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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Other Protestant & Nonconformist Churches > General
Imagine raising six spirited kids on a grass farm-today. Newspaper
columnist Dorcas Smucker and her brood live out their days in full
view in this collection of musings-picking blueberries while
watching for bears, hoping for angels while driving off the
freeway, moving into the "thousand-story house," and enduring
lectures from teenage children about the virtue of respect. Three
books in one, this collection includes Smucker's Ordinary Days:
Family Life in a Farmhouse, Upstairs the Peasants are Revolting:
More Family Life in a Farmhouse, and Downstairs the Queen Is
Knitting. Often slightly off-stride and with disarming humility,
Dorcas finds endless materials for stories and life lessons in
everyday happenings. As she says, "I, like my mother, feed my
children mashed potatoes and stories. I repeat the ones I heard
from Mom and turn our family escapades into tales to be repeated
while washing dishes or snapping buckets of green beans on the
front porch. A story is much more than just a story, of course. It
is entertainment, identity, interpretation, and lessons. This is
who we are, this is why we do what we do, this is important, that
is not, and don't ever whack your brother's finger with a hatchet
like your dad did to Uncle Philip." This delightful trilogy
includes some of Smucker's best writing. She covers topics and
dilemmas everyone can relate to while also inviting readers to
explore her Mennonite family's more personal experiences. Her voice
is humorous, encouraging, and at times, doubting, but she never
takes herself too seriously. As you read, her stories will
entertain you and ultimately soothe your soul.
The Mormons had just arrived in Utah after their 1,300-mile exodus
across the Great Plains and over the Rocky Mountains. Food was
scarce, the climate shocking in its extremes, and local Indian
bands uneasy. Despite the challenges, Brigham Young and his
counselors in the First Presidency sent church members out to
establish footholds throughout the Great Basin. But the church
leaders felt they had a commission to do more than simply establish
Zion in the wilderness; they had to invite the nations to come up
to "the mountain of the Lord's house." In these critical early
years, when survival in Utah was precarious, missionaries were sent
to every inhabited continent. The 14 general epistles, sent out
from the First Presidency from 1849 to 1856, provide invaluable
perspectives on the events of Mormon history as they unfolded
during this complex transitional time. Woven into each epistle are
missionary calls and reports from the field, giving the Mormons a
glimpse of the wider world far beyond their isolated home. At
times, the epistles are a surprising mixture of soaring doctrinal
expositions and mundane lists of items needed in Salt Lake City,
such as shoe leather and nails. Settling the Valley, Proclaiming
the Gospel collects the 14 general epistles, with introductions
that provide historical, religious, and environmental contexts for
the letters, including how they fit into the Christian epistolary
tradition by which they were inspired.
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