We hope you have had a wonderful summer. We have, for sure, and we are grateful.
We had several short vacations near beaches: one in Maine, then Cape Cod and the most recent in Rhode Island. We were blessed to have accommodations near the water so we could hear the soothing (and healing) Ujjayi sound of the ocean wave, the “Ocean Sounding Breath,” all day and all night!
Most important was the time we had. Time to be together; time to take in the sun (but not too much); time to relax or wander; and last but not least, time to read.
Most of the year we do not have much time to read. We have plenty of books lying around the house, some piled on the coffee table in our living room because our book shelves are full. As we pass by that coffee table on the way to the next item on our daily to-do list, we stop to apologize to the books for keeping them waiting, and we try to forgive ourselves for keeping our desire to read them on hold for so long.
But this summer, we were able to call up several of those books. One which we both read was Theo of Golden, a debut novel by Allen Levi that has become a New York Times best seller.
I first became aware of the book when fellow helpers at the Sharing Cupboard Food Pantry were talking about it. A couple weeks later, Nancy and I came across it at a bookstore in Maine, and now that we have read it, we know why everyone was raving about it.
The author was once a lawyer and a judge and also a singer/songwriter. He had been touring his music for nearly 20 years when he stopped so that he could spend more time with his brother who had fallen ill. He wrote a memoir, The Last Sweet Mile, about the year he spent caring for his beloved brother as he passed away. A few years later, in his late 60s, he got around to writing Theo of Golden.
When he finished writing the manuscript, he hadn’t intended to publish it. A group of friends who read the book persuaded him to do it. After self-publishing the novel in 2023, it’s popularity soon began to blossom, mostly through word of mouth. In 2025, a major book publisher took interest and republished it. Since then it has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for over 36 weeks. Plans have been made to make it into a movie, with actor Tom Hanks being the producer and main character (Theo).
The book is a story about the power of generosity, connection and wonder. Levi’s idea for the book came from a visit to a friend’s coffee shop in his hometown of Columbus, Georgia. He noticed numerous portraits displayed on the shop’s walls, each featuring a resident of the small town. In an interview with AARP, he said: “The thought crossed my mind, Wouldn’t it be fun to buy all of those one at a time and return them to the subjects in the frame?”
So he purchased four of them and took them home. From there the idea for the story began to develop. He tried to imagine listening to each person’s story as he gave each person their portrait in a bestowal. He knew then that he had a fascinating book to write, but only if he could find the right character to carry out the bestowals. He realized that character (Theo) would be his brother.
What Theo wants most, as Levi tells a Washington Post reviewer, is that people “experience the love of God and …see the image of God in themselves — hence, the portraits.” There are religious themes in the book, but Levi says “… for a person who does not share that faith perspective, they can still read it as a story about kindness, and I think their hearts can be well served by it.”
Nancy and I avow that our hearts were very well served, and we wish the same for you, too.
Interesting aside: The Sharing Cupboard Food Pantry is located in the basement of the First Congregational Church in West Brookfield. There I have enjoyed getting to know several church members who volunteer at the pantry. A few members are regulars at The Centered Place. So, I have been following the church’s Facebook page. The pastor, Dr. Douglas J. Williamson, posts a prayer of the day, and one that particularly caught my attention recently was this:
Awakened God, we face you each day but sometimes with limited way of seeing. Fill our perceptions with who and what is beloved in your eyes, so that we never stray too far. Amen.
Coincidentally, I had just recently read a chapter in Theo of Golden in which Theo writes the following to the portrait artist, who he has befriended:
“I heard a lovely homily about ‘faces’ this morning. The pastor offered the opinion that, when we are born, our first instinct — ‘far deeper than intention’ — is to find a face. Our weak and blurry little eyes, wide open but not yet trained to see, search for something , someone, with which to bond… Do you recall the first time you leaned in close to look at your newborn daughter? Did you have a sense that you and she were both reaching toward each other somehow, to speak a language too deep for words? … I have a close friend who is an eye doctor and a man of great depth. He [believes] the most important (and formative and effortless) thing a parent can do for a baby is to gaze into his or her face, to hold him or her close and engage the eyes. .. Could anything be more profound? Does anything more deeply change parent and child? I wonder if, like newborn children, we go through our entire lives looking for a face, longing for a particular gaze that calms us and fills us, that loves and welcomes us, that recognizes and runs to greet us. … “
In the book, Theo’s kindness radically changed the Golden community. He does it without Facebook or any other social media. Too many parents are glued to their screens, and thus too many infants are missing the eyes and faces that bond them to their humanity and divinity. I have seen doctors who rarely look at me during the whole visit: their focus is on the computer screen.
You can tell a lot about a person by listening intently with ears and eyes. And like Theo, you can give a lot to that person by doing so! 
P.S. The next book I read after this one was even better! More on that next month.
