It was a cool autumn Sunday, in Okinawa. The five little children had just been to the big amusement park with Mother and Father, and they were all in the van, going home. The children were still very excited, and pretty tired! The disagreement started small, over some little thing, but suddenly Riaz and Shahla were screaming at each other. “Face it Shahla, you are a girl, and you will never be as strong, and fast and smart as me! I am a boy!”
“Well, that just shows how stupid you are Riaz!” Shahla yelled back. “Girls are smarter, and faster, and more kind, and gentle and talented, and smarter….” “You said smarter already,” said Mona with a smile. “Well that’s because they are double smarter!” shouted Shahla. Mona and Asma just looked at each other and laughed. Little Anisa didn’t like it when her siblings fought, so she was about to cry. Mother turned around from the front seat and said, “What is this nonsense?” Little Anisa summarized. “Riri says boys are better and Shali says girls are better.”
Mother turned to Mona and Asma and asked, “Well, what do you two have to say about this?” Asma answered proudly “Baha’u’llah says men and women are equal.” “Yes,” added Mona. “Baha’u’llah explained that we are souls. Our bodies are just like the clothes our souls wear. So if we are a boy, or a girl, it is just the jacket of ‘boy’, or the jacket of ‘girl’ that our soul is wearing. Our soul isn’t either one!” “Very good, Mona!” Mother praised. “So if we are male or female, smart or talented, or tall or beautiful, handicapped…..whatever our outward body or brain is like, it is just our ‘jacket’.” “And we didn’t have any choice in what we got either,” added Asma. “We didn’t get to choose if we were born white, or black, or Asian….or ‘Half!’!!” (The children often had a hard time in school for not being pure Japanese.) “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter, Asma, because we are just going to wear this ‘jacket’ for a little while. Just while we are here on this earth,” Mona added.
“Ohhh, I get it!” shouted Riaz. “It’s like the rides we were just on! Shahla complained because the car that arrived when it was her turn to get on the roller coaster was blue, and she wanted the one before it that had been pink! She didn’t have a choice which car she rode on, but I told her, ‘don’t worry about it, the roller coaster is fun no matter what the outside of the car looks like, either way, the ride is over too soon!’” Father laughingly said from the driver’s seat, “That really does sound like life!” Everyone laughed at that. “Yeah, people always seem to be dissatisfied with the body that they got. Or embarrassed by it. But none of us had a choice! We shouldn’t be embarrassed if our hair isn’t black and straight,” Mona said, and Shahla nodded her head in agreement. (Both of them sometimes felt bad because their hair was different from their friends at school.) “So if someone is deaf, or blind, or maybe can’t walk, those are still only the cars they ride in for a short time,” added Mother. “And we shouldn’t make fun of someone at school if they are not smart. They just got a bad car,” said Riaz. “And we shouldn’t be too proud of ourselves if we are especially good at something, like math or music. We just got a good car,” said Asma. “And some people try hard to change their car. They have black hair and they dye it or perm it,” said Mona. “Or some women wear too much makeup to try and repaint their car!” put in little Anisa, and everyone laughed. “Some girls try and act like boys, dressing and acting like them,” said Riaz, looking right at Shahla, the tomboy. Shahla stuck her tongue out at Riaz and said, “I saw on T.V. some boys trying to dress and act like girls, too!” Mother summarized by saying, “So each of us has a soul that needs to grow stronger and stronger, and gain more and more attributes like love, kindness, and compassion. So we should all concentrate on growing our soul and not spend too much time worrying about what our body looks like, right?
“Right!” the children all agreed. “Don’t worry about the car…have fun on the ride ‘cause it finishes really fast! Got it!” summed up Riaz. And everyone laughed. “And be careful not to think bad thoughts about anyone because of how they look or even how smart they are…. They had no choice, and they are working hard to grow their soul,” added Mona.
“Yeah, I bet when someone has a faulty car, like a handicap of not being able to hear, or see, or not being so smart, their soul grows more, because they have to work so much harder. So in the next world they will probably be much better off than we are!” put in Asma, wisely. Everyone nodded in agreement. Mother finished with, “Helping others is the best way to grow our souls, so we should make sure to help as many people as we can, whenever we can. Whether we know them or not.”
The children all nodded in agreement. Just then Father drove the car into the family’s driveway. As the children got out of the car, Riaz said, smiling brightly, “Shahla, you want to have a race to see which one of our ‘cars’ is faster? If your ‘car’ isn’t as fast as mine, it isn’t your fault, it was just the ‘car’ you were born with.” “HA!” answered Shahla. “I will race you to the end of the block: ready, set, GO!” And off the two of them went. The rest of the family laughing, gathered the family’s things from the car and went into the house. As Mona and Asma helped their parents, Asma sighed, and mumbled “Those two managed to get out of helping, again!”