“How do we find the courage to always be true to
ourselves even if we are unsure of who we are?”
“We all want to get closer to God, but what if life is always taking you further away from Him?”
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| The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho |
Sherine Khalil is a woman abandoned by her mother because her father was a foreigner. He was born in Transylvania and adopted by a Lebanese couple. The story starts with her death and is represented in a biography in narrative form. The story was told by the people who knew her well. When she was a child her uncle renames herself into Athena to betray her origins. So she preferred to be called Athena than Sherine. That time, she always told her mother that she keeps on seeing angels, saints and a woman dressed in white like a Virgin Mary. Later on, she discovered that it is a sign that she is closely living with God.
The theme of the story is about searching one’s true self and opening to the energies of the world. One of the questions central in the story is "How do we find the courage to be true to ourselves- even if we are unsure of whom we are?”. In the story, Athena was described as a woman who will always be subject to envy, sadness, introversion and impulsive decision but can’t be easily affected by negative vibrations. A woman who can be easily notice in the crowd. A woman who has a strong spirit. She goes into London University to pursue her dreams but then she decided to drop out, get married with Lukas Jessen-Petersen and have a baby. Two years later, her husband realized that he is not happy anymore and he is facing so many responsibilities because of being married at a very young age. So they get divorced and because of that, the church didn’t allow her to receive the sacrament of the body of Christ so she cursed everyone around her and the church for deviating stringent rules which has no connection in serving our God. She swears not to set her foot in church ever again. She grows into a woman in search of answers to many questions that arise within her and searches for the answer to the classical question of "Who am I?" through many experiences. On the apartment where she resides, she met a group of people who uses dance as a way of praising God. She joined the group and influenced many people with that dance, a journalist who fell in love with her, an actress who was her disciple and had a love- hate relationship with her, a doctor who was also her protector and teacher, a numerologist who did not know her personally, a manager of bank for which she initially worked as a clerk, a teacher of calligraphy, a gipsy restaurant owner who takes her to her real mother, her real mother, and a historian. They all witnessed how Athena performed miracles by changing their lives and perceptions. Athena once discovered music as one way of getting close to God but for her, it isn’t enough. So she find dancing as another way, whenever she dance, she always saw a light and that light is asking her to go further. She had influenced everyone to the point that she earned nicknames as “A witch” or a “Divine Manifestation”.
The story also tackles the belief about the two faces of God. They believed that God has a feminine side and they call it the Great Mother. Through dancing, Athena was able to contact the Great Mother, and her name was transformed into Hagia Sofia when she’s in contact with the God. She became an intoxicating spiritual leader in London and her story was written in news papers believing that she is a cult and one of Satan’s members. The people wanted her to stop the teaching and imprisoned her and her child be send in an institution. To stop the gossip and protect their life of her child, she decided to hide in Oxford and let other people think that she is brutally murdered. She left the teaching but one of her disciples named Andrea, continued being the catalyst through spreading Athena’s influence.
This great story does not only show how Athena found herself but also how she kept her faith with God despite of all the struggles that she had experience. It also tackles about fate, showing that the purpose of what we had experienced in the past will take place on the future which God prepared for us. Lastly, it gives us lessons about love. That we should not perceive love as a habit, commitment or a debt. It is not what romantic songs tell us it is - - Love simply is. It has no definition. We should love without asking too many questions.
