In Memoriam 1992-1997/Audrey Rayne

In Memoriam 1992-1997 Audrey Rayne

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AUDREY RAYNE

1928-1994

GRIEVED TO LEARN PASSING AUDREY RAYNE, FAITHFUL SERVANT CAUSE FOR OVER 50 YEARS WHO WAS FIRST Bahá’í YOUTH IN NOVA SCOTIA. ASSURE FAMILY, FRIENDS HEARTFELT PRAYERS

[Page 182]God makes all things free from each other, that they may be sustained by Him alone.114

Audrey Rayne

Audrey Rebecca Hubley was born on May 15, 1928, in Hubley, Nova Scotia, a community named after her great-great grandfather. Audrey was the youngest of seven children; Muriel, her only sister, was the oldest. Muriel had a dream when she was a young child about "a large coach coming in the sky," to use Muriel’s words, "which had nine men on it." The coach stopped outside the family home, and down a shaft of light came a man who bowed to her and said, "Bob."

It was years later at a fireside that Muriel attended through the invitation of Beulah Proctor, a pioneer to Halifax in the late 1930s and early 1940s, that she heard again the name "The Báb" and realized the meaning of her dream. Muriel brought Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era home to her mother, Rebecca Grant Hubley, who claimed that this was what she had believed all her life. Doris McKay visited shortly afterward, and Rebecca became a Bahá’í in 1942.

Audrey was touched by her mother’s declaration, so she studied the Faith, went to firesides and Holy Days, and became a Bahá’í in 1943 when she turned fifteen. She was the first Bahá’í youth in Nova Scotia.

Annie Romer, an early pioneer to Halifax, was with Audrey when she made the decision that would propel her along her life path. When Audrey spoke of Annie, it was with great emotion, as she remembered how slight a woman Annie was and yet how mighty was her absolute faith in what she was doing. Audrey was struck by the certainty wherewith the early pioneers set out to do the bidding of the Guardian.

Audrey remarked on how it was the women of the family who became Bahá’ís; the men all turned away and stayed Christians. For their decisions Audrey and Muriel suffered ostracism from their brothers for the rest of their days. This did not stop them, however, from visiting and making efforts to stay in touch.

Audrey and her mother used to celebrate Holy Days and Feasts together; they would observe the Fast together, and whenever there was a Bahá’í event in Halifax,

114 This statement, handwritten in Audrey Rayne’s prayer book, is attributed to the Báb, but it is, as yet, unauthenticated. 115 See Doris McKay, pp. 30-32. 116 See "In Memoriam," The Bahá’í World, vol. XIV, pp. 375-77. [Page 183]

In Memoriam

they would find a way to get to it, cars being few back then.

Some of the early Bahá’ís who lived in the Maritimes and who came to teach were Willard McKay, Jean Smeltzer, Muriel and Ed Bellefleur, Rita and Ernest Marshall, Lloyd Gardner, and Jamie Bond. Among them was Irving Geary,¹¹⁷ whom Audrey considered to be her spiritual father.

Audrey married Earle Kitchener Rayne in 1946, and together they had six children: Pamela, Stephen, Timothy, Cynthia, Christopher, and Alan.

She was a member of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Halifax. She moved away with her young family to Germany for two years (1955-1957), but when she returned, she took up where she left off and served on the Halifax Assembly for another fifteen years (1957-1972).

For some time the Local Assembly struggled to stay alive with only nine members. Then it fell to six, and they decided to concentrate on a particular section of the city, blitzing it with hand-delivered invitations to firesides and public meetings. Three new Bahá’ís came out of this creativity, and the Assembly never went below nine after that. It was a turning point in the history of the Bahá’í Faith in Halifax. (This would have been in the early 1960s.)

There was a feeling among them that they had all been members of the Assembly for so long that they did not know what it was like to be members of the community. They would not learn that aspect of administration until there were more declarations. They realized that they had to stop waiting for important speakers from other parts of the world to come and present the Bahá’í Faith to the public and that they had to get busy working together on their own teaching goals. That is when they started to see results.

They were constantly trying to come up with new ideas of how to present the Faith. They would go through the telephone directory and choose names randomly to whom they sent invitations to one of the many public proclamations and firesides. Countless press releases appeared in the papers. They made many friends for the Faith and found new Bahá’ís as well.

The Atlantic Bahá’í community was so small that Audrey once held a regional conference in her home in Halifax. Twenty-three Bahá’ís attended. Over the years the Hands of the Cause John Robarts, Enoch Olinga, Hasan Balyuzi, and ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan were guests in her home, and her children had the benefit of meeting people of divers backgrounds. Her home was open to all, and many felt that Audrey and Earle were family away from home.

Audrey served on the first Maritime Teaching Committee (1952) and then on the Regional Teaching Committee. She served as an Assembly resource person and an assistant to an Auxiliary Board member, traveling throughout Nova Scotia assisting new Assemblies to grow into their administrative roles. She did all of this while maintaining a home and caring for her children. She found ways to do it all.

Audrey’s real education came through her Faith and the work she did for it. She never considered herself to be a public speaker or a teacher, but when she realized there was a need for her to become one, she gathered her courage and spoke. She was inspired by the words “Look at the people, love them, and turn your heart to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.”¹¹⁸ There was no doubt that

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¹¹⁷ See “In Memoriam,” The Bahá’í World, vol. XIX, pp. 652-53.

¹¹⁸ Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas, vol. II (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1915, 1940 printing). [Page 184]people felt love when she addressed them. She remembered rather wistfully how quite often, back in the early days, it would seem perfectly natural for a group to stop whatever they were doing and say, "Let's have a prayer." No matter who was around, there was no embarrassment in this for them. Prayer was important at any time, and she and her companions consistently relied on it.

Wishing to pioneer to far-off places, she had to content herself with homefront pioneering to Sackville, where she served on the Assembly. Later she went to Kentville and Hantsport.

Audrey also served as a "team teacher" before the term was popular. Teams would travel to the black communities such as Africville, Lucasville, Preston, and Beechville. They also visited native communities such as Shubenacadie, Chapel Island, Membertou, and Eskasoni. They traveled and set up booths at exhibitions, gave firesides, and hosted public meetings. Audrey joked that when they were working at one end of the province, they would get a response from the other. She took part in a plan to bring the Faith to prisoners, joining with other Bahá’ís who went into the Halifax jail to socialize with the inmates.

She loved music and would often sing prayers to gather her courage while on her way to meetings at which she would speak. When she had problems, and she was not without them throughout her life, she would pray and lay them in the hands of Bahá’u’lláh, trusting that they would be taken care of. And they always were.

Audrey loved to laugh, and she was down to earth in her spirituality. She believed in encouraging Bahá’ís, especially the newly declared. She remembered to invite a stray daughter to the Naw-Rúz celebrations or to put a tape of the "Songs of the Ancient Beauty" into her hands. Audrey also taught through the example of small gestures, and these things did not go unnoticed. We never know when or how we are going to touch someone's heart.

Her ardent desire was to travel teach, especially to Russia, and this she wanted to do when she recovered from the illness that finally took her from us. She passed away on October 20, 1994, the Anniversary of the Birth of the Báb. Mysterious? Remember it was hearing the name of the Báb through Muriel's dream so many years before that brought her to the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.

In her well-worn prayer book she had written:

Rejoice, for the heavenly table is prepared for you. Rejoice, for the angels of heaven are your assistants and helpers. Rejoice, for the glance of the Blessed Beauty, Bahá’u’lláh, is directed upon you. Rejoice, for Bahá’u’lláh is your Protector. Rejoice, for the everlasting glory is destined for you. Rejoice, for the eternal life is awaiting you.

If you wish to call upon the assistance of Audrey in your teaching efforts, may I suggest you sing "Allah-u-Abhá" to her. I feel certain she will hear you. In fact it would cheer the hearts of her children if you would do this; she had wanted us to sing this to her as she was passing from this world, but that time made us strangely quiet.

Pamela Rayne-Wiersma

119 The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912, rev. ed. (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 2007), p. 299.