The Bahá’í World
Volume 2 : 1926-1928
energy that will sweep the cargoes of these glad-tidings round the world; to remain without one moment's cessation so poised in God as to be completely naturalized into His attributes—these are some of the characteristics that make of Shoghi Effendi the unique and outstanding figure of our time. And this without reference to his surpassing mental capacities that mark this spiritually superb person as a penetrating thinker and brilliant executive. The world, its politics, social relationships, economic situations, schemes, plans, aspirations, programs, defeats, successes, lie under his scrutiny like infusoria beneath a microscope.
Infusoria share with men the dramatic fact that sensory devices and motor devices occur side by side in living things; which means if we don’t like the kind of world we’re living in we can, through the divine reinforcements that Bahá’u’lláh has dispatched to us in this gifted century, make an entirely different world of it, sane, joyous and noble. Shoghi Effendi is the Commander-in-chief of this great new army of faith and strength that is moving forth to vanquish the malevolent forces of life.
Tomorrow is the day of parting. For weeks I have looked forward with a kind of hollow sickness to this moment, wondering what device God might use in order to give me the strength to say goodbye. The moment is here and with it, ecstatic happiness! Through a quiet miracle the situation was saved by that radiant being, lent us from heaven, the Master’s wife (Munírih Khánum). “You should be very happy,” she said, her lovely face aglow with sincerity, “for you have the opportunity to go out into the world and give to others these glad-tidings of the Kingdom of God.” Then a great peace poured into my soul.
It had seemed to me on leaving America that I came to Haifa as a blank page ready to be written upon with the language of the spirit. But one conversation with Shoghi Effendi, casual, impersonal, over the luncheon table, showed me that I was a mountain of dogmas, preconceptions, inflexibilities, and nonsense: In the nine weeks at Haifa, however, the predispositions of a lifetime vanished! I had always had vaulting spiritual ambitions ! I had wanted to see and to know what Frances, Catherine, Theresa saw and knew. But when I knelt in prayer before the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, I hadn’t the smallest concern in this earth whether I ever knew anything or saw anything beyond the burning fact that God has kept His Covenant with Us, and that only as human beings grasp this conception and seize this unparalleled opportunity can we enter into the fullness of His Promises. For the first time in my life I was empty—and at peace.
SECOND SERIES OF SKETCHES
IT IS Ramadan, the month of fasting. From the moment when it is light enough to distinguish a black thread from a white one, the Muslim must abstain from food until the sun has set. A gun booms from the Mosque announcing the official departure of the orb of day.
How gratifying it is to the human heart to be able to find those substitutes for self-effacement and sacrifice, which are the primal command of every great religious Teacher. To repeat set prayers, to fast, to give alms, to wear sack-cloth and tonsure—how man delights to offer these external evidences of devotion while retaining all the scheming privacies of the heart.
Muḥammadan nations follow the lunar calendar, so that there is a continual rotation of anniversaries. (For instance, the martyrdom of the Bab which we always commemorate on the ninth of July, is commemorated in Haifa this year on March thirteenth.) Thus the fast month is continually changing for the Muslim. If it fall in winter, it is not so difficult.
