Flower-Pots for the Shrine
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When in Bahá'í history
Bahjí (today: Bahjí, near Acre, Israel)
“‘Abdu’l-Bahá used to come on foot two miles in the heat carrying flower-pots on His shoulders. He was an old, old man with white hair and white beard and He used to carry these flower-pots to the tomb of Bahá’u’lláh from one of the gardens in order to plant them near the tomb of His Father. There was a pump on the side of the wall of the tomb of Bahá’u’lláh in the old days, one of those hand-pumps that you have to handle. I heard that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá used to stand, as an old man, and pump water until from standing against the wall and working He was so stiff He could not walk away from it. Once they had to come and lift Him away from the wall and rub His legs until the circulation came back. And they said ‘Why do you tire yourself so, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá?’ He said ‘What can I do for Bahá’u’lláh?’”
Rúḥíyyih Khánum spoke these words while on her travels in India.
Source: Annamarie Honnold, Vignettes from the Life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 167
Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: exhaustion).
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