How I Became a Baha’i – Meg Wegs
Meg Wegs, Sister of St. Francis Convent: Dubuque, Iowa. Seek and Ye Shall Find… Baha’u’llah! By Charlotte Solarz
Time: 1988. A certain special Sister, Sr. (Margaret) Meg Wegs, arrived for semi-retirement as a Nun in residence at St. Francis Convent, one of the three, the largest of nine convents in Dubuque, Iowa, working her assigned position in Stonehill, an elder care residential facility, under the auspices of her convent. She was approaching her 45th year as an obedient avowed Sister in the Order of St. Francis. Her previous missions included years spent on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, a mission run by the Jesuits, after which she was given responsibilities tending to women
with diminished capacities in a group home in Missoula Montana. The time spent there at the group home proved damaging to her self-confidence, due to a negative relationship with the priest serving there and so she wasreceived back at the mother-house convent in Dubuque, Iowa. There she found room for her own quiet independence and pursuit of art and was able to devote herself to further research of an 11th century German Benedictine Nun, Hildegarde, an astonishingly visionary mystic and brilliant music composer who is remembered, in the context of that severely patriarchal time and place, for both shocking bravado and inspiring courage.
In Dubuque in the 1990s, in the midst of her sisterhood in a well-organized context of duties, the memories of her most recent post at the group home were not erased but remained uneasy and raised questions that were not answered in the environment of the St. Francis order. But prayers were her source of calm and consolation and actually, she was moving forward swiftly, more swiftly than she may have consciously realized! Seeking a break she went to the staff break room and noticed some pamphlets left on a table there. They had attractive titles and contained prayers and a liberality of inclusiveness she had never heard before offered as principles in religion. They spoke to her. She took them to her room to read over and over again. They provided something of promised depth. Then in place of the pamphlets she had taken from the break room was a book titled The Divine Art of Living. It was not new but well used. It came from the same unfamiliar source, the Baha’i Publishing Trust in Wilmette, Illinois. Meg wondered how the literature got there. She watched who was using this break room and finally identified the donor, a nurse’s aide, Janice Freese, who told her these are Baha’i pamphlets and books. Sr. Meg told us later that reading Divine Art of Living was like reading the Holy Scriptures, for what she read had the flavor of sacred Writings but, “This is refreshing!” she said! And she asked for more literature to read. Jan brought her Bill Sears’ famous Thief in the Night for further study. Soon Meg accepted an invitation to meet other Dubuque Baha’is. These then were Mark and Mary McDowell, Charlotte and John Solarz and their young son John Ali. Dubuque then had one other Baha’i, Mike Kelly.
Little did Meg know that, during the time before she met the Baha’i community, the Dubuque Baha’is were sharing stories of the missing literature, told by Jan Freese, and wondering if Stonehill administration was clearing the table in a censoring way or if it was a worker or a sister finding the literature interesting or worthy of hiding! We did not know the answer, but the question brought excitement as this puzzle remained unsolved. Then came the discovery of Meg (the culprit!), who quickly became Jan’s dear friend and the meetings where we now had the pleasures of her presence that began to be a regular part of our activities as a Baha’i community. Meg became our wholehearted ally.
Dubuque was gaining shape as a Baha’i community; and unity in planning and participating functionally became a beacon setting our path. By 1991 a counting of Baha’is sufficed to the magic number of nine and we formed the first Local Spiritual Assembly of Dubuque, Iowa! Meg Wegs declared as a believer in Baha’u’llah and engaged in studying regularly with Mark and Mary McDowell. We held home Feasts and there was a nice baby community feel about us. We began focusing on how we might function to set community goals and provide useful community activities.
Meg still lived at the Convent of St. Francis, reluctant to make a complete break with her arrangements there. The American Baha’i and other messages from the National Spiritual Assembly were mailed directly to her at the Convent, and we wondered whether staff at Membership and Records might have raised eyebrows over the address and conversely, how staff in the Convent mail room may have regarded her Baha’i mailings! No repercussions either way though, from the Baha’i National Center or the Convent and life went on in our fledgling community for five years while Meg worked hesitatingly toward open identification and disengaging from the commitment to her vows. Quietly, we watched as the fiftieth anniversary of her vows of “marriage to Christ and the Church” approached. Meg’s uncertainty of what to do next weighed heavily, after so long being embedded in the rhythm of convent life.
We understood. Contrast the Convent’s orderly, traditional, institutionalized practice of faith with the activities of the Baha’is in Dubuque, Iowa! There is no physical structure resembling a sacred place of worship, as Meg had known all her life. That was one major difference.
Meg’s declaration of faith in Baha’u’llah and her realization that severance with Convent life was inevitable was a gargantuan leap! The thought of fledging and lifting off, as one might call it, must have been hard to imagine. We noted that her health was becoming fragile. She worried and prayed about her dilemma daily.
Certainly the Convent offered many comforts! The steady discipline and its atmosphere where the liturgical surroundings of convent life were the core of her daily life contrasted with the subtle graciousness and informality of our humble homes as places of worship! Added to her accustomed lifestyle were the sincere, affectionate friendships with other sisters, the expectations within the common daily religious constructs, as well as accustomed restraints and constraints, daily rituals of Mass and prayer, the calendar Saints’ Days observances, holy days, evening vespers–all this she was a part of and she’d be missed if she didn’t participate. Her participation was deeply integrated into this dedicated life of hers.
Meanwhile, Meg deepened with the Baha’is. She studied the Kitab-i-Aqdas and learned about Baha’i laws and restrictions on communal prayer, fasting, obligatory prayer, etc. and she wanted to obey. She told us that she was increasingly stepping back to the quiet unattended end of the chapel where her silence in the ritual responses would not be noticed. But what a place of decision she was in, spiritually! We all prayed ardently for her, and with her, for steadfastness and courage. We worried about her increasing lassitude.
Although Meg never enumerated these particulars as fear of the sacrifices awaiting her, the rest of us became attuned by inference to those realities. All details of her needs, all food, physical health, shelter, clothing, were laid out for her, all the way to the grave. That was the expectation for all the “religious” in this time. The great celebration of the 50th Anniversary of dedication to the religious life was the culminating event closing in upon her. And with the Golden Jubilee was the expected renewal of vows.
The Dubuque Baha’i community was in flux at this time. When the McDowells and some others moved out of Dubuque, we lost our Assembly status. But the Dubuque Baha’is did still have this joy, this flame burning brightly for Baha’u’llah. Dubuque hosted an annual city event called Kaleidoscope, which celebrated the city’s international citizens and connections. As one of the festival’s organizers, I invited a Baha’i youth dance group from DeKalb, Illinois, to perform. They accepted eagerly. The diverse group of fifteen youth and their chaperone were invited to “camp out” on the floor of the gymnasium at the St. Francis Convent, where they would express their appreciation by performing for the Sisters. The performance was terrific and the sisters responded with sincere affection. They were impressed to see the youth present themselves as an interracial team of friends sharing their own written lyrics of rap, poetic stories, mime, and break-dancing choreography, conveying belief in the positive messages of life, in virtues, ideals, and being of service. “I feel better now for youth,” said the sister who formally received them that evening. Meg stood outside the seating of the sisters at the door of the gym, but at the end of the show, catching the wave of her sisters’ enthusiasm, Meg opened up and showed us Baha’is there a big open smile. That show of her peer sisters’ openness, the sense that Meg’s peer-sisters “caught the spirit,” brightened her eyes that evening.
Still, a catalyst was needed. God knew and she came. Dubuque was part of the territory assigned to beloved Auxiliary Board Member Javidukht Khadem, who traveled around the country to become personally acquainted with the friends. Sweetly, she visited us in Iowa. We welcomed her with a luncheon for which she frankly had no interest, polite as she was, preferring time spent together for consultation on development of community goals and aligning our own commitment to seeing them through. Before she left, Meg was able to join us and the two had a meeting of hearts. Mrs. Khadem said she had recently published a story of the Declaration of the Bab as a part of the Dawnbreakers Stories Series, and that she would send us copies with which to study this early history together.
Meg was at this time studying with us on Bradley Street in Dubuque, on Wednesdays. Come rain, snow, or shine, she came. Sometimes our doorbell rang at 10:00 p.m.! Javidukht’s book, a condensed narrative describing the birth and heroic earliest Days of this Baha’i Era, arrived and we opened it for shared reading at our study session. One Wednesday evening we opened this gift to continue the story of the Declaration of the Bab. Meg’s turn was to read aloud how, on May 22, 1844, the Bab announced to a brilliant young students named Mulla Husayn that He was the Promised One of God, the chosen Qa’im prophesied in the Quran and all the holy scriptures. She read of Mulla Husayn’s state of ecstasy, after the hours of enchantment of taking in the Bab’s first revealed script called, “Commentary of the Surah of Joseph.” Mulla Husayn yearned to shout the news of the Bab’s declaration “I am, I am, I am the Promised One!” Knowing his quest for the Promised One was fulfilled, he “felt possessed of such courage and power that were the world and power that were world and its potentates to ride against me, I would, alone and undaunted, withstand their onslaught!” And there and then, in our small home in Dubuque, with light rain tapping on our windows, an explosion occurred! Meg burst out with a clarity of voice we hardly recognized. “I must declare!” said Meg. “I MUST declare!” She repeated. Dear God, I weep now writing this down for the memory of it! She meant of course that she must declare her faith in Baha’u’llah to the community to which she had pledged her life — the old established order of St. Francis on Rhomberg Street in Dubuque, Iowa.
This was in 1996, five years after her declaration of faith in Baha’u’llah at the home of the McDowells. In this euphoria of joy Meg did speak to the Convent Council president, gently but confidently declaring her intention to enter “exclaustration,” which is living independently from community, because of accepting Baha’u’llah as the Manifestation of God for this age. The president listened and arranged her to visit a psychiatrist. She was counseled and, upon the conclusion of this psychiatrist, told she had, metaphorically, two doors. One would effectively detain her, by authority of the Church, for her own psychological and spiritual safety. She could disregard this option and leave, but without any compensation and under a cloud of unpleasant severance. The other, offered at the discretion of the sister-psychiatrist, would be freedom for Meg to live as her conscience dictated, with monetary severance and unbroken, continued friendship with the Order. The waiting period for the psychiatrist’s decision would be two weeks, followed by a final interview.
The final interview was scheduled early one morning. Meg called us, somewhat breathless, to say, “Start praying for me now, I am going in!” Our family gathered in the living room and with help of a huge power from the Abha realm, recited The Tablet of Ahmad to a pitch I could not control! It was exhilarating! At the end of this prayer, husband John pointed to a sight outside our second-floor windows. It was a kite flying untethered, bobbing up and down the street. It caught our eye and we dashed to the window to watch as the winds kept it swooping up and down, as if the kite was dancing! The wind suddenly shifted and turned the kite 180* around to repeat its free flight back down our street. Oh wild, that confirmation! Her guardian angels were so surely with her! Almost immediately, Meg phoned and said it was over and went well. The psychiatrist had said she respected Meg’s decision, adding that she was fit mentally and spiritually to manage her affairs wherever her decision would take her. Meg’s mood was serious (naturally) but ours was jubilant! I rushed to tell her what we just had witnessed moments prior. She caught our joy and gave us one of her famous guffaws, which she possesses to this day. It makes everyone laugh when she laughs.
During the two-week waiting period Meg wrote letters to her sisters and to the Monsignor of Dubuque, proclaiming her belief in Baha’u’llah as the Divine Revelatory Manifestation of Truth for this age and explaining her decision to leave the Convent. These letters accompany this story. Seeds they are, waiting for a future inevitable germination, flowering, and harvest!
Meg had a “perfect for her” position waiting for her in Saginaw Michigan. THE AMERICAN BAHA’I had carried an appeal like a “help wanted” ad, asking for a companion for a Baha’i, Professor Mardy (Marilyn) Oeming, who had suffered a stroke and wished for a Baha’i to be a helper to her. The McDowells took Meg to meet her and they got along beautifully, so her immediate future looked good in a practical way, as well as a Baha’i way of experiencing the vitality of active Baha’i community life and deepening the spiritual resonance within her. Surely whole Concourse on High was cheering this outcome!
Many were the confirmations of Meg’s finding this Baha’i Faith. Caring for Mardy Oeming in Saginaw was a joy for both, and in the course of this time she was invited to accompany another dependent Baha’i, along with Mardy, on a short pilgrimage trip to the Holy Land as well as to the Canary Islands and on to Switzerland and Landegg Academy. Back home in Saginaw, she became a favorite guest at Louhelen. At some point, Meg returned to Iowa to assist Mary McDowell with health difficulties before her passing. At age 84, Meg married Stash Yacolt. The couple later divorced.
At this time, June 19, 2022, she is living in a hospice facility hospice in Saginaw and is looked after with great affection by Baha’is in the surrounding communities. Meg had two books published, through a friend’s support for some of her writings that teach about the Faith and its themes, especially regarding racism and its solution through embracing the guidance of Baha’u’llah. Her paintings and Baha’i themed posters now adorn her care home walls, attracting staff and visitors alike to appreciate and talk about them. She is still in touch with her sisters and the Council at the Convent, regularly. And she still studies with our small group by phone regularly! Meg never forgets her group call for morning prayer, at which she recites the Tablet of Ahmad every call. She reads well. We all exult for the privilege of hearing her voice. This is what it means to be honored.
