Review: Three Gates To Paradise: Articles & Reflections

Three Gates To Paradise: Articles & Reflections by Clare Boyd-Macrae

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Knowing the author's husband - considering him a friend - made this an exceedingly odd read. A good one, never doubt that, but an odd one, nonetheless.

It's a book of Boyd-Macrae's columns from The Age, many of which I remember reading at the time. If I don't remember reading them, I remember hearing about the events from other points of view.

The writing is beautiful. I thought I owned my own copy of this book, it seems that I don't and I'm kicking myself for it. I want to put this book beside Madeline L'Engle's The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth to use it in meditation and prayer, to quote bits of it in sermons that I'm yet to preach.

This is a book of beauty. Of calm, solemn faith; of family life, of the heat of India and the cool of a Melbourne winter. Of contemplation, of conviction, of certainty and doubt. Of the warmth of a hearth and the chill of a football ground.

I am so glad to have read this, and feel privileged. I feel bereft without my own copy to read and re-read: to contemplate and to soak into my soul. To listen, to argue with, and to ponder.

This is a book that makes the world better. This is a treasure.