Only one language of the soul

Walking from East to West by Ravi Zacharias
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2006.

This is Ravi Zacharias' memoir of his spiritual journey. I enjoyed reading it, gaining a better understanding of some of the cultural differences he experienced growing up in India. It is wonderful to see how God works in all cultures to bring his people to Himself.

In a proverbial sense, soil and soul define the "I" and "U," and if we do not understand this, we will never understand the East. Religion, language, and ancestral indebtedness are carved into the consciousness of every child of the East. And this is what makes conversion to any other faith an upheaval of titanic proportions...Being able to speak in two languages from opposite ends of the world helps you to be sympathetic and, I believe, effective in not just hearing but listening; in responding not just to the question but to the questioner. (p. 36)

To celebrate, I planted two mango trees...Forty years later, when I visited, they would greet me at towering new heights of thirty or so feet, with the present residents telling me they harvest a huge crop of mangoes each year from those two trees. They now shade the back lawn with the rich aromas of mangoes in season. (p. 51)

While the languages of the tongue and the anguish of experience may vary, the language of the soul is the same all over the world. (p. 229)