I remember being very struck with this book when it first appeared (2002). It sold well at the SPCK bookshop where I worked in Cambridge, where Alan Hargrave was then a Vicar. So it’s good to see it out again. Alan deals with the great Christian doctrines of Trinity, Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection. These are ‘the vital substance of life’, and they feed his great passions, for unity and community, for justice and a concern for the vulnerable and the forgotten, and for our mission to share and to enable and equip others to share ‘God’s astonishing love and amazing grace in Christ’. But this is not a dry-as-dust academic book of doctrine. No. Alan tells stories, from ordinary, even unlikely people and situations, some from South America where he lived and worked, some from Barnwell in Cambridge where he served as vicar. The Stories are grouped under those four doctrines of Trinity, Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection. Sometimes they make you laugh, sometimes cry. Sometimes they are about loss or loneliness, sometimes about forgiveness or homecoming. It’s a lovely book. As you read it, be prepared to encounter God.