A Spanish Missionary was visiting an island when he came
across three Aztec priests.
   "How do you pray?" the missionary asked.
    "We have only one prayer," answered one of the Aztecs.
"We say ' God, you are three, we are three.  Have pity on us.'"
    "A beautiful prayer," said the missionary.  "But it is not exactly
the one that God heeds.  I'm going to teach you one that is much
better."
    The padre taught them a Catholic prayer and then continued
on his path of evangelism.  Years later, when he was returning to
Spain, his ship stopped again at the island.  From the deck, the
missionary saw the three priests on the shore and waved to them.
    Just then, the three men began to walk across the water toward
him.
    "Padre! Padre!" one of them called, approaching the ship.
"Teach us again that prayer that God heeds.  We've forgotten
how it goes."
    "It doesn't matter," responded the missionary, witnessing the
miracle.  And he promptly asked God's forgiveness for failing
to recognize that He speaks all languages.
    This story illustrates just what this book is about.  Rarely do
we realize that we are in the midst of the extraordinary.  Miracles
occur all around us, signs from God show us the way, angels plead
to be heard, but we pay little attention to them because we have
been taught that we must follow certain formulas and rules if we
want to find God.  We do not recognize that God is wherever we
allow Him/Her to enter.
    Traditional religious practices are important: they allow us to
share with other the communal experience of adoration and prayer.
But we must never forget that spiritual experience is above
all a practical experience of love.   And with love, there are no rules.
Some may try to control their emotions and develop strategies for
their behavior; others may turn to reading boods of advice from
"experts" on relationships-but this is all folly.  The heart decides,
and what it decides is all that really matters.
    All of us have had this experience.  At some point, we have each
said through our tears, "I'm suffering for a love that's not worth it."
We suffer because we feel we are giving more than we recieve.  We
suffer because our love is going unrecognized.  We suffer because
we are unable to impose our own rules.
    But ultimately there is no good reason for our suffering, for in
every love lies the seed of our growth.  The more we love, the closer
we come to spiritual experience.  Those who are truly enlightened,
those whose souls are illuminated by love, have been able to over-
come all of the inhibitions and preconceptions of their era.  They
have been able to sing, to laugh, and to pray out loud; they have
danced and shared what Saint Paul called "the madness of saintli-
ness."  They have been joyful-because those who love conquer the
world and have no fear of loss.  True love is an act of total surrender.
    This book is about the importance of that surrender.  Pilar
and her companion are fictitious, but they represent the many  con-
flicts that beset us in our search for love.  Sooner or later, we have
to overcome our fears, because the spiritual path can only be traveled
through the daily experience of love.
    Thomas Merton once said the spiritual life is essentially to love.
One doesn't love in order to do what is good or to help or to
protect somone.  If we act that way, we are perceiving the other
as a simple object, and we are seeing ourselves as wise and
generous persons.  This has nothing to do with love.  To love is
to be in communion with the other and discover in that other the
spark of God.
    May Pilar's lament on the bank of the River Piedra guide us
toward such communion.
                                                        -Pualo Coelho

Updated:  05/19/2003
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