Course: The Advent of Divine Justice 2021
Faculty Mentor: Sherna Deamer
Susan Patera, a Bahá’í for five decades, lives in Deerfield, Wisconsin, just outside Madison, the state’s capitol and home to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Susan has now completed seven of the Wilmette Institute’s extension courses. Here are her comments on her latest completion, The Advent of Divine Justice.
I feel that I have accomplished my goals laid out in my Personal Learning Plan. However, my understanding, deepening, and sharing of The Advent of Divine Justice will be ongoing.
Among my understandings and insights are these:
*Realizing what it must have been like for the early believers, and discovering the amazing courage and devotion to the Bahá’í Faith that the early believers had to have had in order to leave their homes and pioneer to far-off lands to teach the Faith.
*Coming to understand the successive stages in the development of the Faith and the advancement of some of them since 1938.
*Revisiting the prerequisites for success in teaching and in living a Bahá’í life, and also being reminded of their importance in our current and future teaching activities.
I feel I have renewed hope and comfort by revisiting the words and being reminded of “the manifold perplexities and problems afflicting humanity” and how this time of confusion in the world is okay and (was) is expected. I feel like I have acquired a renewed energy just in time for the new Nine Year Plan. I want to read and reread The Advent of Divine Justice as it has moved me deeply and to engage in discussion and study with members of my community.
With this study of The Advent of Divine Justice, I have deepened my values and beliefs, largely influenced by the condition in which our world currently finds itself. With the new Plan coming, I think the words of Shoghi Effendi in The Advent of Divine Justice will serve to guide and inspire us in our society-building endeavors going forward.
