Dorothy Baker's Prayer Before Speaking
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Almost regardless of the location or the audience, Dorothy Baker opened her talks by reading a prayer aloud. She kept this habit her whole life. Even in the middle of a formal speech Dorothy would occasionally close her eyes for a long moment to pray. Before approaching the platform she often said this prayer revealed by Bahá’u’lláh:
Praise be to Thee, O Lord my God, for guiding me unto the horizon of Thy Revelation and for causing me to be mentioned by Thy Name. I beseech Thee, by the spreading rays of the Daystar of Thy providence and by the billowing waves of the Ocean of Thy mercy, to grant that my speech may bear a trace of the influence of Thine own exalted Word, attracting thereby the realities of all created things. Powerful art Thou to do what Thou willest through Thy wondrous and incomparable Utterance.
Source: Dorothy Freeman, From Copper to Gold: The Life of Dorothy Baker, p. 184. The book gives an earlier translation of the prayer; it appears here in the authorized translation published in Additional Prayers Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh.
Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: speech).
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