Bonnie S. (Bonnie) -
A sweet little book that just may contain your "boost" for the day.
Review by Jerry Johnson
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Spiritual gems cost about 2¢ a passage
By Jerry Johnston
Deseret Morning News
At a bookstore, value is always in the heart of the beholder. The latest steamy novel may cost $25, but you can usually find the "Complete Works of William Shakespeare" for half as much. That isn't value added, it's value subtracted.
At a Barnes & Noble recently, I noticed Jane Fonda's new book was selling for $26.95 about $27 for the "wisdom of Jane Fonda." Across the aisle I saw a book called "The Wisdom of the Dalai Lama" selling for $7.98, which means Fonda's insights must be three times as deep.
On the upside, all this means buyers can sometimes pick up immortal words for just pennies a page. And that also happened to me the other night. Barnes & Noble has its own publishing house now. And among the store's titles was a little book called "Spirituality: Passages in Search of the Heart of God." It sells for $4.98. I picked up a copy, thinking if it was a bust I wouldn't be out much. At home, as I came across a quote in the book I wanted to remember, I'd stick a Post-It Note to the page. After 10 minutes, the book looked like an Asian fan, or a paper turkey pasted together by first-graders. Every passage seemed to jump off the page at me.
I remembered my mother.
When she died, I ended up with her Bible. One night I decided to go through the New Testament to see what scriptures she'd marked what counsel had jumped out at her. I found she'd underlined pretty much every scripture in the book. And I'm sure, given time, she would have gotten around to highlighting them all.
That's how I felt with my little bookstore find. Every passage jumped out at me.
For the fun of it, I counted the number of quotes in the book (200) and divided that into $4.98 to get the market value of each piece of wisdom. It came to about 2.5 cents a passage almost literally the writer's "two cents worth."
So, from me to you, here's about 15 cents worth of wisdom from the book.
Value it as you will:
"It is as impossible for a man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle." Frederick Buechner
"God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance renewed daily of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason." Dag Hammarskjold
"Let there be no disappointment when obedience keeps you busy in outward tasks. If it sends you to the kitchen, remember that the Lord walks among the pots and pans." St. Teresa of Avila
"St. Teresa of Avila described our life in this world as a night at a second-class hotel." Malcolm Muggeridge
"Religion is a candle inside a multicolored lantern. Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there." Muhammad Naguib
"God is the friend of silence. See how nature trees, flowers, grass grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls." Mother Teresa of Calcutta
***************************
Spiritual gems cost about 2¢ a passage
By Jerry Johnston
Deseret Morning News
At a bookstore, value is always in the heart of the beholder. The latest steamy novel may cost $25, but you can usually find the "Complete Works of William Shakespeare" for half as much. That isn't value added, it's value subtracted.
At a Barnes & Noble recently, I noticed Jane Fonda's new book was selling for $26.95 about $27 for the "wisdom of Jane Fonda." Across the aisle I saw a book called "The Wisdom of the Dalai Lama" selling for $7.98, which means Fonda's insights must be three times as deep.
On the upside, all this means buyers can sometimes pick up immortal words for just pennies a page. And that also happened to me the other night. Barnes & Noble has its own publishing house now. And among the store's titles was a little book called "Spirituality: Passages in Search of the Heart of God." It sells for $4.98. I picked up a copy, thinking if it was a bust I wouldn't be out much. At home, as I came across a quote in the book I wanted to remember, I'd stick a Post-It Note to the page. After 10 minutes, the book looked like an Asian fan, or a paper turkey pasted together by first-graders. Every passage seemed to jump off the page at me.
I remembered my mother.
When she died, I ended up with her Bible. One night I decided to go through the New Testament to see what scriptures she'd marked what counsel had jumped out at her. I found she'd underlined pretty much every scripture in the book. And I'm sure, given time, she would have gotten around to highlighting them all.
That's how I felt with my little bookstore find. Every passage jumped out at me.
For the fun of it, I counted the number of quotes in the book (200) and divided that into $4.98 to get the market value of each piece of wisdom. It came to about 2.5 cents a passage almost literally the writer's "two cents worth."
So, from me to you, here's about 15 cents worth of wisdom from the book.
Value it as you will:
"It is as impossible for a man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle." Frederick Buechner
"God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance renewed daily of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason." Dag Hammarskjold
"Let there be no disappointment when obedience keeps you busy in outward tasks. If it sends you to the kitchen, remember that the Lord walks among the pots and pans." St. Teresa of Avila
"St. Teresa of Avila described our life in this world as a night at a second-class hotel." Malcolm Muggeridge
"Religion is a candle inside a multicolored lantern. Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there." Muhammad Naguib
"God is the friend of silence. See how nature trees, flowers, grass grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls." Mother Teresa of Calcutta
