NEW PASSIONS FROM AN ANCIENT GHOST
Jacob Marley's Bookstore
Jacob Marley lived a miserable, miserly life. But after his death, he made an about-face to benefit mankind.
Victorian England was strictly gendered as men dominated, their wives “Angels in the home.” As John Ruskin wrote, “The woman’s power is for rule, not for battle – and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision… she must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise, wise not for self-development but for self-renunciation: wise, not that she may set herself above her husband but that she may never fail from his side.”
Yet in the 1840s, clever women found ways to rise above the stereotype.
FOR LATTER-DAY SAINTS IN CRISIS
When the distance seems too great for us to bridge the gap, when we feel lost with no hope of finding our way home, Jesus consistently finds a way to come to us. Not just sometimes, and not just for the "good" guys, but for all of us.
He comes whenever we're ready.
John Waterbury
John Waterbury was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and raised in Illinois. He received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Arkansas State University. He was a Licensed Professional Counselor for 40 years. During his practice, he was a frequent guest on a radio talk show regarding abuse and alcoholism and later had his own radio talk show about mental health and chemical dependence. He wrote a column that was carried by newspapers in four states. He also taught at the University of Tennessee and was employed by two major hospital corporations. He served as bishop in Bountiful, Utah. He and his wife have been married for 51 years and are the parents of four children. They have 10 grandchildren.
This our faith
After a terrible farm wreck, his young brother lies in the wheat chaff, still and bloody. This scene is all too familiar to Sydney; he has seen it obsessively, over and over in his mind, weeks before it happened. While the family struggles to pay doctor bills and save the farm, prescient Sydney sees another future he must change, though it means risking his life.
Marry Up!
All Og wants is to marry the woman he loves before she sells her house and leaves forever. But, deathly afraid of intimate relationships, Og cannot bring himself to court her. What's worse, he fears he is teetering between sanity and insanity when he starts seeing elfs. A passing psychiatrist tells Og the elf is his inner child trying to give him courage. “Listen to it,” he says. His list of behavior mechanisms is taped to the store door and the townspeople promptly twist it as they try to help Og, resulting in a hilarious take on therapy. Can Og's sincerity at wanting to change carry him through misadventures until he prevails?
And yes, this is also an allegory.
"I know fear. Fear is easy: easy to find, easy to recognize, easy to know, easily comes back, easy to run from, easy to rule my life. Fear comes from behind, from above, from below. Fear comes from inside, from outside, from ahead and from behind. Fear comes from people, from animals, from things and from nothing. Fear is everywhere!"
He paused for a moment. "If I must face my fears, I will need a lot of faces."
Brady's Journey: Touching on Pridefulness
To journey with Brady will take courage. Real courage.
As Brady learns, everyone suffers from pridefulness, yet few truly love themselves. Genuine love of the deepest self – the opposite of the surface love of narcissism – is one of the most profound, important goals of life. It is this self-love that pridefulness counterfeits. Self-love is open where pridefulness is closed. Self-love tries to better the self where pridefulness tries to be better than anyone else. Self-love is forgiving where pridefulness is condemning. Self-love is healing, where pridefulness festers. Self-love welcomes others into the circle, where pridefulness is exclusive. Self-love is a spiritual relationship with self, where pridefulness is a carnal relationship with self.
Into the seed
John discovers a world where nothing is as it seems – from cookies that scream when bitten, ice cream cones hanging in the sky that are quite something else, to an uppity turtle who invites others inside her shell for tea: a zany new adventure awaits at every corner.
“From here, it looks like I went from the inside to the outside, when all the time I thought I was on the outside going to the inside.” The pert turtle patted John's curly locks. “There's still hope for you, boy,” she sighed, but with a hopeless look in her beady eyes.
Sherman Young Hart
Sherman, a gifted piano player, graduated with high honors in math from the University of Utah, and had a promising career until being drafted into the Army during the Vietnam war. He was assigned to the Oakland, Calif., induction center. On arrival every day, he was regularly harassed and jeered. After completing his tour of duty, he joined the northern California anti-establishment community, let his hair grow long, and lived there until succumbing to AIDS. This book was written in the 1970s and its fantasy is a reflection of the times.