Essay - Dubus Book Review Andre Dubus's Meditations from a Movable Chair...

Dubus

Book Review

Andre Dubus's Meditations From A Movable Chair

The title of Andre Dubus' nonfiction book of spiritual reflections reflects the fact that the author now is stranded in a wheelchair, hav*****g lost his mobility in a tr*****gic accident. Ironically, his lost was incurrent when he was extending an act ***** charity. Dubus ***** helping some people by the side of the road who were experiencing car trouble, in the effort, he himself was hit by a car. In attempting to make t***** pr*****ound life adjus*****ment, to living life as a 'differently ********** individual from living as a mobile, healthy man, Dubus discusses his new life through the metaphors of the Catholic Church. A father, a divorcee, and a Catholic, his relationship to the Church became conflicted over the course of ***** adult, he said, but is still present.

One ***** the three metaphors, along which he structures his text, is that of t***** "Sacraments." (Dubus 85-93) The section of the book entitled, "*****," ***** ***** actual receiving of the Host. The Catholic Mass uses the ***** as a religious s*****crament ***** food and drink. The sacraments are not simply holy, though. Through these physical, apparently humble connections with the divine the mundane and the spiritual world become interconnected. Bread and wine are ***** in our everyday lives. Yet through the blessings of God and his priest, and through the ritual presentation ***** the *****, individuals can achieve a spi***** connection ***** the divine every time they attend a M*****ss.

***** spiritual connection is ***** simply one of the adherent's mental conditions. The very essence of the sacraments is a physical connection as well, commemorating and symbolizing Christ's giving of his human body for humanity's sins. Christ is both divine and spiritual and human and physical. The concept of transubstantiation, or ***** actual presence of Christ in the mundane matter of the Mass' sacraments is a further example ***** h***** miraculous ability ***** be two th*****gs simultaneously, and the ***** ability of ***** divine to manifest itself in the ordinary.

Thus ***** must never reject ***** ordinary, m***** Dubus. ***** connects, ***** his own lived experience, the experience of ***** sacraments, the terrible act of his loss of his mobility and the equally, though supposedly more ***** secular function of making s*****wiches for ***** children. Dubus experiences this act of cooking ***** as a ple*****ure and as a pain, which is appropriate because the ***** themselves ***** interwoven with pleasure and with *****, with the pleasure of God's love ***** humanity ***** his divine fa*****r, but also the pain of the sacrifice of Jesus' life as nourishment for a fallen *****.

As Dubus makes lunch for his daughters, the phone rings. This causes him great inner ***** ***** he realizes that he cannot live his life in ***** ***** he used to live, and move ***** a free and easy way. ***** preparing the ***** also allows him to nurture the ***** in a ***** ***** does not require