Once, when I thought it would be my last opportunity to meet with Cora Schulte, an elderly member of the Topeka Bahá’í community, I resolved to ask her questions about her experiences. She had entered the Bahá’í community in 1939, a couple years before her husband, Art, and had been very active into the 1980s, the time of this visit. Art had died and she was now living with her son several hundred miles away. I was on a vacation trip with my family.
When we arrived at their house, and I saw her frail condition. Considering the high active level of my young children, I instantly knew the interview I wanted was impossible. There was a surprise in store for me though. I didn’t ask her questions, but she offered information that stunned me.
“You know,” she casually stated. “We were told when you were born.”
“Then,” I replied in one of the rare moments when I could make a joke, “you were warned!”
“No, no, no,” she waved her hand dismissing my silly implication. “Dan Davis told Art at the office.”
That stunned me. Dan Davis, I knew, was the husband of the woman who had employed my father’s mother before she had married in the 1920’s. My birth was thirty years later. The families had remained in touch even to the time of this conversation in the 1980s. We were like extended family. I didn’t know there was any connection between them and any Bahá’ís. I certainly never dreamt that my birth would have been office news!
Art had certainly told Cora, or she would not have known. Knowing Cora, as I had for decades by then, I was sure she would very likely have said prayers for this new baby. And she would very likely have mentioned this to other ladies in the Topeka Bahá’í community. I personally knew several of them. All would have willing joined in praying for this baby. There are many Bahá’í prayers revealed specially for the benefit of children. Had those prayers helped and assisted me in ways I was unaware?
Bahá’ís are given assurance that they do.
“Intone, O My servants, the verses of God that have been received by thee, as intoned by them who have drawn nigh unto Him, that the sweetness of thy melody may kindle thine own soul, and attract the hearts of all men. Whose reciteth, in the privacy of his chamber, the verses revealed by God, the scattering angels of the Almighty shall scatter abroad the fragrance of the words uttered by his mouth, and shall cause the heart of every righteous man to throb. Though he may, at first, remain unaware of its effect, yet the virtue of the grace vouchsafed unto him must needs sooner or later exercise its influence upon his soul.”
One day, a few years later, I was working outside my house and felt Cora’s presence, as if she was right there with me. I thought this was odd. I knew she was now in a nursing home back in Topeka. I had recently visited her there. That evening, I learned she had died during the day. That explained her “presence.” I’m sure she had came to say, ‘good bye.’
Goodbye, Core. I love you, and thank you.