A religious book may not have an religion as such in it at all, but to read it is in some measure to experience firsthand what a religion book can only tell about. A religion book is a canvas. A religious book is a transparency. With a religious book it is less what we see in it than what we see through it that matters. . . .

In the writing, as in the reading, a religious book is an act of grace — no less rare, no less precious, no less improbable.

Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words