"We Are One" is about my journey to finding self, which revealed to me a love story. Since ultimately God is best summed up through the words “love God and love your neighbour.” a realization became very clear to me.
We learn to love ourselves by understanding love, which is God and that is how we truly know how to love one another.
This little book has a thought-provoking message of a journey from darkness to light, complemented with poetry to get a deeper meaning across.
Its message of peace, unity, and love is based on the complement of the connection of two completely different identities. Self/God, Self/neighbour, man/woman, Jew/Gentile.
In The Garden
He is life,
A great, mystical tree,
Symbolic in nature,
Eternally free.
She is root,
Hidden, deep below,
With a foundation enduring,
She is a mystery to know.
Combined is the essence of Him.
Revealed is the depth of love Divine,
Captured, perfectly, over a history of time.
Good and bad,
Back to their own identity.
As it was in the garden,
The One tree of serenity.
There are several things that stand out about this book. It’s sincerity is obvious, and unlike others in this genre, there is no inflated sense of self-worth. The author does not boast about what she has done or offer some plan for salvation or a better life. That is refreshing these days, and I commend the author for writing as she has.
The author was not raised in a religious home. I can relate to that since that was also the case with me. There was no opposition to my attending services or Sunday School; I sense that was also the case with her, but she does not elaborate.
In this book the over-arching theme is that all religions are one expression of truth. While differences exist, these do not change the inherent unit. The author sees Judaism and Christianity as being closely-intertwined. When she started her spiritual journey, she attended an Orthodox synagogue for a period of time and even considered conversion. I found this to be the most fascinating part of the book, and was a little disappointed that she did not go into more detail about how she decided to do so. Eventually she chose Christianity, but is very respectful of its Jewish origins.
There is a lot of discussion given to the lightness-darkness dichotomy. It is common to many religious texts and has received extensive treatment. However, there is nothing new added here. One of the drawbacks to this book is that there is a lot of repetition It is like hearing a song played on the piano, then the guitar, and finally the violin. At some point one wants to hear something new instead of these variations. Much of what is written is in generalities; nothing exactly wrong, but there is no new ground broken.
The poetry is better, and in various forms. It in these verses that the author’s voice is most clearly heard. In the synopsis is a good example.
