hospitality

On September 13, 1911, in His first weeks in London, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed a small gathering at the home of Mrs. Thornburgh-Cropper. He spoke of the meeting itself as a mirror reflecting the Concourse on High — a quiet declaration that what mattered there was not earthly but heavenly.

A short paraphrase from the Baha'i Stories Blog about a brief encounter on a Chicago streetcar: the Master, traveling in the ordinary way among ordinary people, and the small Bahá'í child who recognised Him before her mother did.

A short paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on 'Abdu'l-Bahá's particular love for the flowers that pilgrims brought Him in 'Akká, His unhurried inspection of each, and His habit of asking the giver to name the flower in their own language.

A short paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive: 'Abdu'l-Bahá's particular love for children, His habit of stopping in the street to greet them, and His insistence that the youngest of His visitors be received with the same gravity He gave to ambassadors.

A short paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on the daily evening walks of 'Abdu'l-Bahá along the slopes of Mount Carmel — the small habitual route, the people of every faith who would join the procession, and the steady greeting He gave to each.

A short paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on the small recurring scene of 'Abdu'l-Bahá visiting Western pilgrims who fell ill in 'Akká, sitting at the bedside until the fever passed, and writing personally to the family at home.

A short paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on the characteristic shape of the dining table in the household of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 'Akká: every visitor at the same level, no servants treated as inferior, the Master Himself rising to refill the cup of any guest who needed it.

A short story for children, paraphrased from the Baha'i Stories for Children blog: a small stray puppy that wandered into the Master's garden in 'Akká, the bowl of milk He set out, and the puppy that stayed for the rest of its life.

Esslemont's account of the Nineteen Day Feast — the gathering on the first day of each Bahá'í month that combines devotional readings, community consultation, and joyful fellowship — and 'Abdu'l-Bahá's instruction that every blessed day should leave "tangible philanthropic or ideal traces" reaching all mankind.

Mahmúd's Diary records a brief stop in Baltimore in November 1912 — chiefly a day of rest in transit between Washington and New York, but with a small evening reception at the home of one of the city's three Bahá'í families.

Mahmúd's Diary records 'Abdu'l-Bahá's days in Boston in late July and August 1912, including His talk at the Free Religious Association and the unusually warm reception of Boston's Unitarian ministers. Boston, the city of Emerson and the Transcendentalists, recognised in the Master a kindred root.

Mahmúd's Diary records that on the journey from Chicago to Washington in early November 1912, the Master's train made a long change of cars at Cincinnati. Word had been telegraphed ahead. A small group of Ohio believers came to the station for the hour the train was held there.

Mahmúd's Diary preserves the final weeks of July and the opening weeks of August 1912, when 'Abdu'l-Bahá retired from the cities of the East Coast to the small artists' colony at Dublin, New Hampshire. The mornings were spent in dictation; the afternoons in walks through pine and fir; and the evenings in talks for the summer residents who came up the road to listen.

Mahmúd's Diary records that during the New York stays of 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá would occasionally direct His carriage to the small Syrian-Lebanese quarter of Lower Manhattan, where He would dine in modest immigrant restaurants and speak Arabic with the proprietors and patrons.

Mahmúd's Diary records a brief stop in Kansas City on the westward leg of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's American tour — a small reception arranged at short notice by friends from the Missouri-Kansas border who had heard the Master would pass through.

Mahmúd's Diary preserves, alongside the public talks, the ordinary domestic hours of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's American journey: the meals He ate, the way He served the friends with His own hand, the laughter He brought to a tired room, the way He cleared the table afterwards.

Mahmúd's Diary records 'Abdu'l-Bahá's brief visit to Minneapolis and St. Paul on September 19-20, 1912, including a public talk at the Plymouth Congregational Church and an evening meeting with the small but devoted Bahá'í community of the Twin Cities.

Mahmúd's Diary records a brief station stop at Spokane, Washington, on the northern transcontinental route taken by the Master's party in October 1912 — a small group of friends meeting the train and a brief exchange in the station hall.

Mahmúd's Diary records that on May 22, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá visited Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, at the invitation of its president, G. Stanley Hall. He delivered an address to the faculty and students on the order of being and the unity of all truth.

In *Portals to Freedom* Howard Colby Ives describes a Sunday afternoon in 1912 when 'Abdu'l-Bahá received the believers in a small New Jersey garden — and the way the smell of lilies, the ordinary furniture of the house, and the laughter of children combined into what Ives later called the *fragrance* of the Cause.

In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes a small ritual at the family table in 'Akká: Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, would spoon a small bite from her own plate — *the mouthful of Khánum* — to one of the grandchildren, and the grandchildren would watch for whose turn it was.

In *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* Mr. Furutan preserves the household recollection of the small house in Baghdád where Bahá'u'lláh lived in the 1850s — and the standing instruction He had given the family that no one who came to the door, of any creed or condition, was ever to be sent away without food.

In June 1917 the Star of the West announced the year's summer gatherings at Green Acre, the Maine retreat founded by Sarah Farmer, and recalled 'Abdu'l-Bahá's praise of the place as a *free and unrestricted platform* for the meeting of religious and spiritual seekers of every background.

In the August 1915 issue of the Star of the West, the editors surveyed the program of the Green Acre Bahá'í summer school at Eliot, Maine — the gathering that, since Sarah Farmer's gift of the property, had become the principal summer institution of the American Bahá'í community.

In 1920 the Star of the West printed Genevieve Coy's pilgrimage notes from her stay with 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Haifa — one of the small group of Western believers who reached the Master in the months after the war ended and found Him still in His house on the slope of Mount Carmel.

Julia Grundy's pilgrim notes preserve the small ceremonial details of a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí — the shoes left at the door, the long Persian rugs underfoot, the kneeling at the marble threshold, and the tea served afterward by the women of the household.

In her 1905 pilgrim notes Julia Grundy preserves a meal at the Master's table — His Eastern way of eating with the fingers, His easy explanation to Western visitors, and His turning of the moment into a teaching about the food that brings life and the food that does not.