In the light of all things beautiful.

I am reading The Bread of Angels by Stephanie Saldana. Just picked it up at the library because the story line interested me. I don't feel like giving a book review, but I do feel like quoting a few lines from her book.

Here she is studying the Quran in Syria, reading it in it's native language, tutored by a prominent Muslim woman. This is what Stephanie is magnificently learning.


"Most Muslims believe that the Quran is eternal, that it always existed but was only revealed over time. Just as they believe that are lives are maktoob, written, but it takes a lifetime to understand them. This does not mean that we have no say in our lives-for the famous Islamic saying insists that prayer can change a destiny, that we small humans can enter into an exchange with God. Yet it means that in prayer, as in destiny, we are wading through divine material greater than ourselves."

This is what Saldana says about reading stories.

"...early monks believed that there is no such thing as a story-we each meet the text, and who we are and the text together create a unique event. We change for it and it changes for us, the act of reading becoming an essential way of transforming ourselves. We can only bring to the text what is inside of ourselves-even if the story is a story of death, if we contain life, we will find life."

Saldana grew up Catholic, but she found herself completely unable to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. She was keeping herself at a monastery for one month in Syria, practicing meditation, prayer, silence in hopes to get at the heart of some of her struggles. She befriends a novice monk there named Frederic. She tells him after many days of these spiritual exercises that she did not believe in the resurrection. His response, " 'You don't believe in the resurrection'...his voice soft and barely audible. He does not say it cruelly. He sounds sad...'It's simple, Stephanie,' he says looking in my eyes. 'You don't love your life.' He leaves the church silently and closes the door."

What an incredible way to pair that!! Belief in the resurrection and loving your life. Infinitely profound.
I am particularly in love with this idea that in prayer and throughout our lives we are "wading through divine material greater than ourselves." Oh, my gosh, can I get an AMEN!!?