Some books just surprise you by their simplicity and power. The simple poetic prose and new insights into texts weary with the weight of thousands of years of analysis are what astonished me in this lovely meditative book by Rakow. Don’t read this book too quickly, rather read it slowly so can savor the language and the stories that are both familiar and new.

A woman waits her turn for confession. It will be her first time in almost thirty years. She has forgotten how vast the cathedral seems, and the way you must sit in rows with others to wait your turn. She is nervous and she touches a book on her lap to calm herself. The book is handmade; she has sown the pages together herself. There are pictures and stories- Bible stories that she wrote and the familiar feel of the book comforts her. She closes her eyes and her mind drifts through the stories again.

We begin appropriately with the story of Adam, who although he is busy making and naming peacocks, doves and zebras, he knows they are “not- me.” His longing drives him to draw himself in the sand and  fashion statutes in the mud but he cannot make them breathe and his longing drives him to despair. Then she comes to him in a dream, only she is not a dream and he asks her name and she tells him it is Eve. “He wonders from where she comes. Wonders, since he has not made her if there is a maker mightier than himself…[a]nd he desires to know this one, and names the maker he cannot see but whose work he sees, “God.'”

Simple, elegant, and sharply insightful the stories that follow of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, of Jonah are familiar but are not like the ones we learned in Sunday School. Rather they twist and turn and in that distortion we see underlying truths that we could not have seen otherwise.  These revelations continue with the stories of Jesus, his birth and ministry, the miracle of Lazarus and the woman with an issue of blood and finally his betrayal, death and resurrection. Her prose is deceptively simple, almost poetic, and it is that very simplicity that moves us past the words on the page to the deeper meanings she reveals. Rakow’s new perspectives allow us to unlock the deeply human emotions and motivations inside these familiar stories creating a modern lectio divina for a modern audience. I danced, and laughed and cried my way through this book, finding myself in all the stories and in the woman who in her confession says; “I want to believe he loves the world… And I want to believe that he loves even me.”

Brenda’s Rating: ***** (5 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian, Lauren and Keith.

Book Study Worthy? YES!

Read in ebook format.