Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life. Mortimer J. Adler

Another phone call with news we can’t believe. These calls will become more common. He was just fifty-seven, a heart attack, tall and slim. I don’t know him well; he wanted to write a book. Did he get it done?

We don’t know how long we will have in life. Will we be like mom turning ninety-five, or gone too soon? The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear news like this is, will the family be financially okay?

I read a book called Dr. Hudson’s Secret Journal by Lloyd C. Douglas. In it, Dr. Hudson says that the young women whose husbands die do better when they are not quite financially okay. If the woman is required to find some type of work to augment her income she does better than if she doesn’t need to.

By needing to build a life to support herself or her children, she builds a life. Many of us dream of a life of leisure but work is a gift. Work gives us financial sufficiency, opportunity, choice, camaraderie, skills, discipline, and pride in our abilities. Many of us don’t know what to do with ourselves if we don’t work. When we retire we often do unpaid work because we need something to do.

Jordan Peterson tells us one of the things young men especially need to do is pick up a load, carry it, make something of themselves so they have some self-respect, become good at something, so they have something to offer a potential spouse.

And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life – this is indeed a gift from God. Ecclesiates 5:19

In The Rational Bible author Dennis Prager tells us he wrote this book for people of every faith and no faith. He believes the Torah (the first five books of the bible) has something to say to everyone, or they have something to say to no one. He says thinking the bible is only for believers is like saying Shakespeare is only for the English, or Beethoven is only for Germans.

The principles to build a better life for ourselves don’t depend on our faith, they depend on our actions. We can use the principles in all religious texts even if we aren’t part of that religion.

Perhaps this is where we have gone wrong in religion. We’ve gotten away from the practical application of the truths contained in the bible and turned it into a religious experience, instead of the practice of living a good life according to good principles.

Goodness and wisdom are important in our lives, and the largest repository of goodness and wisdom is the Torah. It gave birth to the rest of the bible.

We don’t have to belong to the same church, or any church or religion to benefit from the wisdom contained in its texts. Following the principles of a good life, create a good life, regardless of what we believe the foundation of those principles is.

Are we reading enough good books?

The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power or goodness. Martin Seligman

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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