Book Review: 'The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness'

The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel Ben Izzy

You can’t begin to think you know a story just because you’ve heard it before. You can’t begin to think you’re done with a story, either. Stories live and move, seemingly of their own accord. They are the teachers who show up when you are ready to learn.

Stories honor life.

The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel ben Izzy is the story of a man who learns to honor life by entering the mystery of the stories he and others live and tell.
Ben Izzy is a storyteller whose life is turned upside down when he undergoes surgery that costs him his voice. This catastrophe costs him his career and causes him to rethink not only what is important but how it came to be important.

As he attempts to make sense of his experience, he realizes that making sense of things is as pointless--sacriligeous, even--as presuming to know the point of a story just because he might have heard it before. Which is to say we mustn't presume to know where life is going or that any given moment is the end of anything.  Or the beginning.  It is enough to respect it for being a given moment.

In fact, every moment is new—a gift--and every story is likewise a gift in every moment. We have only to let go an open up to receive it and learn.

Life is a gift; tell good stories.


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