THE TWELVE STONES OF PURITY

The first book in a Christian spiritualist trilogy.

In this slim volume, debut author House prefaces the bulk of her narration with an account of how it very nearly wasn’t written at all, the author having suffered “a coma of six months, blindness, three brain surgeries, a stroke, a lung collapse, and the harrowing experience of clinical death three times,” including “losing the ability to speak, walk, breathe, and eat.” House persevered, however, and presents a spiritual work structured around the concept of 12 stones of purity—in this volume, those of Love, Faith, Truth, and Righteousness. She employs this literary device as a means to discuss many different aspects of these broad concepts, and those discussions are buttressed by ample scriptural references. Readers of Christian inspirational literature will likely be familiar with most of the precepts: “Let God’s love fill your heart so that nothing else can take hold of it,” and “God has created each of us for a special purpose. We must allow Him into our hearts in order for that destiny to be fulfilled.” At all points in these discussions, House returns consistently to the central tenets of ideal Christian selflessness, which will tend to make even the most shopworn sentiments sweetly palatable to fellow faith members. “It is not as important that some people won’t reciprocate; the important factor is that we do everything as unto the Lord,” House writes at one such point. “There is a just reward for all of us.” The narrative structure of the Stones of Purity—the elaboration of the stones themselves—could be almost anything as long as it allows for the discussions of Christian principles: It’s the discussions that will interest House’s readers, and those discussions tend to be earnest and emphatic reminders of core ideas.

An idea-rich discussion of central Christian ideals.