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Rating: 
Summary: A lifetime treasure in a small volume
Review: I bought this book recently on something of a whim and immediately fell in love with it (as did my 3-year-old). The text is not a surprise, and it is easy to read quickly - it's just the Nicene Creed, which is intimately familiar to Christians the world over. Lutherans and other Protestants will do a double-take at "one holy Catholic Apostolic Church," but remember that that is the original wording, and catholic in this context refers not necessarily to the church of Rome, but to the universal, invisible church, that which C. S. Lewis, writing as Screwtape, called "The Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners." The book's appeal, though, is its exquisite illustration, rich in detail. Mind you, by detail, I do not mean busy-ness. The pictures and icons have a delightful number of small points to be caught, but also are beautiful in larger scope, as facing pages sometimes contrast one another or make reference to illustrations from previous pages. The unity of the pictorial images underscores the unity of the Creed itself. You really can't read the book just once at a sitting; you have to read it once, slowly, savoring each page, and then once through at a "normal" pace to see the overarching theme, extending linearly from Creation through Good Friday and the Resurrection, and finally to the final Judgment. The last image, with a person peeking through huge, magnificent doors into the brightness beyond, accompanying, "And I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come," is in itself worth (buying and) reading the entire book. What a treasure.
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