The Wedding of Grace & Harlan Ober
On July 17th, Harlan Ober and Grace Robarts were married in the presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Earl Redman’s book on the Master’s travels recounts the event in these words: …the friends gathered at ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s house at 309 West 78th St for the usual […]
2012
Home Visits
Mahmud recounts that on July 11th the friends gathered in the home of Juliet Thompson: “`Abdu’l-Bahá encouraged them to hold as many meetings as possible. `Promise each other’, He said, `to visit one another’s homes so that it may be […]
Biography: Sachiro Fujita
Sachiro Fujita first saw ‘Abdu’l-Bahá from a Chicago lamp post that he had climbed in order to see over the crowd. When the Master saw him He said, “Come down Zachias, for this day I would sup with thee” and […]
A Beauty of Stature
On April 3rd, 1912 Mahmúd wrote: Our American friends requested that the Master ask us, the Persians, to alter our attire to suit the circumstances of the time and place, changing everything except our Persian hats and coats. He replied, `What […]
2012
The Master and the World of Nature
In the spirit of spring, here are two vignettes about the Master and nature. The first takes place in the Swiss countryside and Juliet Thompson is its narrator: We passed fertile hills, covered with vines and corn or fruit trees; […]
2012
Ali Yazdi’s Recollections of Ramleh
I recently came across a thin book called Blessings Beyond Measure: Recollections of `Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. It contains the memoirs of Ali Yazdi who was only 11 at the time of the Master’s second stay in Egypt. It is delightful […]
2012
Biography: Keith Ransom-Kehler
Thousands must have met Him. There must have been hundreds upon hundreds who sought an audience with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who interviewed Him, who were given a coin, candy or flower from Him, or who witnessed Him in passing. It is not […]
2012
Food for Thought
I will unabashedly admit that I think about food a lot in the days before the Fast. Recently I have been thinking about food and the Master. One of my favorite stories is of Lua Getsinger purposely trampling through poison ivy […]
2012
The Generosity of the Master
Detachment from personal wealth paired with generosity to others are twin virtues demonstrated by the Master throughout His life and there are legions of stories on the subject. Juliet Thompson recounts the following of His visit to Switzerland: Just as […]
2012
Discourse and Distribution
At the time of the Master’s travels the western believers had little access to the Writings of the Báb or Bahá’u’lláh. The last page of some issues of “Star of the West” list the literature available for sale in 1911: […]