How do you bring an age-old story to life in a modern moment? Only through investing much time, love, reflection, and prayer; because, as stated in the beginning, everyone knows the story. What more could there be to say about an event that has been re-told, re-studied, and re-sung over countless generations? So I looked for a way to express the familiar in fresh language, giving voice to the principal players; because who could be better at telling the story than the people who actually lived it?

This is not a story to be simply read; it's an invitation to ponder, to explore, to inhale the message it presents-until the message becomes such a part of us that we breathe it.

There are pauses in the story, places of sabbath, where the narrative is broken by poetic reflections to allow us to consider the journey and what it has to teach us: to simply be present to the journey as it unfolds and leads us from one step to the next. May the journey lead you gently...