Mirror, Mirror: Seeing Ourselves in the Story-Lenten Readings and Prayers

J.R.C. Perkin is past-president of Acadia University and the author of
Reflections and Insights.

One contemporary way of interpreting the Bible is to read the narrative
as a story—a real-life drama of success and failure, love and hatred,
compassion and selfishness, divine intervention and human resistance.
The interpreter then sets our own life story alongside the biblical
story, noting both the parallels and the dissimilarities. Walter
Farquharson employs this method of interpretation very effectively in
Mirror, Mirror. He also changes the metaphor by presenting the biblical
story as a mirror in which we may see ourselves—sometimes to our
comfort, sometimes to our considerable discomfort.

The book contains a prologue (“Mirrors in the Garden,” a
fascinating presentation of Genesis 2:4–25) and six chapters, one for
each week in Lent. The titles are indicative of the glimpses we may get
as we look into the biblical mirror: “Mirrors That Reveal too Much”
(Genesis 3); “Mirrors and a Murder” (Genesis 4:1–16); “Mirrors
for Journeymakers” (Genesis 12); “Mirrors in a House of Need and
Grace” (2 Kings 4); “Mirrors to Catch a Prophet, and Others, on the
Run” (Jonah); and “Mirrors at the Centre” (Matthew 21 and John
12–20).

For each day of the seven-week series there is a scriptural reading, a
meditation, a prayer, and a suggested song resource. Farquharson,
himself a hymn writer of note (four of his compositions form an appendix
to this volume), is sensitive to the nature and use of language. The
parts of each section fit together, and the meditations are full of
insights into both the nature of human experience and the story of
God’s dealing with people. The material might be used to good effect
in a small study group committed to serious reflection during the Lenten
season.