We Pause For My New Book Release...and Life in General

 I know I haven't written in several days, but that's because I'm excited about my new book of short stories, that's all.

 

 

They've been several years in the writing, and now they're leaving home and running around out in the world and I'm very happy for them, but I hope they'll still write home every now and then, tell me how they're doing...

And I'm writing new stories as well. Just because that's what gives me the energy to keep going, you know.

My oldest girl is getting married soon, and most of my brainpower is going, not into stories, but into dishes and menus and dresses and reception decorations and photography. I'm not as good at any of that, but the Lord is sending me angels, and I'm sure the happy couple will survive my helpfulness.

Once that's done, and once we get into summer, the General Conference stories and the rest of the Iliad will be forthcoming, I'm sure.

 

 

Elder Sterling W. Sill, Part Three - Mason Weems and the Question of the Cherry Tree

 Choose your link for Part One, Part Two, Four, Five, Six, Seven, or Eight - bountiful selections!

 

We're on to the third reference in this talk - the second of three very close together - but each deserves its own little discussion in my book.

One of Abraham Lincoln's favorite books listed in "Medicine for the Soul" by Elder Sterling W. Sill was a book about George Washington by Mason Weems. 

 

The Quote

"The two most powerful books in Lincoln’s life 

were, first, the Holy Bible, 

which even in his youth he hungrily devoured before the open fire, 

and second,  

The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington 

by Mason L. Weems."

 

This was, in fact, one of the first biographies of George Washington, published soon after his death. It includes the infamous cherry tree incident, which practically passed into cultural myth.

When I read it, honestly, I gag a little. The style isn't modern at all - it's over-the-top sweetness and syrup. I remember being raised on that story as late as the 1970s.

I do in some sense appreciate the historical response these days to even out the myth-making with more accuracy and realism today - to acknowledge that life wasn't as idealized as authors like Mason Weems made it out to be- although he claimed it was a true story, there's no substantiation for it.

But history's a little funny that way - there's no going back to see the truth of that time, and although there's some irony in illustrating a person's honesty with a false story, I can't agree with biographers of today who insist in going overboard and casting the Founding Fathers and others in some very unflattering light, often judging them by today's standards when they were a product of their time, just as we are.

Also, we should consider the results of this focus, which inspired a young boy in Springfield, Missouri, to read and dream, and one day become President himself. I wonder if that would have happened if he'd gotten hold of a book that focused instead on Washington's slaves and his wooden false teeth and his high breathy voice instead of his bravery and honesty.

I like to choose to see God in people in history, whenever possible, because that's how I would want to be remembered myself. Where was the good in them? 

We're all a mix of good and bad - but our focus is our own. Do we focus on the worst of people, or the best?

What would you say is the wisest course? 

 

 

Elder Sterling W. Sill, Part Two - Abraham Lincoln and the Drive to Read

 Choose your link for Part One, Part Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, or Eight - so many choices!

 

Elder Sterling W. Sill always had a soft spot in my heart, because he thinks like me. He wants to know the secret of success - and he taught it with great enthusiasm. In his April 1972 talk, "Medicine for the Soul", he brings in the big guy - everyone's favorite, Abraham Lincoln:

 

The Quote

 

"Abraham Lincoln once said, “What I want to know is in books.” 

Lincoln was a great one for self-education - another graduate of Book U, like myself.

But this quote is a sort of paraphrase of what he actually said.

And what he actually said, we have more secondhand.

In his book, "Abraham Lincoln: The Story of a Great Life, Volume 1", his partner at law William Henry Herndon writes the following:

 

"He was always at school early...and attended to his studies. 

He was always at the head of his class, and passed us rapidly in his studies. 

He lost no time at home, and when he was not at work was at his books. 

He kept up his studies on Sunday, 

and carried his books with him to work, 

so that he might read when he rested from labor...

"...Abe's love for books, and his determined effort to obtain an education 

in spite of so many obstacles, 

induced the belief in his father's mind, 

that booklearning was absorbing a greater proportion of his energy and industry 

than the demands of the farm. 

The old gentleman had but little faith in the value of books or papers,

and hence the frequent drafts he made on the son to aid in the drudgery of daily toil. 

He undertook to teach him his own trade... he was a carpenter and joiner — 

but Abe manifested such a striking want of interest 

that the effort to make a carpenter of him was soon abandoned."

 

So Abraham Lincoln certainly WOULD have said such a thing at some point in his life - just not so much in these words.

He did write this poem, which is a similar thought, and he obviously lived it himself:

“Good boys who to their books apply,

Will all be great men by and by.”

Something else I love are the lines a 14-year-old Abraham Lincoln wrote in one of his school books, maybe thinking of his father's fruitless efforts to teach him more practical skills through his mad-dog determination to read instead:

 

" Abraham Lincoln, 

His hand and pen, 

He will be good, 

But God knows when." 

 

He had a real drive to improve himself, a real God-given desire and one that I've felt myself. I've always admired him for that.

Elder Sterling W. Sill, Part One - A Walk Through the Libraries in My Life

 Choose your link for Part Two, Part Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, or Eight - a bonanza of choices!

 

Welcome back for another discussion of another Conference talk. These talks feel so valuable, not so much for current spiritual guidance (we have the newest ones for those), but I love them as sort of a time capsule of literature and culture - some of which really shouldn't be forgotten.

Today we come to another talk by Sterling W. Sill entitled "Medicine For the Soul" - whom I think of as the Dale Carnegie of apostles. He was a self-made businessman in life, and in his talks he includes a lot of sources we normally find in success literature.

Today's reference is about an institution close to my heart - libraries:

 

The Quote

"Over the door of the library in the ancient city of Thebes, 

an Egyptian king once carved an inscription that said: 

“Medicine for the Soul.”"

 

Hence we have the title of his remarks - but how true is this?

Very true - a very similar phrase (Healing Place of the Soul) was reported by Hecataeus of Abdera, a historian of the early third century B.C., as an inscription on the sacred library of the tomb complex of Osymandyas (Ramses II), at Thebes.

I'm completely in accord with Ramses II. Since I was a small child, the idea of going somewhere to get free books, more than I could ever read, made me feel rich even when my family circumstances were completely the opposite.

The first library I remember was the Salt Lake City library, where I lived as a child. My mother was also a voracious reader - still is, as well as being a prolific Jane Austin fanfiction writer. It seemed enormous in my smallness, and the carpet had a strong smell. Every time on the way home, I would try to read my new treasures in the car, and make myself sick. Still, I would always recover when I got home, and I would devour every book I brought home.

Everywhere we moved, the library was a home away from home, and a refuge in my home. In Bowie, Maryland, the library sat next to my high school, and when I didn't want to go home (which was often), I would spend my afternoons and evenings in the library, filling my eyes and ears with newness and life and the whole world.

 I developed a library in my own home as my mother had, and in my phone when digital libraries became possible. 

One time I was helping an elderly member of my church clear out a shed, full of webs and rodent droppings. I came across some boxes that had an entire set of Harvard Books, untouched and only a little musty. A glowing miracle of knowledge.

As coolly as I could, I sidled up to her, and asked, "I don't suppose you're looking to get rid of these....?"

She looked at it.

"Yeah, you can have them if you want them."

I assented just as coolly, then went home with double-fist pumps and whoops of victory. SCORE! 

My love of libraries changed my political leanings - when I moved somewhere where the library was a closet of old books that hadn't been updated in 50 years, I changed political parties in protest.

I took my kids to the library every week. The staff knew me as the lady with the laundry basket, and my kids filled that basket week after week until they left home.

When people ask me what my alma mater is, I tell them it was Book U - the same alma mater of Benjamin Franklin, Ray Bradbury and Malcolm X. Talk about impressive, right?

 

When I go to heaven one day, for me, it will be a library, all to myself, where I can roll on long wooden library ladders, scurry into corners and wear books on my head and nestle into a pile of pages on the floor until I fall over drunk on stories. 

 *snort*

So I kinda like libraries. :-) What about you?