“To me it was going home. I knew the ancient Iranian history pretty well. I knew every capital of Iran, from before Cyrus, all of it to modern time. But I always noticed that in my society, at least for myself, there is a dichotomy - being a Muslim and being Iranian, because as a Muslim, they preach Islam is first, and it got worse with the revolution in Iran.

They preached that before Islam came Iran was barbarian. Persians were barbarians. Further all the achievements there was no civilization. They came and rescued Iranians from barbarianism. But even before the revolution I felt this dichotomy. Am I Iranian or Muslim? When I got to know Zoroastrians I wasn't looking for spirituality to save myself and to get to know God. I just wanted to find my identity. And then I became Zoroastrian and found my identity. It was my ancestors religion and it is nothing that puts shackles on my my ankles. I'm not going to give submission to especially to a priest, and I have a lot of respect for priests in our community. As I supported having a priest, we are training a new priest, and I was big on supporting that in the last four years. I support that, but still, I'm not going to submit to a priest, whether Islamic priests, Christian priests or Zoroastrian priests.

It's my identity and it's my culture and Zoroastrianism, to me, is a modern religion. It’s an ancient religion.

I found myself. That's going back to my roots. Of course, spirituality is important. Good thoughts, good words, good deeds is critical to being a human being. But being a human being is spiritual but it's also cultural. It’s also maybe political, all of that together. So that's where I come from. I found home, both spiritual and cultural.”

Zarir P Khademian / Chevy Chase, MD