No Joke
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 Did you hear the one about the Lutheran, the agnostic, the Jew, the Mormon, the Seventh-day Adventist, the woman and the atheist? No? Good, because it's not a joke.
Just a group of kids, two of them my sons, playing Apples to Apples, talking, laughing, even discussing politics. They don't agree on everything — their opinions likely influenced by conversations they hear in their own homes — yet they patiently listen to one another. They think about what the other guy just said, their average-sized egos not over inflated by flimsy experiences we believe that we win, and then they try to problem solve. For a bit. Then someone says, "Wanna go back outside and play Capture the Flag?" So they do.
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Book Update: to Mormons, with LOVE is now also available at DeseretBook.com and the Kindle store. Other epub formats will be available any day.
Reader Comments (9)
Like.
love that pic of such good friends playing together. that game has been so wonderful for our family. xo
Seventh Day Adventist eh? I don't know any of them...interesting. Your kids are so cool - just like you. YAY for deseret selling the book! Woot-woot!
Kids should be running the world. But they should not be left in charge of cleaning their rooms.
XO
I agree with Cheri - the world would be a better place if kids were running it.
Aw, hopefully they'll be able to take that interfaith perspective and bring it into adulthood! I love it.
Now THAT'S diversity! Love it.
Our book group in Saratoga Springs, UT. is reading your book. I could not put it down and have spent my afternoon finishing it. It gave me such "food" for thought and an enormous desire to read your next one...which I hope you will write soon. You write with such style and ease. More More!! Kudos to Deseret Book for seeing the GREAT need to sell it!! Do you ever speak at book groups?
Thanks again!
Earlier this year, some parents of my Taekwondo students came to visit an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to hear my "story" as I marked 20 years of sobriety. Sitting next to each other at the meeting: a Jew, a Christian, a Buddhist, a transgendered woman, an athiest, an agnostic, and a gay woman (me). We all happily went to lunch afterward, celebrating our similarities instead of focusing on our differences. I've had people shake their heads when I tell them about my extended "family". "How does that work?" they ask. "Well, for one, there's no media present to stir things up," I say. Diversity: Priceless.