Remembering Dan Seals, Haifa, Israel 1996

In March 1996 I went on my Baha'i pilgrimage to Haifa, Israel with Roshan and Rahmat, then in their teens. On the same pilgrimage was Dan Seals (Jimmy Seal's younger brother) and Dan's family. Every evening of those marvelous and ethereal nine days, our pilgrimage group was graced with an informal visit by one of the members of the Universal House of Justice or a Counsellor member of the International Teaching Centre. On one of the last evenings, our special guest was Donald Rogers, Counsellor member of the International Teaching Center. Counsellor Rogers was a Canadian and a superb artist. When he arrived for his informal time with us, he asked if it would be all right with us to enjoy some music and stories from Dan Seals, and the floor was given to Dan. (Dan was one of the rock/country duo, England Dan and John Ford Coley. He passed away in 2009.) Dan graciously accepted and shared about his recent trip to Vietnam as part of the US artist exchange tour arranged with the Government of Vietnam. Dan emotionally spoke of seeing the remains of a church that had been bombed by the US and the loss of so many lives in fruitless wars.

When asked how he became a Baha'i, Dan shared growing up in Texas with his mother, when they received a message from Jimmy, who was doing music with Dash Croft in California. The message included that Jimmy had become a Baha'i. Dan's mother felt alarmed by the news and told Dan that he must go and get his brother out of what she worried was a fanatical cult. The short version of the story was that Dan went to rescue his brother from that cult and, instead, returned to Texas a Baha'i himself. Dan performed two of his songs dedicated to the Baha'i Faith: The Prisoner and We are One, plus some lively songs, too.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-n8sPkE6gE

https://www.nme.com/.../jim-seals-of-seals-and-crofts...

 

Some of our pilgrimage group at the Garden of Ridván, March 1996. Dan Seals is seated in the back row, left side.