Lua Getsinger

The group then sent a petition to ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to approach for Baháʼí pilgrimage October 10,[6]: p9  written by Lua and carried by Kheiralla who arrived November 11 after a stay in Egypt and meeting with his family there.

[18]Kindle:454,525,541-559 They were welcomed at the port by eastern Baháʼís, were brought to a coffee house where they were greeted by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's uncle Muhammad-Quli,[18]Kindle:454,471 stayed at a hotel near the German Colony which was then outside of the walls of Haifa,[18]Kindle:559-577 and didn’t sleep the first night.

[18]Kindle:2756 Bolles arrived[18]Kindle:2791 with Hearst's group mid-February, 1899,[40] incognito and in the dark to protect her reputation and her son’s, but enough awareness of visitors to see ʻAbdu'l-Bahá who was then a prisoner had been achieved that limitations were increased later.

[40][18]Kindle:2837 Kheiralla brought letters from other early Baháʼís - replies arrived back in America in February including to James and Isabella Brittingham, Howard and Mary MacNutt, Arthur Dodge, Eliza Talbot, and Thornton Chase.

[18]Kindle:3201 On the day May Bolles went over 100 eastern Bahá’ís were gathered around outside and a girl sang the song The Holy City and then Nearer, My God, to Thee, with Bahá'ís around the inner garden inside the shrine.

Lua wrote to Thornton Chase February 15, 1899: …When I left America I thought I knew a good deal… but after seeing the Master… I am sure I know nothing… The Face of the Master is gloriously beautiful - His eyes read one's very soul - still they are full of divine love and fairly melt one's heart!

[18]Kindle:4080 Khieralla had argued Bahá’í doctrine and authority of understanding with Edward and with Hand of the Cause Haji Mirza Muhammad Taqiy-i-Abhari and both times ʻAbdu'l-Bahá intervened to keep the peace and stop further arguments;[18]Kindle:4884-4901 still Kheiralla had reached out to Abdu’l-Baha’s unfaithful half brother.

The Getsinger's spiritualized actions as taught by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in the form of their positive engagement in the face of the negative rumors Kheiralla had spread about them, "surprised and pleased" the New York Baháʼís, in the words of Stockman.

[46]: p153  They recalled ʻAbdu'l-Bahá calling Kheiralla “Baha’s Peter” and extrapolated that Karím was the return of the prophet Job, Edward was the Apostle John and Lua was Mary Magdalene.

[6]: between pp116-7  At some point during the stay in Paris she made contact with Doña Eugénie de Montijo, the last Empress of the French and then widow of Emperor Napoleon III, and attempted to present the religion to her but she rejected the offer.

Lua also delivered a forceful speech suggesting that such 'uncivilized' cruelty was shaming Persia, and that if the mullás examined the history of Islam, 'they would soon see that the shedding of blood is not a means of annulling, but rather the cause of promulgating every religious movement.'

[4] Selena Crosson comments in her PhD dissertation: "For the sake of justice, in large part for women, she boldly puts herself forward to stand alone in a group of men against the orthodoxy of the mullahs and the state, representing symbolically the patriarchal superstructure of the old world order.

Correspondingly, the women placed absolute certainty in what they considered the inspired veracity of ʻAbdul Bahá(sic), whatever their circumstances or misgivings about their abilities.”[3]: pp39-40 The date is unknown, but Martha Root, later a prominent member of the religion and posthumously appointed a Hand of the Cause, the highest appointed position in the Baháʼí Faith, by Shoghi Effendi, echoed a story told her by Bolles that one day Lua was in Paris and gave up a trip to London, tickets and all, when she heard there was an interested party to hear about the religion.

Early Baháʼí Muriel Ives Barrow Newhall tells the story, which she says was told to her by Grace Robarts Ober, a spiritual 'child' of Lua Getsinger: After a few moments the Master turned to ask what she was doing.

[69]: p62 Baháʼís, noted as Babists, were profiled in a widely echoed newspaper story from January 1905 mostly based on an account of Myron Phelps' pilgrimage - it briefly mentions the Getsingers or at least Edward in the early presence of the religion in America.

[33]: p75  In the same period the Hannens were in Chicago and Lua invited people to wear one of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá’s coats in the hotel and say a prayer following which Pauline's hearing returned gradually and she was still talking about this in 1928.

[69]: pp180-1 In early May Lua was among presenters before the talk by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá at the closing session of the national Bahá'í convention and was a delegate representing the San Francisco Baháʼís for the groundbreaking of the House of Worship.

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá met with her in August in Ramleh, Egypt, and a report of a tablet was published in Star of the West in October which was a set of exhortations of the basis of the goal of being of unwavering service using both Táhirih and himself as examples.

[6]: p201-2  She was back and forth between Bombay (modern Mombai) and Surat along the western coast of India in January and February, staying in the home of N K. Vakil, the first Baháʼí of Hindu background, and offering classes and giving talks.

Crosson observes:"ʻAbdu'l Bahá’s(sic) letter drew support from newly formed North American institutions, and they devoted a whole issue of the magazine Star of the West to Lua and the Covenant.

Although repeatedly warned of the corrosive effects on unity of gossip, fault-finding and backbiting, which ʻAbdu'l Bahá(sic) called 'the worst human quality,' the community still struggled to overcome this cultural penchant.

"[3]: p47  "… in spite of ʻAbdu’l Bahá’s(sic) pronouncements, the negative western cultural associations of Mary Magdalene with illicit sexuality were difficult to completely erase, as was betrayed in the language Lua Getsinger used in a 1915 letter reacting to her husband’s hurtful charge of infidelity.

[6]: p339  The next issue of Star of the West was all about her and the Baháʼí covenant with extracts of letters including three repeats of the August 27 tablet of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá - a copy of the Persian text, a photograph of the original, and the translation.

[6]: p345 Eight weeks before her death, in a March 7, 1916, letter sent to a lifelong friend she said "I am very much afraid when I have learned my final lesson which the desert has to teach me--my footsteps will be turned in another direction--and years may pass ere we meet again--even if we ever should in this world.

[138] A biographical review of Lua was published in Star of the West, mostly based on Edward’s positive comments, by the editors which was followed by a tribute from May Maxwell and she says:[6]: p350  "Then I saw no longer the bruised and broken reed trodden and crushed to earth, whose fragrance shall perfume all regions.

"[3]: pp165-6 "In the Baháʼí community, the heroic myths of May Maxwell, Martha Root, Lua Getsinger and their associates were very modern: these are ordinary, flawed, frail or timid women who are transformed by extraordinary circumstances, and their own mettle.

"[3]: p178  "As with Lua Getsinger, in most accounts of May Maxwell, a dichotomy of strength and fragility exists; her ephemeral presence and physical weakness mask a spiritually robust woman with great internal fortitude.

Average, even weak or flawed women (i.e. not men) such as the ailing May Maxwell, the 'timid' Agnes Alexander, and the frumpy, poor, ill Martha Root could, after being providentially 'chosen,' and divinely assisted by the transformative power of the 'new revelation,' arise to save the world.

These western female religious paradigms, who exhibited many of the qualities identified with feminist ideals of the self-reliant, independent, self-actualizing, 'modern' woman, acted as inspirational models for their peers and succeeding generations.

True, she was impulsive and mischievous, and she never let her head overrule her heart; but her passion and unwavering love for the Faith, coupled with her relentless desire to serve her Lord, overshadowed her more earthly failings.