How I Became a Baha’i by Mark Harries

Submitted May 2024

I was a child of the 60’s, long hair, bell bottoms, looking for peace and love. I had been a very involved member of the Methodist church doing youth services and community projects when I was approached by the minister and informed that there had been several complaints, that my sandals and bell-bottoms and hair were a distraction. He asked me to conform to normal dress or not come back. I asked him where my love of God was, in my clothes or my heart? He told me not to come back. So in 1969 I was out of the church. I spent the next couple of years finishing high school and having fun, trying to live my life by my “code”–what I thought a person should do how to treat people. 

In the spring of 1971 I was at an open-air rock concert, having fun partying with my friends, when I met a young man who asked me if I had ever heard of the Bahai Faith. I thought “Great, another Jesus freak,” so I took his pamphlet just to get rid of him. A couple of days later I came across the pamphlet and read it. I was amazed to see some of my ideas of the right way to act along with a bunch of other things that sounded cool. There was contact information on the pamphlet, so I went to meet this person. It turned out to be a Baha’i named Todd Fletcher, who started telling me about the Faith and gave me a copy of BAHA’U’LLAH AND THE NEW ERA to read. Todd kept in touch with me and answered all my questions as I was making my way through the book. He introduced me to his friend Rod Clarken, who was helping him in Spencer.

By the time I had finished reading the book I was pretty much convinced that what I was reading was the truth, but I had a lot of questions about whether I could live the life. I was born in Minnesota and raised in northwest Iowa and hadn’t had a lot of experience outside of the Midwest. I had no idea if I could accept all races in my life as I had never known any! I was raised with a passive racism that I was not really aware of until I started reading Baha’i books. When anyone of another race came to town, usually to work at the hospital, they wouldn’t stay long as they were not really made to feel welcome. There was no outward discrimination, just not acceptance. Another example was when we went on vacation, if we stopped at a hotel and saw a colored person behind the counter, we would move on until we found a hotel with a white counter person. So Todd invited an acquaintance of his from Sioux City to come and visit. He invited me to come to his home to meet some people. I walked in and was introduced to Delores Martin and her girls, who were African American. I was very uncomfortable until the girls came over and crawled up into my lap and started talking and joking and just being kids. It was a powerful demonstration of how people are just people in spite of their differences.

I continued to read books Todd made available to me and finally decided that I needed to be a member. I signed declaration card in Todd’s living room and started my journey as a Baha’i.  That was a very special time in Spencer, with the knowledge of the Faith expanding. We had Ruth Moffitt come and give a talk along with Arlene Jennrich, of Wilmette. Arlene was verbally attacked by the local clergy during her talk and responded with a calm answer to everything they had to say.

I left Spencer and went to school in Iowa City. While there I met a Baha’i from Parsons College in Fairfield, named Jon Anastasia. Jon and I became close friends. We had the same birthday although he was 2 years older. Jon was a great musician; he could play any stringed instrument and had a great singing voice. He got me to play music with him and when Parsons College closed he came to Iowa City to finish his education and we shared an apartment. We asked another person that played music to join us. His name was Steve Berlein. We started playing at events and eventually heard that they were looking for youth travel teachers. We contacted the committee and were asked to participate. After adding another person, Mike Wood, we traveled all through Europe and Scandinavia that summer performing concerts and helping the communities with their teaching efforts. Our group was called the New Garden. 

After finishing school I wound up moving to Illinois and eventually landed in Chicago and took a job working in the gardens at the House of Worship. I met several other people that worked at the Baha’i Center that played music. We all joined a group called the Unity Band and started playing at firesides. We soon discovered that most of us had an interest in bluegrass music and we eventually formed the Unity Bluegrass Band. We performed professionally as well as at Baha’i events. We started traveling all over the country performing and anywhere we played we would do a fireside or square dance for the local communities.

So that in a nutshell is how I became a Baha’i and first couple years.