Thirty Minutes at the Station

A retelling for children, based on Mahmúd's Diary (entry for the Spokane stop, October 1912).

It was autumn, and a long train was rolling westward across America, carrying 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the friends who traveled with Him. One of those friends, a man named Mírzá Maḥmúd, kept a careful diary of everything that happened along the way. This is one of the small things he wrote down.

The train was going to stop in a city called Spokane, in Washington — but only for about thirty minutes. It wasn't a real visit. The train simply needed fresh water and a new crew, and then it would move on. Spokane wasn't even printed on the list of places where 'Abdu'l-Bahá was supposed to stop and speak. To almost everyone on board, it was just another quick pause on a very long journey.

But thirty minutes can be enough, if you are paying attention.

In Spokane there lived a small handful of Bahá'ís — only a few. Friends in another city, Minneapolis, had sent them a telegram with exciting news: the Master's train was going to pass right through their town. So the little group did the only thing they could. They gathered up armfuls of flowers, hurried down to the Great Northern Railway station, and stood waiting on the platform. There were perhaps seven or eight of them, watching the tracks, hoping.

Then the great train came hissing and squealing to a stop.

Now, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had His own private car, with comfortable seats and a warm place to rest. He could easily have stayed inside and let the friends peek in to say hello through the window. No one would have thought it strange. The stop was so short, and He had traveled so very far.

Instead, He came down the steps Himself, out onto the open platform, to meet them where they stood.

And He was in no hurry at all. He walked the whole length of the platform with the little group beside Him, taking the flowers they had brought. One by one, He stopped in front of each person. Where He knew their name, He spoke their name. Where someone hadn't been introduced to Him yet, He spoke to them anyway, asking after them, making sure not a single one was passed by. In a crowd, it is the easiest thing in the world to be overlooked. On that platform, no one was.

By now other travelers were watching too. About fifty people who happened to be at the station — most of them not Bahá'ís at all — had stopped to see what the gathering was about. So, standing right there in the open air, 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke to them all for a little while. He talked about the teachings of God spreading into this new part of the country. He told them that this corner of the land would one day matter a great deal. And He told them that each believer should be, right in his own neighborhood, a fountain of mercy — someone from whom kindness flows out to everyone nearby, like water from a spring.

Then the train whistle blew. Time was up.

'Abdu'l-Bahá blessed the Spokane friends, climbed back up the steps into His car, and the train rolled away westward into the autumn evening. Mírzá Maḥmúd noticed something then: several of the women stayed standing on the platform, watching, with tears on their faces, long after the train had disappeared from sight.

The visit had lasted only half an hour. The group had been tiny. Only a few words had been spoken. And yet, for the rest of their lives, those friends remembered it — the day the Master chose to step down from His own quiet car to walk a station platform with them, one by one.

Here is the gentle thing to remember. 'Abdu'l-Bahá did not save His love only for the big planned gatherings with great crowds. He gave it fully even in thirty borrowed minutes, to a handful of people standing by a railway track. No moment was too small, and no person too few, to be worth all of His attention.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Spokane: A Brief Stop on the Northern Route".

Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání, M.. (1998). *Mahmúd's Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání*. George Ronald.