Imagine a scene for a moment. The year is 1989. On the outskirts of a Baltic city is an old family home. Inside, in the cozy dining room, lined with antique plates, are eighteen people seated round a dining table. Although there is candlelight in the room, the light and joy in the faces of these people seem almost enough to illuminate the room. Their backgrounds are diverse—music students, grandmothers, teachers, a professor, a filmmaker. They tell one another of healings they have experienced as a result of prayer. Although the weather and the evolving political system outside are cold and harsh, inside that house there is a tangible tenderness and warmth. For forty years these people have individually communed with God, prayed, been healed and sustained under unimaginable hardships. Today, because of some political thawing, they are meeting for the first time. What has brought them all together? A book.
Picture another occasion, also from 1989. One hundred and eighty people crowded in a small "upper room" of an East German orthodox church, designed to seat ninety. It is snowing outside, and many have come long distances. Rows of wet coats hang in the crowded hallway. But there is a glow of mingled joy, peace, and anticipation in that little room. This day these faithful people are experiencing their first Christian Science church service in thirty-eight years. They rise to sing a hymn together, and their voices ring out in chorus. What has brought them together? A book.
Again, pause and consider another scene. It is still 1989. An agile senior lady hurries through the back streets of her city in Russia, to come and say goodbye to her friends from the West. For forty years she has lived under the shadow of religious persecution. Greeting her friends, she offers gifts she has bought for them with her hard-earned money. Just before their departure, she quietly says she has something else she wants to share with them. Out of her shopping bag she pulls a brown paper parcel. Tenderly she unfolds it, and with such gentle care she shows it—a book. It is old, underlined, and much used. Many of the pages are loose from the binding and dogeared. She quietly says, "This is the most precious thing I possess. Next year it will be fifty years old. Not one day has passed when I have not read from it. It has supplied me with strength, angel messages, guidance, healing, and comfort during years of persecution, loss, and deprivation. I would not part with it for my life."
