Dear Friends,
As we all look for ways to reach out to help those in need during the current pandemic, friends all across the region are turning to the Word of God, whether in prayer, in the study of guidance to help us understand the world around us, or to make those spiritual connections that sustain us and give life to our souls.
Two examples are shared here.
One was a message from some of the friends in southern New Hampshire early today saying that they were gathering this morning (virtually) to pray for the City of the Covenant, the epicenter of the virus in our country and in our region. How loving that one part of our region gathered to pray for another part of our region. How connected we really are!
Another was that in our search to understand what is happening, some of the friends are sharing various quotations such as this one written on behalf of the beloved Guardian at another time of great difficulties:
“…You seem to complain about the calamities that have befallen humanity. In the spiritual development of man a stage of purgation is indispensable, for it is while passing through it that the over-rated material needs are made to appear in their proper light. Unless society learns to attribute more importance to spiritual matters, it would never be fit to enter the golden era foretold by Bahá’u’lláh. The present calamities are parts of this process of purgation; through them alone will man learn his lesson. They are to teach the nations that they have to view things internationally; they are to make the individual attribute more importance to his moral than his material welfare.
“In such a process of purgation, when all humanity is in the throes of dire suffering, the Bahá’ís should not hope to remain unaffected. Should we consider the beam that is in our own eye, we would immediately find that these sufferings are also meant for ourselves, who claimed to have attained. Such world crisis is necessary to awaken us to the importance of our duty and the carrying on of our task. Suffering will increase our energy in setting before humanity the road to salvation; it will move us from our repose, for we are far from doing our best in teaching the Cause and conveying the Message with which we have been entrusted….”
(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer in reply to a letter dated October 14, 1931: Bahá’í News, No. 58, January 1932, p. 1)
With loving regards,
Regional Baha’i Council of the Northeastern States
Marie McNair, Secretary