a day of religious observances

I'm not sure if I'm not learning enough new things to keep up with this blog challenge, or if new things are going in one ear and out the other faster than I can stop, ponder, and write about them.  One interesting thing I learned more about this weekend was the Baha'i faith.  After attending a Presbyterian Easter service with my mom and stepdad, we had a huge Easter lunch and invited my mom's friends who are Baha'i, and since I only vaguely new what that meant, I did a little reading. The lunch guests also shared some Bahai lore.  Established by a guy named Bahá'u'lláh in the mid 1800's, it initially started in Persia and parts of the Middle East. I'm a bit skeptical about these more recent pop-up religions (e.g., Mormonism), and somewhat skeptical about certain parts of any organized religion. I mean no offense to any Mormons or Baha'i or anyone else for that matter.  I'm interested in a lot of religions, firmly believe that each person should find his or her own path, and believe that at the core of most of them there are more similarities than differences. But there are tenets of this one that I like a lot. For instance, this quote from Wiki: "Humanity is seen as essentially one, though highly varied; its diversity of race and culture are seen as worthy of appreciation and acceptance. Doctrines of racism, nationalism, caste, social class, and gender-based hierarchy are seen as artificial impediments to unity." I can totally get behind that, and several belief systems express the same idea (see above: common core). Photo: my mom's dog Perkins in his Easter lamb suit. Photo credit: John Karjanis