Margaret just had to find the energy from somewhere to get on with things. Then, suddenly, outside her window, a bird began to sing. A blackbird. It was an extraordinarily beautiful, ordinary sound. Numinous. Margaret gave herself up to listening to it, and the pure wordless incantation of Joy, of life, flooded her soul, her senses, for three eternity-crossed minutes.
~ Small Miracles by Anne Booth, page 115
Life is full of small miracles; and so is the book I have recently finished reading.
Small Miracles is delightful: a gently humorous, warm, compassionate celebration of the power and strength and constancy of love, and of community - the sort of uplifting and heart-warming book we need right now. And throughout the narrative, small miracles appear; though, as with life, we need the attitude and attentiveness to be able to notice and delight in them. A skim-read would mean we'd still follow the plot, but miss the blackbird, the sudden rainbow and sundry other small wonders, the details and the asides, all of which contribute to the book's charm. In life, too, we need those moments of receptivity and reflection, which enable us to notice, to savour and to give thanks for the many small marvels God works for and in us.
The book is delightful, yes; but not fluffy. Most of the characters are grieving, struggling with heartache, and loss: of a beloved person, and, often overwhelmingly, of purpose and possibilities, hope, ideals and identity. In this respect it is certainly a book for our times, and the many losses we have all borne over the past several years. But grief is a consequence of love, and loss can also be a catalyst for something new, and beautiful, as Sr Cecilia discovers when, her dreams in shreds, she finally casts off her formal, restrained carapace, and allows herself to acknowledge her pain.
The plot centres on three religious sisters, all exquisitely and authentically depicted. They are loveable and exasperating, fallible and forgiving, quirky and unique and completely human. And they have also received a nunly imprimatur! If life is full of marvels and miracles, then one of them is surely the fun and friendship I and several other religious sisters have found on Twitter, and the community we have somehow managed to create. It's so lovely to see a few of us gathered together in the acknowledgements, in our own little hybrid community.
Three things endure, wrote St Paul, faith, hope and love - of which the greatest is love. And that is the core of Small Miracles: faith and hope abound, but it is love which, woven throughout, endures, holding everyone in an almost unbearable tenderness, until they feel they would burst with love...
(A paraphrase of the prologue, to whet your appetites)
And that is the core of all our lives: the Love which holds us in strong, close tenderness, and makes itself known in everyday encounters and small miracles filled with big love...
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