On The Book of Mev

Wednesday 18 June 2008

by Charity Kaiser

I felt that Mev became one of my good friends as I read the book. That is why I cried at her funeral. I truly felt grieved by her death. Her short 30-something years had so much vitality, inspiration, passion and love, yet simplicity and suffering, too. I couldn’t help but put her on a pedestal and long for my life to share some of the qualities that were found in hers.

I love how her passion and vision for a more just world penetrated her life even to the interpersonal level – she seemed to treat a Brasilian campesino with the same respect and dignity as a Vatican official.

I love how she struggled and eventually found a way to combine and put to good use her great passions. The thing I probably love the most about this book is how it paints a picture of Mev that is simultaneously so ordinary and so extraordinary. It gives me hope that my own life is capable of such beautiful complexity.

Charity studied in Social Justice in spring 2008 and is entering her senior year.