The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coehlo
Part 1
Reflect: Life is truly broad. It keeps on giving so much fuss about human existence and his own world. Human mind continually explores that even sometimes he mindlessly goes beyond the limit. Like Athena, she searched for an absolute answer to fill in the "blank spaces" of her world. Questions and unsatisfying happiness inevitably intervened and anger furiously interceded. She chose to surrender her future by searching for that "something" until she went through painstaking encounters from the physical world. She believed that she was the Goddess Mother or a god herself because God for her is another type of existence who rules the world. She deeply believed that the best way to live is to know who you are beyond your own ability to describe yourself.
Connect: The story brings out metaphysical approaches.It is all about questions throughout a living until pushing yourself to explore something you think is impossible to encounter. I hardly get the main point because I myself doesn't understand why most people have to search for something and take the risk for their dreams when the only answer for everything is to believe that there is GOD who rules over our lives. I was once lost and now I've found the answer through seeking the real God. Athena life was all about searching and looking for her own happiness but she was only destroyed because she only believed that she was also a goddess who could turn everything upside down through her ability to possess what God only possesses.
Questions: It is really a quest for life to explore something we do not understand or what we see a "blank space" inside of us. But do we really have to go beyond the limit when the only answer to our quests is to seek for the truth and believe that Jesus is the only way for us to discover the real meaning of living? The story "the witch of portobello" is a novel about searching for that "unknown" and believing that the answer is that we are also gods. Philosophy sometimes contradicts belief. But do we really have to live all throughout with traditions when the best way to achieve spiritual contact is to seek for Jesus and real persons to whom we can confide? It is not wrong to break away from a church. But why some people have to backslide believing they don't grow but are building their own kingdom and not of God? And why do we have to push ourselves travel to a metaphysical world when the truth is to surrender our life to God and have a deep relationship with Him?
Predict: I think that Athena, or Shrine Khalil could not have encounter pains and heartaches if she opened herself to a world where life endlessly flows with love where only God untiringly offers. She should not have taken the risk and left her son if she believed that there are a lot of chances for her and that she was only a human to serve the omnipotent and not a goddess. And if there was a true Christian who could have led her to the truth, she could have had believed that the "blank spaces" are orderly designed by God that He is the only authority to answer and fill in the spaces.
Part two
"Learn, but always learn with other people by your side. Don’t be alone in the search, because if you take a wrong step, you'll have no one there to help put you right."
* Godly friends are the only people to whom we can lean on. Through them we could see the reflection of ourselves and our real purposes as persons and confidants.
"Love is enough to justify a whole existence."
* In searching for something we don't have to go beyond our limits because God Himself is beyond description. Love itself would only manifest when we humbly submit to Him all our questions and doubts. There is no other way to define life when you are contented in living with purity and godliness.
"...regardless of how love is manifested, love forgives our mistakes and redeems our sins."
* Jesus is the only description of love because if we truly have the best understanding of salvation, we will no longer live with desires but instead live with real happiness.
"You are what you believe yourself to be."
*Our fate depends on how we believe in our own characters. We are the greatest prophet of our lives so our future holds on our will in understanding our capabilities. This line is important to know because most people fail to appreciate their capacities of fighting their weaknesses.
"We get lost because it is the best way to discover interesting places."
*This line means so much. When we get lost, we turned to a wrong road and it is sometimes hard for us to recognize the best path because we only choose what we think is good to see instead of choosing right to be stepped on. And we get lost because of our sins. We unconsciously live in a world we think is a real happiness until we catch ourselves in sufferings and pains. To seek for His presence is the most interesting place and bow down our heads for repentance and say "I'll pray".
"Live now what others will only live in the future."
*It is important for us humans because in every moment we do simple decisions, our future takes hold of it. So to laugh, love and live are the greatest choices we have to choose to define the real meaning of the present. What we are doing now might be other people's dreams.
"To make life interesting, is to make a gesture you do each day but not repeating them twice."
*Everyday is not an ordinary day because everything we are going encounter is a battle.So to make each day an interesting experience is just to undergo something new to blot out boredom and complacency.When we do this, our everyday routine would be something extraordinary- great as it may seem.
