The Bhagavad Gita - Translated by Eknath Easwaran

"The content of the Gita is the conversation between Lord Krishna and the Pandava Prince Arjuna taking place on the battlefield before the start of the Kurukshetra War. Responding to Arjuna's confusion and moral dilemma about fighting his own cousins, Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and prince, and elaborates on different Yogic^[5] and Vedanticphilosophies, with examples and analogies. This has led to the Gita often being described as a concise guide to Hindu theologyand also as a practical, self-contained guide to life. During the discourse, Lord Krishna reveals His identity as the Supreme Being Himself (Svayam Bhagavan), blessing Arjuna with an awe-inspiring vision of His divine universal form" (Courtesy of Wikipedia).

There are many parallels between the Gita and other religious texts. For example: "Whatever you do, make it an offering to me--the food you eat, the sacrifices you make, the help you give, even your suffering."

The Gita continues: "In this way you will be freed from the bondage of karma, and from its results both pleasant and painful."

The thesis of the Gita is that people act in three basic ways: doing good out of devotion to God (Krishna), doing good out of desire for reward, and laziness or doing bad things. Those who do good out of devotion to God will reach nirvana, or freedom from reincarnation. Those who do good desiring rewards will live according to their good acts in a heaven-like state until the karma from their actions has played out, at which time they will be reborn in a more pleasant life than their previous life. Those who are lazy and do bad things will be reborn in a worse situation than that which they were born in before.

These are interesting concepts - that all people are reincarnated until they learn to live outside of the pleasure and pain present in all things. The idea that people are judged and will live for eternity based on their actions for just 75 years out of that eternity seems odd, so these ideas that people constantly have the opportunity to improve themselves and their motivations are good. However, this also serves to justify oppression and poor treatment of others, especially the poor, with the assumption that they must have been "bad" in a previous life to "deserve" what they are experiencing now (e.g. the caste system).

Throughout the Gita, Krishna is trying to teach Arjuna that although some people can live solitary lives seeking knowledge, another way to approach God (Krishna) which He actually recommends more, is to live the lives and do the work they were meant to do, but to live outside of judgment - to meditate upon God constantly as one goes about his or her daily activities which will allow him or her to see each situation as it is rather than labeling it as good or bad.

I actually tried out this concept this week with my new job, and found it to be quite useful. Although my coworkers are not as invested in the job as I feel I am, I was able (at least in small moments) to focus on how I could best serve the children (my work) without labeling the situation as good or bad. It also helped to meditate a couple of times a day to clear my mind.

I enjoyed reading the Gita which is quite short, and found Easwaran's translation and descriptions to be quite helpful in understanding the history behind it. It is nice to understand a bit more about other world religions.

Hope Was Here - Joan Bauer

The protagonist of this story, Hope, was abandoned by her mother as an infant and has been raised by her aunt. Her aunt is the chef at various diners, and she is a waitress. Her mother, also a waitress, shows up every few years before disappearing just as quickly. Hope has no idea who her father is, but she has kept a scrapbook of her life to show him when they finally meet.

After being swindled by one restaurant owner and several moves to different states and cities, Hope and her Aunt Addie (read: Mother) move to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work in a restaurant owned by G.T. Stoop who has recently been diagnosed with cancer.

Soon after their move, G.T. announces he is running for mayor against Eli Millstone, the man who has been running Mulhoney uncontested for years. G.T. runs his campaign on honesty, and points out to town residents that Millstone has been allowing the large dairy in town to not pay their taxes, along with a lot of other corruption.

Throughout the book, Addie and Hope settle into their roles at the Welcome Stairways Diner and forge strong friendships with their coworkers.

READ NO FURTHER TO AVOID SPOILERS

Eventually, G.T. proposes to Addie, and they get married. G.T. asks Hope if he can adopt her, and she feels she has finally found her father. She shows him every detail of her scrapbook to catch him up on her life.

Around the same time, Braverman, another cook at the diner, begins dating Hope.

G.T.'s cancer goes into remission, but Millstone plants doubts in the residents' minds by playing ads saying his cancer is actually getting worse.

It is announced that Millstone has won the election. However, when Hope studies a list of registered voters in her Social Studies course, she sees the name of one of the diner's frequent customers who says he has never registered to vote and never will. She thanks the man for voting the next time she sees him, and in his cantakerous way, he expresses that he never registered to vote. It is quickly uncovered that Millstone participated in election fraud, and G.T. assumes his role as mayor.

Sadly, G.T.'s cancer comes back a couple of years later, but not before turning around Mulhoney or the lives of Addie and Hope.

One silent sleepless night - Spencer W. Kimball

I bought this book about 8 years ago at DI, and despite the fact that it is really short (only about 30 full pages), it has taken me this long to get around to reading it.

This was a very fast read - taking about 30-45 minutes to read it slowly.

In this book, President Kimball wrote about his experiences one night after he had part of his vocal cords removed. He was unable to sleep, and found his mind wandered over various experiences, particularly his childhood in Thatcher, AZ. When his mind came back to the present, he discovered only a few minutes had passed each time. He felt he had to be quiet to avoid waking his wife who had been through a few difficult days of her own while worrying about and caring for him.

I enjoyed this short story and found I could easily relate. There have been many times when I have been unable to sleep with no one to talk to and feeling the need to be quiet. It can be a very lonely and frustrating feeling.

This was also an easy and enjoyable way to learn a bit about his life.

Into the Light - John Lerma, M.D.

Into the Light: Real life stories about angelic visits, visions of the afterlife, and other pre-death experiences.

This book is written by a hospice doctor who has worked with many people who have experienced angelic beings and near-death experiences. Amazingly, the people he has spoken with all describe very similar beings and scenes.

Each described a life review, some lasting longer than others, in which they were able to see their entire life and work through things that were unresolved. Dr. Lerma was skeptical at first, but was amazed that some of his patients relayed personal messages to him from the beings which visited them. The details in these messages were sometimes so personal that the patient would have had no way of knowing these details.

Each chapter is an account about working with a different person. Some of these people are lifelong Christians, but others are atheists, agnostics, and believers from other faiths. Some of them lead lives which they believed would keep them from heaven. Those who felt unworthy describe their life reviews, but that they were able to work through the things that were unresolved and they felt reconciled before they died.

Works of Willa Cather 1873-1947

12 Novels

Alexander's Bridge - 1912

O Pioneers! - 1913

The Song of the Lark - 1915

My Antonia - 1918

One of Ours - 1922

A Lost Lady - 1923

The Professor's House - 1925

My Mortal Enemy - 1926

Death Comes for the Archbishop - 1927

Shadows on the Rock - 1931

Lucy Gayheart - 1935

Sapphira and the Slave Girl - 1940

6 Short Stories

"The Troll Garden" - 1905

"Collected Short Fiction" - 1892-1912

"Youth and the Bright Medusa" - 1920

"Uncle Valentine and Other Stories" - 1915-1929

"Obscure Destinies" - 1932

"The Old Beauty and Others" - 1948

1 Poetry Book

April Twilights - 1903

1 Book of Essays

Not Under Forty - 1936

Miscellaneous

Willa Cather on Writing - 1949

Willa Cather on Europe - 1956

Recommended Biographer: Mildred Bennett

Provided by The Willa Cather Foundation, 413 North Webster Street, Red Cloud, Nebraska 68970, 402-746-2653, 402-746-2641, www.WillaCather.org

The Wednesday Letters - Jason F. Wright

This book begins with the deaths an elderly couple. Jack Cooper has an inoperable brain tumor and has been close to death for several months. His wife, Laurel, seems to be in good health and is caring for him. However, one evening as they lay down for bed, Laurel has a heart attack. Jack is too weak to reach the phone and call for help, and he passes away shortly after Laurel.

Their three children gather, along with a few close family friends, as they prepare for the funeral. They discover several boxes in the basement which are filled with letters from Jack to Laurel - one written every week for the entire time they were married.

These letters reveal many family secrets and the motivation behind many of the decisions Jack and Laurel made.

Matthew, the oldest child, is dealing with a troubled marriage. Samantha is a local police officer, and a single mother. Malcolm returns from Brazil after fleeing two years earlier to avoid jail.

Malcolm's story seems to be the most troubled. He and Jack never got along well, and he resented that. He got in several fights, the last of which was to protect Rain, his former girlfriend and an adopted member of the Cooper family. He almost killed a man who had forced her to leave a bar and was trying to take off with her. In the process, he punched Rain's current boyfriend, Nathan, who is a county prosecutor, when Nathan said, "Leave it alone. She's not worth it."

The two biggest secrets that come out during the book are that Malcolm was fathered by another man when he got drunk and followed Laurel home, breaking into her house. It bothered me that Laurel was raped by a random homeless man, since this kind of thing can perpetuate the myth that sexual violence is usually perpetrated by strangers who attack people in the night.

It turns out that the homeless man who raped is mother is now one of the local preachers. This information comes out slowly through the letters, sending Malcolm on a roller coaster ride. This to me was very far-fetched, and I think the book would have been better without this.

It also turns out that Nathan set-up the bar scene two years before, clearing Malcolm of all charges so he doesn't have to run anymore.

Overall, this was a good book detailing the lives of good people. It was interesting to see how their choices affected themselves and each other.

The Innocent - Harlan Coben

This book was okay. It was a quick read - I believe I finished it in one day - but I didn't feel I got a lot out of it.

SUMMARY

"The protagonist is Matt Hunter, a young man who gets involved in a fight at a frat party in college, winds up going to prison for manslaughter when one of the people he was fighting with dies, and then tries to rebuild his life after being released. He seems to be doing so: he has a good job as a paralegal, and he’s married to a beautiful woman who’s now pregnant. And then, of course, everything goes haywire as all sorts of trouble from the past crops up. Before you know it, Matt is on the run from the cops, suspected of two murders, and somebody wants him dead." (copied from here)

It turns out that his wife has lied about her past. Rather than involving an idyllic childhood on a Southern farm/ranch, it was lived in Idaho and Nevada in foster homes, and eventually as a slave and a dancer.

She faked her own death after finding a fellow dancer had been murdered, and used that opportunity to escape to a new life. However, her past began to catch up with her despite her own innocence in all of it. To top it all off, a child she placed for adoption years before turns out to be her sister-in-law's live-in nanny.