Secret Supper

Several weeks ago I was in a Dollar Tree store. I love Dollar Tree stores and Big Lots stores. Big Lots sells lots and lots of movies. Some of them are real stinkers. But, every so often I find some gems. I love the Dollar Tree stores because I am able to find some really good books for only a dollar a piece. Generally speaking, these are books that are publishers’ overruns. Thomas Jefferson said, “I cannot live without books”. Neither can I. So, every week I browse through Dollar Tree looking for interesting stuff to read. Several weeks ago in a Dollar Tree I found a great book.
“The Secret Supper” is a work of historical fiction by a Spanish author by the name of Javier Sierra. Senor Sierra spins a ripping good yarn centering on Leonardo da Vinci's “The Last Supper”. Like American author Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code”, Sierra tells as story of coded messages and supposed symbolism to be found in the painting. The book is part murder mystery and part art history.
I don’t know if any of what Sierra says about the painting or da Vinci is true, I just know that I immensely enjoyed this book and was really happy that I found such a gem for only a dollar. Sometimes, truly, life’s simple pleasures are the best.
After reading the “Secret Supper” I went off looking for other books by Sierra. When I find an author of fiction I like I read everything they have written. For a mere five dollars I found another book of Sierra’s in a local chain book store, “The Lady in Blue”.
This book is wonderful as well; as the British would say “a ripping good yarn”. Mr. Sierra tells a story based on supposed fact about a Spanish nun by the name of Maria de Jesus de Agreda. Sister Maria was believed to possess the gift of bilocation; that is the ability, or gift, of being in two places at the same time. Sister Maria de Jesus was believed, by some, to have brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Indians for New Mexico in the early 1600’s while still locked away in her cloister in Spain.
Indian people in New Mexico reported having seen a mysterious “Lady in Blue” (Sister Maria’s order wore blue habits) who spoke them of a new Sun God, actually the Son of God, who would replace their old gods. The stories go that when the first Spanish missionaries arrived in New Mexico in the early 1600’s they met Indians wearing crosses around their necks.
Let me here make a disclaimer before I go on: I am not saying that I believe that Sister Maria did indeed travel to the New World through bilocation.
Javier Sierra’s novel weaves Sister Maria’s story, bilocation, spies, and time travel altogether in a great story. This past Sunday afternoon after church I read over a hundred pages from the novel. I couldn’t put it down.
A day or two before picking up “The Lady in Blue” I finished reading a wonderful biography about Albert Einstein by Walter Isaacson. My daughter gave me this book for Christmas and it was wonderful. I learned all kinds of fascinating things about Einstein and modern physics. Space does not permit me to go into all that I learned from this book. Suffice it to say that the universe that Dr. Einstein described through his theories is a place of great wonder and surprises. Einstein believed that God had constructed a universe where time and space behaved in ways that we can hardly imagine. (A note here, Einstein did believe in God, however, he did not believe that God was too very interested in the day to day affairs of human beings.)
Reading Isaacson’s and Sierra’s fine books in the space of just a few days got me to thinking all kinds of interesting things. And please don’t think that I’ve gone off the deep end here! According to Einstein it might be possible to slow the march of time down to a crawl the closer one traveled to the speed of light. According to some other physicists, who Isaacson mentions along the way, it might just be possible, in theory, at least to travel back in time. According to the legends concerning “The Lady in Blue” a person, gifted by God might just be able to be in two places at once.
Again, please don’t think I’m cracking up. I’ve once again be seized with a wonder at God’s marvelous creation. Do you know that when you stand outside on a dark winter night and see the stars winking at you from the clear, cold night sky you are, in fact, looking back in time? The light of those stars you see above you took, in some cases, thousand of years to reach your eyes. When you and I look at the sky at night time we are looking back into time. That concept fills me with a certain awe.
Maybe it would be possible for a human being to be in two places at once, if that’s what God wanted to happen. Again, that doesn’t mean that I believe the story of “The Lady in Blue”, it simply means that given all I’ve learned about how wonderful and wonder filled God is, I believe that it certainly would be in the realm of possibility for God to have that nun in two places at once. If Jesus could change water into wine and alter nature itself when he stilled the storm, would there be anything that God could not do?
Of course not! God can do anything. Maybe he did send Sister Maria onto New Mexico. I mean it’s possible. I believe it’s possible. I not sure it happened. But, with God all things are possible, aren’t they?
That’s really my point in writing this. I believe that with God all things are possible. God, because He is God, is not limited by anything. God can and does amazing things. The amazing things are all around us. His creation overflows with wonder. With God nothing is impossible. Why, God can even raise people from the dead. And that is precisely what He will do with us. It’s strange to me, reading a biography and a work of historical fiction help me to believe and see that more firmly and fully.
I wonder what other books I’ll discover on my next visit to The Dollar Tree.