Andrew was riveted.
He read on about how a great and wonderful theologian prayed for years that God would show him a person who could show him a good and sure way to salvation. He heard a heavenly voice tell him to step outside of the church and he would find him. Andrew read:
The theologian, obedient to the mysterious voice, immediately went out and found a beggar in rags sitting at the doors of the church. His knees were covered with scabs and seeping with pus. The wise theologian approached him and said, "A good and fortunate morning to you, old man!"
The beggar answered, "I have never had an evil or unfortunate day in my life."...
Andrew had read previously about the mysterious, transcendent Providence of a God whose world incomparably eclipsed Narnia, Hogwarts, or any other imaginary world, though that is but the shadow it cast. Here, he heard the beggar repeatedly tell he had received good things, and explain that the learned theologian's wish the beggar receive good had nothing to add to his already good estate. The beggar accepted that all things that came from him were from God: "When I am hungry, I thank the all-seeing God for it. When I am burned by cold as by fire, or when rain or hail or snow pours down on me, I glorify God for it. If someone mocks me, strikes me, or insults me, I also thank God for it, for I am sure that this is allowed by God's will, and everything that God sends serves for my benefit and protection.." When the theologian continued to pry him with his questions, the theologian eventually asked what would be the beggar's response if God cast him into hell. The beggar said he would cling to God, and that he would rather be in hell with God than in heaven without Him. And Andrew read on, reading the philosophy and principles crystallized in the narrated encounter.
An iPhone alarm went off, and Andrew set down the book and attended to various work activities.
The next day, he read about a monk who seemed to be doing different from the others, but handkerchiefs that had touched him cured the sick. The abbot spoke with him for a long time, trying to understand why this was, which was all the more a puzzle because this monk did nothing special in external, visible ascetical practices. He neither fasted more than the good deal the monks fasted, nor slept less than the good deal the monks refrained from sleep, nor prayed longer than the other monks prayed, nor did any of the striking and legendary things we read about in the lives of the monastic saints.
The one thing that he mentioned was that he was not attached to anything outside of God, and therefore he accepted everything that came to him, whether easy or difficult, as coming from God, and this was really the same thing. He accepted bad things as much as good, and when the abbot asked the monk if he had not grieved the other day when the monastery lost both its grain and its animals, the monk had not been put off at all. Finally, after all this was discussed in detail, the abbot was stunned, and answered the monk:
Go, beloved father, go and continue to zealously do everything you have told me. Keep your promise to God. You have found heaven outside of heaven. Understand that God gives such grace only to a few; there are not many people whom nothing or no one is capable of upsetting. Such a person (who accepts every event, whether good or bad, as sent by God) is surrounded in his life by strong and unassailable walls.
Andrew read further, but had to attend to things his children needed.
The next day, once home he picked up The Sunflower: Conforming the Will of Man to the Will of God and set it down quickly, because someone rang at the doorbell. He went to the door, and a person at the door asked, "Is that your car parked in the street?"
Without looking, he said, "Yes."
"Are you aware it's on fire?"
Andrew looked, saw the flames envelopping the cab, said, "Thank you," inwardly prayed, "Lord, I thank you that my car is on fire," and called 911.