STORIES OF LIFE: The Nature, Formation and Consequences of Character
by Davidson LoehrPublish: Sep 09, 2020Advice & How ToBiographies & MemoirsReligion & Spirituality
Book Overview
Powerful and memorable stories of the formation and consequences of character -- with YOUR TURN sections to use these stories as windows into your own experiences, influences, challenges and character. Character refers to our basic style of being and behaving. We're born with much of it, early experiences, influences, and mentors help shape the rest, and by about our mid-20's our character is essentially completed -- as the Montessori schools also teach. How could a deep connection with a gorilla, a professional musician who also served as a combat photographer in Vietnam, a gifted portrait studio owner, the sort of person who would so easily bring his horse through the house, a scholar, author, minister, carpenter, woodworker and still an active photographer -- how could all of this combine in a meaningful way? Well, it did. And though you probably shared few of these experiences, the author has created this witty, poignant and brilliant book so that his personal stories easily become windows into your own soul, and a chance to know yourself and your character more intimately. You have never read a book like this, and will never forget some of these rich and challenging STORIES OF LIFE.
BIOGRAPHY The author’s (my) life was unusual: musician, combat photographer in Vietnam (I’m 78), photography studio owner in Ann Arbor, carpenter, woodworker, student: M.A. in “Methods of studying religion” and Ph.D. in theology, the philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and Wittgenstein’s language philosophy from the University of Chicago. A year as a staff hospital chaplain (while writing my dissertation), then 23 years as a Unitarian minister. A Fellow in the Jesus Seminar since 1992, and now active in the International Big History Association — present papers at all our biennial meetings around the world. Religious/spirit, but heretical — a character trait that goes back to age 1 when I first walked. About half the 97,000-word book is taken up with a wild variety of experiences in my 43 months in the Army, which included remarkable experiences, with General Westmoreland, as The Vietnam Entertainment Officer (Martha Raye, Roy Rogers & Dale Evans, Jennifer Jones, others), then I felt cowardly and ashamed because my Officer Candidate School classmates were all in the field, and one had just been given the Silver Star and Purple Heart. I knew that if I returned home without having experienced war, I wouldn’t want to live with myself. Some poignant and rare experiences in the 7 months as combat photographer and press officer. Some hilarious, many very touching, some quite sad and poignant — and always with the YOUR TURN sections to direct attention back to the reader’s life. From very liberal groundings in religion, thinking outside the box, etc., I have grown to prefer conservative politics and liberal religion. I think, and expand on the idea, that liberal ideology since the mid-60’s has lost its soul and its mind, and may not have much that is healthy to offer the larger world. While this doesn’t take many pages, it’s a memorable/controversial part of the book. My understanding of the whole subject of “Religion” is also … well, it’s good. The heart of any real religion is its answer to our two most fundamental existential questions: Who, at my best, am I? and How should I live, so that when I look back I can be glad I lived that way?
Book Detail
Title
STORIES OF LIFE: The Nature, Formation and Consequences of Character
