I have just finished reading Theo of Golden: A Novel, by Allen Levi (Atria, 2025). Theo is an old man who arrives quietly in a small mid-Georgia city for a late-life sojourn wrapped in anonymity, though he is clearly a person of some means and, by his accent and own admission, a humble origin in Portugal’s port country. Upon discovery of a local portrait painter, he begins to track down the subjects of his portraiture to give them their own paintings in a regular ritual of conversation at the city center’s public fountain. The fountain itself becomes a symbol of the spring of living waters that renew these people’s lives, often in subtle but permanent ways.
As the narrator makes clear, the book is an exposition of the underlying power of being seen deeply by others. Indeed, it is a redemptive power which we are invited into as those who exercise the art of truly and patiently seeing others. The reason why I was captured by this gentle story is that our own roundtable worship is grounded in the auditory version of this redemptive dynamic. It is a time and space committed to the life of truly speaking and truly listening. It is in this speaking and listening that we are drawn into the divine life of reconciliation. For Theo it is a work of the eye and the artist’s hand. In the Roundtable experience it is the work of gaining voice, even with only a word and gesture, and then listening deeply and appreciatively to the other.
You don’t have to know the secrets revealed at the conclusion behind Theo’s own life to grasp the book’s message. We live in a world where our capacity to see and be seen, to speak and to truly hear, has been overwhelmed by media mediators of our existence. We are alienated from each other by our phones. Our politics is awash in fear, flim-flam, lies, and gaslighting. In this mediated world we can neither effectively love each other nor work together for the common good.
I think the story of Theo is telling us that we can only be healed in our personal, private, and public life by these acts of unmediated co-presence, whether in circle conversations, roundtables, habits of conversation, or other face to face meetings. Something like this erupted in Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign in New York, the supposed citadel (or prison) of strangers. It is happening in the uncelebrated spaces of your own communities, as beleaguered as they may be. It is here that the seeds of the renewal of our public life are seeking to find the sun and water of recognition and participation in a common world. I hope you can get hold of the book and talk about it with your friends. Even better, find a stranger for conversation.