JOURNEY OUT OF DARKNESS

 
Life for us had turned into a perpetual waiting game. It was the game of waiting for Baba. But this game was more an ordeal of uncertainty than a game of knowing. I thought, perhaps we should return to India at once, but with a family of four young children to manage, it just wasn't that easy. The best thing, it seemed to me, was for us to go on waiting for the Western Sahavas one year hence.

But then again, did I not have a definite invitation to come, which I knew I should view as a specific order from the Avatar? And should not all orders be acted upon with dispatch? Could I allow a whole year to go by, while doing nothing about Meher Baba's call, thus failing to respond to so important an order? I belabored the question.

Meanwhile January and a good part of February 1965 went by. Meher Baba's Birthday Celebration was approaching. Already less than a year had passed since we had come to know of the Avatar. There was to be a large birthday celebration held at the Barbizon Plaza Hotel in New York.

Baba had asked Dr. Harry Kenmore to arrange for two annual events in New York City, a birthday celebration on the twenty-fifth of February, as well as a Silence Day observance each year on the tenth of July.

Tom had told me quite a bit about Dr. Kenmore, a chiropractor, who was blind and nearly deaf, and Tom assured me, an overpowering personality.

"The big moment always comes when Harry recites the Master's Prayer," Tom said. "It is an electrifying thing to experience."

Tom's words gave me the feeling, I wanted to go to New York, simply to hear this blind man recite that prayer. Phyllis and I arranged to go to the city to attend the Meher Baba Birthday Celebration.

Darwin and Jeanne Shaw were there, so that Darwin might give a brief talk about Meher Baba and speak a few heart-stirring words about the Avatar of the Age and His great Mission on Earth.

But before this, Dr. Kenmore came forward to open the festive evening with his powerful offering of the Master's Prayer, and it was truly a spine-tingling experience. Kenmore's delivery was full of strength, conviction and supreme majesty. It was worth the long drive to New York, simply to witness this man at work acting in behalf of his Master. It was obvious to me that Baba had complete hold over this fellow Kenmore. It was clear, nothing could stand in this man's way. I could see he possessed an enormous conviction and obvious authority. Surely it had to be coming directly from Meher Baba. With such uplifting periodic events as this, I was feeling now that I could see my way through to the following December, when Phyllis and I would be able to travel to meet Baba in India.

Meanwhile, I had been at work upon a wonderful new canvas, a painting of Phyllis seated in a massive wooden armchair, while gazing out the picture-window, as if transfixed. I entitled the painting, 'Waiting for Baba.' And after that I started a number of others on the same theme.