Paint My Servitude to God

A retelling based on The Diary of Juliet Thompson (Kalimát Press; entries from April to July 1912). The narrative is retold in our own words; the lines in quotation marks are verbatim from the Diary. Read the full text for Juliet's own account.

Juliet Thompson was a painter in New York. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá arrived in America in April 1912, she learned that on the night before He landed Mrs Gibbons had received a Tablet from Him that said: "On My arrival in America Miss Juliet Thompson shall paint a wonderful portrait of Me." In Washington, after a small act of obedience on her part, He asked her, "Would you like to come up and paint Me tomorrow?" The light in the house where she was to paint was poor, and she asked whether He would pose for her in New York instead. He agreed.

In New York He asked her, "Can you paint Me in a half hour?" She could never finish a head in less than two weeks. He promised her three half hours and told her to come to Him on Saturday morning, 1 June, at seven-thirty.

He was waiting for her in the entrance hall, a small space in the English basement of the house where He was staying, where little light came in. Juliet always painted standing, but there was so little distance between them that she had to sit, jammed close to the window. She had brought a canvas for a life-size head. The Master sat in a dark corner, and she wondered how she could paint His Face. Then He said:

I want you to paint My Servitude to God.

"Oh my Lord," she cried, "only the Holy Spirit could paint Your Servitude to God. No human hand could do it. Pray for me, or I am lost. I implore You, inspire me."

"I will pray," He answered, "and as you are doing this only for the sake of God, you will be inspired."

All fear, she wrote, fell away from her. By the end of the half hour the foundation of the head was done.

On 11 June, after a morning when He had seemed utterly spent, Juliet met Him on her way to the bus as He returned alone from the strip of park by the river. He stopped her, took her hand, and smiled at her "with indescribable tenderness." Then He said:

Come tomorrow and paint, Juliet.

The fourth sitting was on 19 June. Juliet had just begun to work, with Lua Getsinger sitting on a couch nearby, when the Master smiled at her, then turned to Lua and said in Persian that this made Him sleepy. Juliet asked Lua to tell Him that if He would like to take a nap, she could work while He slept. But she found that she could not paint. What she saw then, she wrote, was too sacred.

He sat for her six times in all. At the last sitting, in His own room on the top floor, Juliet was looking at the portrait and wondering what more she could do, when He rose from His chair and said, "It is finished."

The portrait no longer exists, except in a photograph.

A retelling based on The Diary of Juliet Thompson. For the fuller account, see the original.

Thompson, J.. (1947). *The Diary of Juliet Thompson*. Kalimát Press. https://bahai-library.com/thompson_diary