I’ve begun listening to Paris Publishing’s audiobook production of The Desire of Ages. I know, I’m a little late to the party. The Barbara Caruso-narrated audiobook was released September of last year, which is part of a year that feels like an eternity ago now. Remember when the consensus was 2016 couldn’t end quick enough? Now we’re a little over 10% into 2017. It’s incredible, if not jarring, how time stops for no man, isn’t it?
The first chapter of DOA has some meaningful moments, with plenty of meat packed into it straight away. Ellen White doesn’t waste time building to her book’s purpose in the way that a blogger might waste time building to a review with a poignant and masterful rant on the passage of time.
Caruso delivers the emotional punch that Ellen White was most likely going for. With the use of a calm demeanor and careful enunciation, she manages to emphasize all the right notes in a way that makes you feel the narrator could be the actual author somehow. Meaning, everything is said in the way you’d expect them to. And for that, one might find him or herself flipping back a couple of seconds to re-listen to certain well-made, well-spoken points on our relationship with Christ.
One of my favorite moments refers to Jesus’ tenure among us humans along with his eventual crucifixion, which White notes as, “a voluntary sacrifice” and that “…He chose to give back the scepter into the Father’s hands, and to step down from the throne of the universe, that He might bring light to the benighted, and life to the perishing.” This part of the recording happens starting at the 7:50 minute mark for those following along. Listen to the way Caruso brings home the line with her reading of “perishing.” She’s doing an incredible job transcribing the gratefulness and astonishment that Ellen White must’ve felt when she revealed these words in her writing. To imagine God doing so much for all of us shouldn’t inspire less of a response.
The Desire of Ages was first published in 1898, which is another example of time leaping forward faster than we realize. None of us were alive when Mrs. White’s words were first published, but the perspective is still plenty fresh for consideration. If the first chapter is an indicator of the content to come with the remaining 33 hours of this recording, it wouldn’t hurt to have a pad and pen ready for notes, or a finger hovering above the rewind button. Because the content in DOA is worth the attention, don't let these pearls slip by. The themes written by White and now narrated like never before will remain timeless, no matter how time moves.
