Books are written for various reasons. Someone writes for themselves, not caring about the reader, someone is looking for a reader, not caring about the word. But, the goal of the author of this book, Valentin Dolmatov, is always a person and a word through which he is condemned or saved. The world is changing too quickly in the external life of society and too slowly in relation to its future. The many-sided truth changes over time, but the truth does not change, which time always hurries to reveal itself in the fullness of the Word. Both the author and the reader are in a hurry to understand and hear something from the Word. In modern society, the standards of dinner conversation and speaking according to the rules on religious topics are becoming obvious, which increasingly show a tendency to sour, like dairy food. But a person has not yet introduced himself to solid food, and often does not want to. The author searches in the Word for new landmarks of the roots of our existence, discovers and reveals the secrets of the Word that were previously incomprehensible or viewed, as if through a “glass darkly,” according to the definition of the Gospel. His essays are distinguished by paradox and independence of judgment, religious daring and intellectual fearlessness to combine images of the two main books of the Bible - the Old and New Testaments. The author, like the twice-sent slave in the famous Gospel parable - in some works asks the chosen reader to share the joy of his master and accept an invitation to a heavenly banquet without coercion. In other works, he asks the reader to understand the kindness of his host and persuades him to come to his dinner. If before it was said - go, everything is already ready and let anyone who wants to come, now he (the slave) is ordered - go and convince them to enter. People of recent times, literate and intellectual, no longer need guidance and help so much as evidentiary power Words and love that has not yet been shown. Many of the author's essays call on the reader to be able, based on his own frame of mind, to penetrate into the frame of mind of the author to whom he is appealing. And moreover, to understand the author better than he was able to express the truth, always elusive in the diversity of words. But, for this, as in any matter, you need to make an effort on yourself in order to see fresh images of the Word, and then, with faith, hope and love, transform them into the fulfillment of what was expected...