, she would never forget her human family, and could often be seen swimming close to the shore, watching over her husband and children. Fern sighed. Although it was just a fairy story she thought it was lovely and it made people feel kindly toward the seals. After some hours, the outline of Kirkwall appeared in the distance, silhouetted against a dark, rain-filled sky. The 7

End of this sample. To learn more or to purchase this book, Please visit Bahaibookstore.com or your favorite bookseller.