Eat, Pray, Love

I love to read! I will read a lot of different genres but my favorite is fiction. I love a great story about a character that I relate to in their search for something.

So, I was shocked to LOVE Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert! Nonfiction is often exhausting to me but this book was not a burden to read. It is the spiritual memoir of a woman needing to find answers for her messed up life and broken heart. She pursues answers to the hard questions in the three "I"s: Italy, India and Indonesia.

"Eat" is in Italy where Elizabeth travels to eat great food and learn Italian, a lifelong fantasy. She pursues the gift of pleasure, trying to capture all that we Americans have missed in our effienciency of life.

"Love" is in Bali, Indonesia where Liz pursues balance in her life. Balance of pleasure and discipline. Balance of joy and pain.

But my favorite section is "Pray". Liz is in India, living in an Ashram. She makes some astounding statements regarding faith. Here are three of my favorite quotes.

Saint Augustine said, "Our whole business therefore in this life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen."

How's your vision these days?

"If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be...a prudent insurance policy." page 175

I wonder if I've been pursuing insurance or faith for all of my life?

"This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do it yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet (an inside joke). If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will provide the grace. And that is why we need a God." page 187

I can't even respond to this one for all that it evokes in me. But I know that I need that grace to reach out to me...all the time.

I hope that you will read this book, not because I liked it or because Oprah said to. Read it because it will challenge you to find a bigger God and a more personal voyage of faith. Let me know when you finish...I want to talk!