The painting on the book cover is by Ivana Noble and is called Mary Skips Up the Temple Stairs (oil on canvas, 2021). It is part of a cycle Life of Mary drawn by the artist during the Covid lockdown, posters of which travel until now in one of the buses in Marienbad. It is focused on the theme of light and hope as human life evolves and unfolds. This first painting is inspired by the Proto-Gospel of James, which narrates the conception and early life of Mary. The particular scene on which the painting is based speaks about Mary as a three-year-old girl. Her parents, Joachim and Anna, who for a long time could not have children, see her as a miracle and promise to consecrate her to God. That means for them bringing her to the temple and leaving her there to be educated and partake in the spiritual life of the most holy place. After her birth, they wait, fearing for her well-being, and enjoying her presence. And even when she is three years old, and they bring her, they are worried that she may look back and miss them. The painting captures the moment when the light in her recognizes the light outside. It is a moment of goodness and of hope. The priest of the temple in which years later Mary’s son will be rejected is welcoming her. It is a moment when things are as they should be, Mary filled with grace dances on the temple steps, and people around her find delight in her. Joachim and Anna stand in the left corner of the painting as witnesses to that scene. Their role decreases so that of Mary may increase. They are out of the main focus of the story now, and yet their maturity, including the ability to let go, also transmits light. The colours are simple, almost monochromatic. Light is not painted as “something that we can grasp,” but rather as something that grasps the figures on the canvas as well as us, who look at them, and wonder happens in the presence of that which is not another colour, of that which illuminates all colours.