Book Recommendation and Subsequent Thoughts

One Special Summer by Lee and Jacqueline Bouvier. Those who know history will recognize that Jacqueline later went by the name of Jackie Kennedy. This is the telling of their trip through Europe. It's a short book - but quite entertaining. Something that would go well on the coffee table.

One quote from the book resonated with me.

"Don't waste your life with diminishing people who aren't stimulating - and if you find it's often you are with unstimulating people, it must be because you yourself are not stimulating."

That reminded me of a line from The Screwtape Letters.

"You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and out-going activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at least he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, 'I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.'"

But then the voice in my head says, how does this fit in with the Gospel that teaches that we are all children of a Heavenly Father. Is this elitist or discriminatory dogma? I don't know the answer but here are some doors which may lead to answers.

Moroni teaches us that we must, at some level, decide what is good for us and what is not. That then reminds me of the phrase, "cleave unto all good". Then comes to mind the 13th Article of Faith. Some may ask if this goes against the command to "judge not". Well, thankfully we have modern Prophets and Apostles who can clarify and give meaning to scripture.

Now back to the beginning. If you get the chance read the book, it's fun and may make you chuckle.