Book Review - Letters To My Sons by Stephen Merrill Weber

It's not fair to review this book because it isn't available for sale and you're not likely to get a chance to read it.  I'd like to see it published and would change the name to:

A Most Excellent Life


The book is written by my cousin.  Steve is 4 years younger than I and in our childhood, we never connected much. He lived with my folks the year I returned from my mission and we were in the house together for a few weeks.  I'm hesitant to admit that I thought he was just a pesky teenager and once he even pushed my buttons effectively enough that I decked him.


Letters To My Sons is a memoir of his remarkable life.  I only have space or time to hit the highlights, but I'd feel like I cheated you if I didn't at least try to introduce you to such a remarkable person.


Steve mostly grew up in the San Diego, California area.  His parents built a house there and Steve was able to be involved.  He came to love building, became a licensed General Contractor, built several homes of his own and a few for other people.  In High School he built a fine 19 foot travel trailer for his second semester project.  He worked in construction to put himself through school.  He served a full time Mission in Texas. He was called on a mission two consecutive summers as a finish carpenter for the Nauvoo Temple.  He was the principal builder of his parent's summer cabin in Wyoming, which he now owns and wants to operate as a Bed and Breakfast.


When Steve was 14 he checked out of school and sailed with friends in a 40 foot sailboat to Hawaii and spent months sailing around the islands.  Since, he has skippered a 70 foot private yacht in the waters between Seattle and Alaska.  He's been a competitive water skier and has spent days and days on the water.


Steve has traveled extensively at home and abroad and served as a tour guide on Church History tours.  He's been to Egypt, Jamaica, Israel, The Dominican Republic and Mexico and I'm sure I'm missing a few other foreign destinations.  He's a great fisherman, an avid cyclist, an expert skier, avid outdoors man and exceptional Scout Leader.


My cousin has served in several Bishoprics and was recently released at Bishop of a BYU Student Ward.  He has been a Stake Missionary, Scoutmaster and teacher in various capacities.  He is in high demand as a fireside speaker.

Steve has a lovely wife and six wonderful sons.  One of which is deceased, due to a tragic accident.

Now lets get to his career.  I'm not kidding, all this other stuff and much much more, he's done on the side!

He began as a Seminary Teacher and then moved to the CES Institute program.  He's taught at Institutes in Reno, Nevada, Seattle and Bellevue, Washington and Orem, Utah.  He's presently the director of the Institute at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

We've been friends much of our adult lives, yet much of this prodigious resume' was a complete surprise to me.  This book is written with a rich measure of humility.  It's intended audience is his own immediate family so there is no way or reason to embellish anything presented.

I am a lover of biography.  I loved this one.  Here is a man who has lived large, fast and well.  I can't stress enough how much admire, his accomplishments and character.

The quantity, variety and excellence of his accomplishments are not the things that most impress me.  Steve is not a heartless robot marching hastily through life.  Meaning, purpose and faith permeates everything he does. When he built his house in Issaquah, Washington, he had inherited a set of hand tools from his deceased grandfather.  To connect with his grandfather and heritage, Steve reserved one room to build and finish during those moments when he was working on the house alone.  He built that room using only those precious hand tools his grandfather had used.

When he happened to finish the last window in the Nauvoo Temple he paused and asked his good friend and leader to ceremonially, set the last pane.  He was studying the biographies of Saints who'd attended the original Nauvoo Temple and received permission to emulate a prayer service that was once conducted in the baptistry where he was assigned to build.

Friends mean everything to Steve and the long lasting, reciprocally blessed relationships he has maintained over many decades are astounding.  That kind of connection is only maintained by earnest, thought, tireless effort.

I wept for joy repeatedly as I discovered the heart of this most excellent man.

Thank you Steve for being who you are and helping me believe I could be half as fine.

Help Me Write My Book!

Now that I'm a writer, albeit non published, I'm getting down to business.  My first book has begun and is named.  I will call it Help Me To Understand His Words.  It focuses on learning from God through the Scriptures.

I'm trying a new experiment.  I'm writing it out in the open, where you can read, critique, suggest and otherwise collaborate with me.  I think feed-back will be healthy and productive.

So, this is my invitation to you to go to Help Me To Understand His Words and get involved in the writing process.  Nobody stands alone in this world and I feel confident that with God's help and yours, we can make this not only a work of love, but one of substance and quality.

Happy Birthday To Me!

I don't ordinarily draw attention to my birthday.  Today, though, I've given myself such an extraordinary present that I just have to tell you about it.

Most of you know that I've been unemployed for quite some time.  I've sent out dozens of applications, had a few interviews and still haven't found a job.  The past couple of weeks I've really beat myself up over it.  I had decided that I had to find something if it was no more than cleaning motel rooms.  Hey, I'm not proud, I cleaned and delivered portable toilets for a while.  You don't go much lower on the desirable jobs list than that.

Yesterday, depressed and out of sorts with myself, I had resolved to get out there and take the first job I could find, no matter what it was.  I just couldn't make myself do it.  Somehow, deep inside I felt that if I did I would be letting myself down by settling for less than what God had in mind for me.  Even so, I had no idea what He intends for me.  I spent the entire day wrestling with it.  At dusk I went for a walk.  I do some of my best thinking while walking.  It didn't take long.  I came up with the same conclusion I have on other walks, but this time I had the details.

I remember coming home from such a walk a few months ago.  Sweetie asked what I'd found out.  I told her that I felt that I was focusing too much on the problem and not enough on the solution.  Quite frankly, I had no idea what that meant.  This time I came home understanding quite certainly.

Most of you know I have a flood-gutted basement that has been so for three years.  I've had that troublesome problem hanging over my head all that time.  I had set out the fix it myself.  I even added to the problem by moving the stairwell and rearranging the rooms down there.  Much of the stuff we had down there is still stacked in the carport, rendering it useless for its intended purpose.  We've been slowly going though all that intending to have a yard sale.  Every free moment I've had has been overshadowed by the monster down stairs.  Every decision seems based on recovering from that disaster.  Too often I've had to choose between good and best as I've tried to move on with my life.  Too often, rather than choose, I've caved in to the overwhelming volume of the task and done nothing.

As I pondered these situations and my less than stellar response to them, it occurred to me that I might be barking up the wrong tree.  I remember Stephen R. Covey suggesting that we sometimes climb the ladder of success only to find it leaning against the wrong wall.  I began to wonder if that was it.  Covey also says that energy comes from oxygen and interest.  I had to admit that I had neither.  I'd quit working out and worse, I had no passion for anything I was doing.  That is except my service at the Detention Center.  I dared to begin to ask myself if there was anything out there that I was passionate about.  I dared imagine doing something I could hardly avoid doing because it inspired and motivated me so much.  I began to think about writing.

I've dabbled in writing most of my life.  But, most of my life I've been busy with work and other demands and seldom found the time to really develop my craft and thoroughtly discover my voice.  That is where my passion lies, that is what will get me out of bed in the morning.  That it is something that could make me want a prolonged and productive life.  Money, even enough to pay the bills just doesn't motivate me any more.  Life has got to have more meaning than to just plod through mundane tasks for a paycheck.

I began to understand what I must do.  I talked it over with Sweetie and received the best Birthday gift she could have given me - Whole-Hearted Support.

So today, on my 60th Birthday I am no longer unemployed.  I am a writer!  That is my job!  This new job has some pretty stiff requirements and it won't be easy, but I am on fire!  I am absolutely going in the right direction!  I can feel it in the depths of my soul.  I have finally given myself permission to pursue my dream.  The basement can wait or be worked on after work and on the weekends.

 I have an investment I can liquidate which will sustain us for a couple of months.  After that we'll just have to see.  I wrote a couple of days ago about seeing with the eye of faith and then going forth and making that vision come to pass.  I am willing to do that.  It will require a lot of discipline, at lot of courage and a lot of faith.  I hardly slept last night for excitement.  Yet I knew that my new job requires me to show up on time and to labor with integrity.  So I got up at six and did my morning routine so I could be showered, shaved and dressed for work on time.  I've been self employed before and I'm pretty scared of my boss.  He's quite the evil task master.  It'll take some getting used to.  I'll need to recalibrate my daily patterns to fit my new obligation.  But hey, no more shift work.  No more working on the Sabbath.  I should work out just fine.

Now, I have a few of favors to ask.  First, I'm fully aware that pulling this off with require a miracle.  I also know that the miracle is not likely to come until after the trial of my faith.  If you believe in what I'm doing, encourage me, please!  If you don't, please try to keep quiet.  I know how foolish this may sound to some of you.  There will be days when it will sound foolish to me.

Second, when I succeed, please help me to stay humble.  I don't want to ever be found taking credit for a miracle only God can perform.

Third, eventually, and hopefully soon, I'm going to have make some money with my writing.  You can be of great help with that.  Please visit my blog and its peripherals often and when you find something that genuinely pleases or inspires you, would you just forward it to friends and family who might like it.  That little gift alone will likely make all the difference.  I'm not yet prepared to send anything to a publisher, but developing a reputation will most certainly enhance my possibilities and broaden my prospects.

Now, skeptic or fan, I've laid it out there.  You are free to judge me as a fool or a visionary.  All I know is that for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm working on the solution instead of the problem.

Book Review - Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zusak

Markus Zusak is one of my favorite authors.  He's young, off the wall/Australian and very interesting to read.  I keep wondering where he gets his insight as much of his most important work was written in his late teens and early twenties.  Maybe I should read his biography......BRB.....Wikipedia didn't have that much to add.  Disappointment.  BTW, Zusak is a master of the one word sentence.  Emulation.

Since I spend a lot of time working with at-risk youth, this book was a prize for me.  It was a realistic chance to get inside the head of one of them and get a better understanding of how the wheels turn in there.  In fact I plan on including it in the library at the Detention Center because I think it would help many of them understand their own motivations and frustrations.

Conclusions:  People need a purpose.  I can relate, I need a purpose.  It was exhilarating to see the change in Ruben and Cameron, the two main characters, brothers, when they moved from hanging around with nothing to do, to having a sense of purpose, albeit a rather shady one.  Their motivation level went through the roof and the rate of personal discovery and maturity did too.

I was stunned to discover that assurance of winning took a second seat to the hunger and insecurity of mere fighting.  To learn that being a fighter with heart captivated the fans far more than being a dominant sure-fire victor.  It also captivated the fighters and in the end raised each, as well as their family to a higher, more courageous, more comfortable place.  It somehow becomes a whole new twist on enjoying the journey as well as - perhaps instead of - the destination.  It's about living life rather than achieving or dominating it.  A big part of the thrill and most of the reward in life lies in, not in spite of its intrinsic uncertainty.  I love that.  Success and satisfaction in life are far greater in an environment of opposition than in one of certainty and security.

I used to read a lot of self-help books but none of them teaches like a truly great novel.  Thanks to Booklogged, I hardly waste any time on less than great books anymore.  It is always such a serendipitous moment to discover priceless gems in quite unlikely places.  This little book was replete with them.  Thank you Markus and Booklogged.

Four stars.

Book Review - The Spyglass by Richard Paul Evans

This morning I taught a lesson at my church meetings at the Detention Center.  Again, as I often do, I read this book to them.  Its message is profound.

A visitor comes to an impoverished and run down Kingdom.  Everyone is depressed and discouraged with their little beat up corner of the world.  The visitor lets the King look through his Spyglass wherein everything he views looks as it could be.  What a marvelous kingdom he beholds through the glass.  The visitor allows the King to keep the Spyglass for a couple of years.  For those years he lets his subjects look through the glass and see what might be with a little elbow grease and determination.  The Kingdom is transformed.  When the traveler returns for the Spyglass the King is reluctant to give it up.  Only then, under the tutelage of the visitor, does he come to realize that all he really needs if faith.  Nothing starts without Faith.  The Spyglass helped them to have Faith that desirable results will  come of their efforts.  Now, they were ready to envision their own futures and go forward with Faith in promising results.

Years ago, when I found this great little book, I longed to have a spyglass of my own.  I searched and searched and one day I found one, on E-bay.  A Spyglass very nearly identical to the one on the cover of the book.  It isn't magic, though it is wonderful with 150 year old optics that amaze me.  I keep it on a shelf to remind me that I too can accomplish what I envision through Faith.  My own Kingdom has become run down and in disrepair, just as Evans' fictional Kingdom did.  This week I almost gave up on the vision of putting things right and coming back to the (unappreciated) splendor of the past.  I looked through my Spyglass for the first time in a long time and found it to be a lot more magical than I expected.  I am going to make it so.  I am going to repair the basement.  I am going to write my books.  I am going to go back to Newfoundland.  I am going to find a way to help our kids stay out of Detention.  I've never stopped dreaming of these things, I just lost faith in their accomplishment.  Today as I looked through the Spyglass I saw with the eye of Faith.