Practical Spirituality

In 1993, on her way to the Center for the first time, Geri Craddock stopped by Sheriar Bookstore. There, while browsing, her eyes fell on pictures of Elizabeth Patterson and Mani S. Irani. She did not know these women but felt an instant connection with them. She went on to buy the pictures and off she went to the first place she ever called home.

Geri Craddock is the HR Manager and Finance Officer at the Center. She is astute, upbeat and precise. As staff members, I realized that we all knew how well Geri can get a job done, but none of us really knew her Baba story. Before I chatted with Geri, she said to me that she does not have a story. I begged to differ.

She grew up in many places across the country. Her father was in the military and by fourth grade she had lived in eleven places! Due to such a transient presence in any given place, Geri went to church but never stuck around. “As a child I was always excited to go to church expecting to see God, but He wasn’t there,” says Geri. This intrinsic search of a child transformed into a desire to read about different world regions and traditions for her.

On this ongoing journey, one day Geri found a pamphlet on the floor at a Natural Foods expo in the D.C. area. “I like things to be neat. So, I bent down and picked up the pamphlet. It was Meher Baba’s “Universal Message.” I recognized Him immediately. But simultaneously I said to myself, ‘I am not ready for that.’”

Geri took the pamphlet home with her and tucked it away. Two years later, she was talking to a person she admired very much. Suddenly, she felt the need to say, “You know something I want to know, but you are not telling me!” Indeed, the woman knew something, something that would lead Geri back to Meher Baba. The woman replied, “If I could read one book in my life, it would be Discourses by Meher Baba.” Geri went out and bought a copy of the Discourses. “I realized it was a substantial read. I put the pamphlet and the book under my pillow to absorb it through osmosis,” laughs Geri.

In 1992, about a year after finding Baba’s Discourses, Geri was attending a meeting with a women’s group. “All of a sudden, I felt Baba next to my shoulder and He kissed me on the cheek,” says Geri as a matter of fact. How often does one who does not think she has a story, get kissed by Baba? Was that when she believed He was God? “No,” she says swiftly, “I knew He was God when I first picked up the ‘Universal Message.’”

Two weeks later, Geri found a periodical titled, Fellowship in Prayer. In the periodical was an article written by the editor who had been invited by Bill and Peggy Stevens to stay at Meher Center for two weeks. Geri had never heard of the Center before. Now there was a place associated with Baba that she had to visit.

In April of 1993, just a few months after her discovery of the Center, she arrived at the Center with her newly bought pictures of Elizabeth and Mani. “I stayed in Cabin-on-the Hill and did not want to leave. For the very first time, I had found a place that felt like home,” she says. The next day, Geri was invited to have tea with Jane Barry Haynes, the then President of the Center. Jane asked her, “Now dear, what do you do for work?” When Geri replied that she worked for Marsh McLennan, Jane said, “Did you know Elizabeth Patterson was the very first female broker for Marsh McLennan?” This information warmed Geri’s heart and deepened her bond with Elizabeth.

There was no more looking back for Geri. She was deep in Baba’s fold. On her next visit to the Center, she met her husband-to-be, Jeff. After they married, they lived in the D.C. area for seventeen years, where they participated in and hosted Baba gatherings.

In 2010 Geri and Jeff moved to Myrtle Beach. She joined the board at Meher Center and helped the Center in different volunteer capacities, until Baba called her to be staff at the Center in 2015. Like a true Karma yogi, she says, “I like to work. I am a worker bee. Work is my way to Him. When I first started working at the Center, I could see how each job I had ever had, prepared me for working here one day.”

What I found interesting about our chat was that while at work, she is methodical, extremely practical with a lawyer-like mind, in her relationship with Baba and her inner life, she does not use a conscious process to arrive at things. Geri relies on intuition and uses it every day in her life and work. She practices Karma Yoga without even knowing it. “I need to put in the effort, but results are always His.” How then does she integrate her lesser known but very active intuitive side with the biddings of her practical side? “I make plans with the willingness to turn on a dime. If they don’t work out, I move to whatever door opens.”

She has loved working at Dilruba – the home of Elizabeth Patterson. After having worked there for some years now, what does she feel about her initial connection with Elizabeth? “Perhaps our temperaments were similar,” she guesses. As for Mani, Geri was present at Mani’s funeral and having met her, although only once, she was deeply moved by Mani’s presence.

It is hard not to notice Geri’s positivity, something that Mani exuded as well. “I decided a long time ago to not be “garlic faced” as Baba called it. There is no reason to wreck somebody else’s day if I am having a bad day. I work on choosing the positive way of looking at things. I don’t wallow in anything anymore,” she confesses. I am sure Elizabeth and Mani would agree with that!