Book
FIVE STONES & A BURNT STICK
Towards the ancient Wisdom of Intimacy
In Five Stones and a Burnt Stick, author Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga Steele gave us well crafted stories embedded in wisdom that will lead us to the path of intimacy.
We are designed for intimacy. The desire to know and be known is hard-wired into our DNA. In this skillfully-woven narrative, Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga Steele wrestles with the elusive wisdom that often seems to slip through our grasping fists on our lifelong quest for intimacy.
Combing allegory and insight, Five Stones & A Burnt Stick: Toward the Ancient Wisdom of Intimacy leaps into life at the edge of the desert, around the embers of a burning bush and within the heart of God’s seeking servant Moses. In the midst of these embers, Moses unearths five stones and a burnt stick, which represent the five paths toward intimacy – intimacy with God and intimacy with others.
You are invited to pick up each of the five stones and to encounter their intricacy and beauty. The stones of demarcation, difference, dwelling, disclosure and discovery form the elements of the lifelong journey towards full intimacy, which is our true home.
Five Stones & A Burnt Stick, invite us to let the words that reverberated through Moses reverberate through you.
“We have been created for intimacy, intimacy with God and intimacy with others.”
“In the tradition of the great myth-makers and storytellers, Ernesto leads us on a joyful and reverent journey into the heart of what it means to be spiritual. For those unhelped by traditional religion, this story will open windows and doors.”
Brian McLaren, author & speaker
“We need creative and readable ways to access profound and personal things.
Divine and human intimacy are of one piece, but we are all afraid to go there and few tell us how.
Let Ernesto lead you!”
Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M.
“This prayerful, imaginative, poetic meditation from the soul of Moses and his wife and daughter
is a scripture-soaked immersion in the living Christ who speaks through these words.”
Eugene H Peterson, Translator of The Message
We often wonder how the dry bones of scripture can live for today’s readers and hearers.
Here is one powerful, imaginative and stimulating approach. In a prosaic age, here is poetry.
In a two-dimensional culture, here are three dimensions. In an age where intimacy is made cheap,
here is intimacy made wise.’
The Right Revd John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford
‘This bold and imaginative exploration of Moses’ hidden moments takes us deep into the divine heart which created us for intimacy. Both a touching love story of husband and wife, and a profound reflection on doubt and discovery, it challenges us to examine our own hearts for reflections of the divine.’
Dr. Mark Harris, Chaplain Oriel College, Oxford
BASED around a meditation on the encounter of Moses with God at the burning bush, Five Stones and a Burnt Stick plumbs the depths of what it is to be human. We were created for intimacy, “intimacy with God and intimacy with others”.
The stones and stick reveal the nature of that intimacy. We each have our sacred space not to be violated; we are all mysteriously different from each other, as we are from the mystery that is God; intimacy depends on the language of the heart; we have to acknowledge and confront the fear within all of us which is the enemy of intimacy; intimacy is a journey of discovery to find our own unique vocation, voice, and vision.
The sacred fire dwells in everyone, and all get the opportunity to let it guide them towards the wisdom of intimacy, the purpose of all being; but not all seize it. Once grasped, however, life can be seen as “a tapestry of connected events with innate purpose and direction”.
This beautiful and profound poetic book, which through Moses and his family celebrates the love between husband and wife, brothers, father and son, father and daughter, and God and man, will reward, enrich, and encourage. Life need not be as bleak as we often make it.
Canon Anthony Phillips is a former headmaster of the King’s School, Canterbury.