Introducing Journey in Grace: A Graphic Memoir
Our new book, Journey in Grace, is finally out, and I’m so excited to share it with you!
It tells ten stories from the life of David L. Sterling as comics, alongside his own written reflections and photographs.
I adapted his stories into comic scripts, and Charbak Dipta illustrated them (you’ll see some of his pages below).
David, known to his friends as Hajj Mustafa, grew up in a Jewish family in New York. His spiritual search took him through Buddhism, and eventually all the way to Islam.
I remember the first time I met David in person, because it felt as though we’d met before. We had already spoken over Zoom, and I’d read parts of his memoir (which, like our book, is called Journey in Grace). But hearing him speak at his book launch in Bangalore, and then spending time with him afterwards, was something else.
Honestly, our backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, and I was fascinated by the life he’d lived and the extraordinary stories he had to tell.
And yet, talking with him felt surprisingly familiar. He’s so sincere that connecting with him was easy.
Somewhere in our conversations, the idea of turning his stories into comics began to take shape.
Why a story from our own time?
You know sometimes find reading about spirituality a bit dry. And even when we turn to people’s lives for inspiration, most of the stories we come across are from centuries ago.
Don’t get me wrong, those older stories have so much to offer, and I love them. But there’s something special about following someone who lives in our own time.
In David’s stories, the spiritual questions come up in the middle of real life: through the people he meets, the moments when he isn’t sure what to do, and the hard choices he has to make. You follow a man trying to respond to whatever life puts in front of him, and you can’t help asking yourself: what would I have done?
That question is a big part of what drew me to his memoir in the first place. I wanted to share these experiences through comics, so that you could step inside the stories and spend some time with them yourself.
My hope is that you’ll find something familiar in them too, even if David’s life looks very different from yours. I know I did. There was a stretch in my own life when I questioned everything I had been taught about religion, and parts of David’s search felt very close to home.
From the chapter The Secret Agent. It’s June 1979, and David and his friend Tiku are stuck at Washington DC’s airport with standby tickets and no money to get home. Art by Charbak Dipta.
What’s inside the Book?
Six of the ten chapter openers. Art by Charbak Dipta.
There are ten illustrated chapters in the book. Here’s a taste of a few of them:
Beginnings. In 1939, David’s parents flee Poland, and in Tashkent, a wali prays that his mother’s firstborn will be a Muslim. (David jokes that this prayer is probably why he became Muslim.)
The Way of Muhammad. A chapter from David’s spiritual search.
Who Will Feed a Man of Allah? Berkeley, 1975: a stranger in a green turban asks to be fed, and David waves him in. What follows raises big questions about trust and provision.
The Secret Agent. Stranded at an airport with no money and no way home, David has an encounter he never expected.
Visit to Medina. David’s visit to the Prophet’s mosque.
40 Days Surah Al-Mulk. A spiritual practice, and the place it came to hold in David’s life.
And yes, one of the other chapters really is called Grand Theft Auto. You’ll have to read the book to find out why.
Want a preview first? Three of the chapters above are free to read in full on our blog: Beginnings, Who Will Feed a Man of Allah? and The Secret Agent. Pick any one of them, and I have a feeling you’ll want the rest.
Between the chapters, David reflects in his own words, and there are photographs from his life all through the book.
The Long Way Home, one of David’s reflections, facing the opening of Libya Visit.
Get your copy
If you’ve been following our emails about Journey in Grace, thank you for coming along with us. The whole book is now yours to read.
