Gerard Thomas Straub is an award-winning author, photographer, and filmmaker who is also president of the San Damiano Foundation. His book The Sun and Moon over Assisi was one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2001. In the prologue to this book of meditations, Straub outlines his spiritual journey from unbelief to belief, a story that takes him from the glitz of Hollywood to some of the worst slums in the world. It was St. Francis of Assisi who turned his life around and made him want to draw closer to God. He observes:
"We all find God in different ways, but our whole lives are journeys toward God. And on that journey to know God, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that God is to be found in the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, the homeless, and the downtrodden."
Straub made the film When Did I See You Hungry and wants to make others about domestic and global poverty through the lens of spirituality. This book, organized around the hours of the day, covers these general topics:
• The Messiness of Life
• Walking Toward the Light
• A Hidden Reality
• Merciful Love
• Empty Pleasures
• Making All Things New
• Perfect Love
Straub is convinced that Christian faith is about creating a balance between contemplation and action. In regard to the first, he writes:
Still Life
"Contemplation requires
tranquility and patience.
The art of contemplating divine truths
grows out of the art of remaining still.
To be contemplative is
to be receptive to the divine Word."
And social action is equally important:
The Surest Way
"The longer I walk with the poor
— and with Jesus —
the more I see the need to put to death
the idea of my own self-sufficiency.
To think of myself as separate
from God and all of creation
is an illusion.
To be in communion with those who are suffering
is the surest way to chip away
at the notion you are a separate self,
detached from the rest of creation.
Letting go of my life
is the surest way
to a life of abundance.
Eternal life is not something that happens
in the future;
it is now."
Many of the spiritual practices in the Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy are considered here including silence, listening, grace, questing, gratitude, mystery, beauty, joy, compassion, and more. In one meditation, Straub states: "Faith and justice are soul mates / whose hearts cry out for the poor." These meditations challenge us to reach out to those in need with our little gestures of love.
