Teddy Jones offers us a trenchant analysis from God's word spoken to the prophet Obadiah and through the New Testament books of Philemon, II John, III John and Jude Pastor, Lecturer, Mentor and Theologian. Let's Major in The Minors offers readers the following benefits: * It is an excellent personal and corporate Bible Study Guide. * It is ideal for use as a textbook * It adds qualitatively to serious Christian thinking and application. * It offers us no respite from dealing with injustice and other evils * It confronts and challenges us, as God would, to treat with the issues of our times as He would. It focuses on the sin of pride in all the ways in which it presents itself in the life of persons including God's people. * It warns of the dangers and deadly venom of pride. * It talks about relationships and an antidote to social sicknesses as it explores Philemon and the Johannine corpus and Jude

Maybe it's not fraud; it's probably not a felony, either. But, going along with her husband's latest adventure, a road trip on which she is to impersonate a visitor in several West Texas hospitals, makes Dorothy Faye Bell feel like a criminal. The trip's events cause a storm of emotion which clears only after she finds a person she had forgotten, or never really knew, herself. Hers is a story of the search for purpose in midlife, spiced with West Texas characters and her own brand of humor. Her part in Harold's scheme is to justify parking their only dwelling, a twenty-eight foot travel trailer, on the hospitals' visitor parking lots - free - by posing as a visitor. That's no surprise - he always has some odd scheme underway. After thirty-three years of marriage, Dorothy Faye does what she thinks a good wife should. She quits her job as a care attendant, packs her New York Times Crossword Puzzles book and not much else, leaves their home of twenty years, and hits the road, smiling even when she's irritated. This tale of two West Texans' journey in Summer, 2000 takes the reader into hospital waiting rooms and other unlikely places where some of the people she meets benefit from Dorothy Faye's "visits." The story traverses the dual arcs of Dorothy Faye's and Harold's quests. He searches for answers to his secret health concerns and she for a purpose other than being Harold's wife. She finds her answers. And Harold continues being Harold.

As a winter storm bears down on the Texas Panhandle, seventy-four-year-old Willa Jackson embarks on a plan to maintain her independence and fully realize her artistic talent. Her daughter, Melanie, is determined to take charge of her mother, although her hands are full of her own problems. Willa's past, and that of Jackson's Pond, Texas, the dying town named for the pond on their ranch, provides a backdrop for Willa's determination to secure her own future and the future of her grandchildren. Willa challenges resistance from several directions, including from her own doubts, as she follows her creative heart.

"Left Early, Arrived Late" conveys an unconventional biography of an unconventional woman. Marcia Muth, Memory Painter, emerges through a series of scenes from her life, a long life that began in 1919. "It was a good childhood," Muth says, reflecting on her early years. But her perspective is at odds with the "good childhood" prescribed by most theories of human development. For that reason, James HiIlman's myth-enriched book, "The Soul's Code," serves as guide for this tale of a remarkable artistic life. Hillman tells us that each soul has an accompanying "daemon" that knows that soul's destiny and that serves as it impetus. A life such as Muth's, that has consistently run counter to typical roles and expectations--of children, of females, of career development, of most of Muth's contemporaries--lends credence to the notion that norms are meaningless when applied to individuals. Muth, accurately described at various points in her life as odd child, ward of the state, professional librarian, poet, entrepreneur, Jew, estranged daughter, mentor, caretaker, visionary, Living Treasure, and Memory Painter, permitted extensive interviews for this book. Friends and acquaintances from throughout her life also provided important information. Her art and her poetry tell parts of her story and photographs trace the subject of the scenes through her years. The result is "Left Early, Arrived Late," a biography that is uncommon, as is its subject, Marcia Muth, Memory Painter. Teddy Jones writes about women, particularly women whose lives allow readers to view the uncommon in the ordinary. She lives and works in the settings she enjoys most--rural West Texas and New Mexico. Jones' website, www.tjoneswrites.com, includes additional material created in response to her acquaintance and friendship with Marcia Muth. More scenes, a series of imaginary art works created as a result of writing "Left Early, Arrived Late--Scenes from the Life of Marcia Muth, Memory Painter," invite readers to enter a tour of Muth's life through visualization and questions that prompt further exploration. Jones is also the co-author of "A Stone for Every Journey" and "100 Doses," a finalist in the 2007 New Mexico Book Award competition. Both books are published by Sunstone Press.

Farm and ranch women are the heart of an important American institution, agriculture. Their strength is a critical resource for their families and communities. This book offers those women their own special prescription for health and well-being in one hundred small doses. Some "capsules" remind of care to be taken daily, some to be taken regularly, others to take as needed, several to give to family and friends and still more to apply to the community. Reading this book won't make you immediately "feel good" like a warm beverage or a serving of your mother's best meal. It won't always bring a tear of nostalgia to the eye or a longing for the good old days. But like a good tonic, these capsules of advice and encouragement will stimulate you. You'll find essays that will boost your morale. Others will prompt you to be grateful. Several instruct about health matters. And some will even make you laugh. There's no better prescription than that, is there? Teddy Jones, R.N., Ph.D., is a Family Nurse Practitioner. Before she and her husband began farming his family's land near Friona, Texas, she was a Professor at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing, in Lubbock, Texas. Growing up in a rural town in central North Texas, she spent lots of happy times with cousins on their families' wheat and dairy farms. Those experiences and her admiration for those who farm and ranch prompted her to develop and teach elective courses in Rural Health Nursing. That same interest spurred her to develop the concept for her health promotion column, "In The Middle Of It All," which appears monthly in "The Farmer Stockman." She practices part-time as a Nurse Practitioner in New Mexico and writes when she's not helping with the farm work. Sue Jane Sullivan, B.S.Ed., teaches in the only school in the only town in Borden County, Texas. That rural school is not far from the area where she grew up, surrounded by ranches, farms and oil wells. Like most people in farming and ranching areas, she can and does fill many roles. She teaches English, Spanish, history and government and coaches Interscholastic League literary events including debate, journalism, and spelling. She's a free-lance newspaper writer and her newsletter, "A New Song," is a regular source of encouragement for the special group of friends for whom she publishes it. A major inspiration for her work is her maternal grandmother who was widowed at 41, during the Great Depression. She managed to keep and operate the family farm and raise five children long before the term single parent was invented.

Elinor Delight Gregg, R.N., the first Supervisor of Nurses for the Indian Service, holds the microphone and begins to speak. Her memories--vivid with details of 80 years of an independent woman's life of adventure, frustration, triumphs, and personal commitment to caring--begin to fill the first tape. She wonders how the two University of New Mexico nursing students, Melody Johnson and Alice Fryer, can possibly benefit from what she has to say. Her stories tell of times far before they were born--of miles she traveled through World War I, on Indian Reservations, in Washington, D.C., and all the journeys between and since. But as always, since she's agreed to help, she will. Melody and Alice want to learn from Elinor's experiences, but conflicts and questions about marriage, the Vietnam War, commitment, women's roles, adventure, and about the type of nurses they'll become threaten to distract them. Can Elinor Gregg help them find answers? And, once when they visit her in Santa Fe, another question arises--what is the purpose of the basket full of stones "Aunt El" keeps near her chair? This thoroughly researched true biography set within a fictional relationship between Elinor Gregg and two University of New Mexico nursing students in the summer of 1966 will instruct readers interested in nursing, gerontology, history, and the Women's Movement, and will fascinate the general reader who enjoys a good story. Edwina McConnell, a nurse consultant and nurse educator, maintained a career-long interest in the life of Elinor D. Gregg, R.N., the figure about whose life this book revolves. McConnell first studied Gregg as a figure in nursing history during her undergraduate education. Fascinated by the spirit and character of this pioneering nurse, she collected primary and secondary research materials toward a biography for many years. The biography of Elinor Gregg was the focus of her work at the time of her death in 2002. Teddy Jones is a nurse practitioner and nurse educator whose initial collaboration in this project was limited to critical reading of the developing manuscript and encouragement for her friend and colleague, McConnell. She also made a promise to complete the work should anything happen to prevent McConnell from doing so. Jones' participation as co-author began when McConnell bequeathed her the research material and the partial manuscript. Or perhaps it began when she made that promise. Both McConnell (BSN, MSN, Ph.D.) and Jones (BSN, MSN, Ph.D.) have numerous publications in nursing and health care. This is their first work of biographical fiction.