Religion (and whatever you call the substance of life) is widely seen to be ‘controversial’. The first time I read this book I didn’t review it, because, like a doctor, say, although he is very calm, he also cuts too deep for comfort. .... Politics is widely seen to be the secular answer to religion as the substance of life, but even science can be controversial, even when it's not explicitly a conflict with religion—medical malpractice and other legal-ethical-medical issues, diet wars, etc. Anyway, that’s not really the point here.

I don’t want to be *unnecessarily* confrontational here, but given what’s happened on the American right recently—I’m a dirty liberal ok; I only wish I could be a dirty woman too— I’m less inclined to elide what divides us. So here’s what I liked:

“.... The grace of Epiphany is the call to become divine. Christ’s birth as man is nothing less than the visible expression of his eternal birth as the Word of God in the eternal silence of the Father. Of course, in the Father, silence is the fullness of everything. This silence—fullness becoming aware of itself—is the Word, God’s Son. Epiphany is the celebration of this eternal birth in us. This is effected, after the pattern of our Lady, by our informed consent.

“The substance of the question that the angel put to Mary was: ‘Are you willing to become the mother of God’s Son?’

“How could she be the mother of God’s Son without in some way becoming divine herself? Thus, the real question that the angel asked was: ‘Mary, will you consent to become God?’”.

I know; I know. If it’s not sexist, then it’s not really religion.

“Be ye angry, and sin not.”

Because healing and comfort are different things, right.