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Stephanie Saldaña was interviewed by the reviewer for a two part story which ran in Today's Catholic July 9 and 23, 2004 — the summer before she left for Syria. It can be viewed in the archives here.
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Reviewed by Carol Baass Sowa
Today's Catholic
A hefty memoir by a young woman barely into her 30s involving a journey in spirituality would hardly seem to be the stuff of which page-turners are made, but former San Antonian Stephanie Saldana has done just that.
“The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith,” is a candid account of Divinity scholar Saldana’s search for God and her place in life during a year’s stay in Syria on a Fulbright Fellowship. In a sometimes humorous, always honest and poetic style, she weaves for the reader a story as fascinating as the carpets in her Syrian friend Mohammed’s carpet shop, which tell him of the lands through which their refugee weavers have fled.
Saldana recognizes that she too is a refugee, fleeing from a family history that seems to carry a curse and from a romantic relationship with a Cambridge professor that has ended badly. Threads of these stories are woven into her new life as a resident in the ancient city of Damascus, living in what her colorful Armenian landlord, “The Baron,” exaggeratedly describes as “the most beautiful room in all of Bab Touma.” From there, she writes, “I began to feel like I had access, in some form or another, to almost every story that had ever existed in that part of the world, from holy books to holy lands.”
A previous traveler and resident in the Middle East, she sets out on her Fulbright goal of studying the Muslim Jesus, immersing herself in Arabic language classes, only to discover that she has also been fleeing God. Making a rigorous month-long retreat at the medieval monastery of Mar Musa, carved high into the desert hills, she believes God is calling her to remain there as a nun, but falls ill, and a brief Christmas visit to her family in San Antonio causes her to have second thoughts.
She returns to Damascus to finish out the year, studying the Quran in Arabic under a gracious sheikha, who befriends her, and also begins to build friendships among her neighbors and learn their stories.
There is Hassan the refugee artist whose memories of Baghdad find their way into his paintings, Ahmed the Palestinian pastry shop owner who insists he will one day open up a shop across from the White House to aid Syrian-American relations, and others, all of whom have an impact on her life. So much so that when hostility breaks out between Syria and neighboring Lebanon, Saldana refuses to flee, though America is breaking off relations and she is questioned by the secret police. (Just across a different Syrian border, the war in Iraq is raging on.)
Another good friend of Saldana’s is Frédéric, a novice French monk at the monastery with whom she shares her innermost thoughts on God and religion. While he has long been certain of his calling to be a monk, Saldana is still struggling to discern her vocation. To her horror, she finds herself falling in love with Frédéric and tries to distance herself from him. He is confused as well. She returns to New England while he makes a pilgrimage to India, looking for a sign from God that will tell him which way to go.
“I don’t think that God brought you all the way to the desert to leave you stranded in hell,” the abbot at Mar Musa had told her when she struggled with her faith.
In her complicated journey to faith and love, just where God will lead her is not completely answered at the book’s conclusion, when Frederic tells her his decision. For that, you must read to the very end of the acknowledgements in the book’s last pages. Then you know.