This book had its genesis in a trip my husband and I took to Turkey several years ago. We went to Ephesus, where St. Paul had his troubles in the arena, and while we were there, during a ravishing spring filled with birdsong and blossoming trees, we visited a small shrine in the hills above the city said to have once been the home of the Virgin Mary. As legend has it, John, the Beloved Disciple, had taken her here to live after the events chronicled in the gospels, and here she stayed, receiving pilgrims and giving spiritual counsel, until her own passage from this life to rejoin her son in heaven. On the walls of the little house were written verses about Mary from the Qur'an, as well as prayers and devotions of the Christian faithful, together with the personal testaments of many anonymous devotees to healing and consolation.

It was at Ephesus that I first became conscious of the extent and depth of reverence for Mary beyond as well as within the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, of the huge quantity of legendary and apocryphal material about her, and of her power and appeal across a range of religious and cultural formations, Christian and non-Christian alike. Since then I have learned a great deal more about this complex figure, the widespread devotion she occasions, and her place in world religious culture, but I have not forgotten the initial impact of that small shrine, the inspiration many found there, and the numerous questions it raised.