TJ Hirst

I lost myself in The Host by Stephanie Meyer for my first real summer read, and I rejoice to have finally finished it. Contradictions? Yes, the whole book conflicted me.

Last summer I spent a few days camped in my hammock with the Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse). I’d heard a buzz that I had to read them. The youthful adventure and romance provided an easy escape from my serious nature and a possible bridge between my teenage daughter and me.

But you know there’s more to them than that, don’t you? Sure, author Stephanie Meyer writes a captivating story with a plot that carries a reader through its pages, wanting more. But her words are not shallow or hollow; behind the surface story lie powerful issues.

The complexities of love, marriage, and mortality are intertwined with the emotions of human sexuality in Bella’s and Edward’s relationship. Look for them. These characters are not only posing questions for each other but causing us to examine our current culture’s attitudes about sexual love and ask ourselves the same ones.

My daughter threw me into Meyer’s new adult novel, The Host, when she requested it from the library. Since she is only 14, I required that I read it first. Apparently the large-print edition didn’t have as many holds on it, so what we picked it up at the library last week was a 1144 page book that was bigger than a Bible. I didn’t have three days to devote to hammock reading, so I lugged this paperback with me to swim lessons, to exercise at the Y, from upstairs to downstairs and back, and into the late hours of light Minnesota summer nights. Since my vision adjusted to the 14-point type and I couldn’t read anything smaller, I had to set aside all my other reading until I finished.

I discovered three things when I was lost in this author’s latest novel:

First, The Host is definitely an adult novel. It is not overly sexual or violent or over the head for a youngish teenager. But the subject matter and ideas are more advanced than Twilight’s young adult audience. I told my daughter that she could read it, but that it will not be what she came to expect from the others.

Second, the depth of ideas is exactly what I was looking for, and she met those expectations. The Host is the story of a soul, Wanderer, from another planet who inhabits a human body. During her assimilation into her human host and Earth life, ethical challenges hit her hard when she realizes that Melanie, her host, still resides within the body. The plot moves along quickly when her choices pit her against her own. In an unexpected community Wanderer discovers love and hate and that both bring large variations and important choices.

Finally, here’s the conflict—I don’t like science fiction. The first few chapters of Twilight were not overtly weird. I genuinely liked the characters and the setting before I realized the book was about vampires and werewolves. In The Host, however, the first few chapters were clearly science fiction and quite confusing to me. I almost gave up reading it several times. I’m not a fan of this genre and was glad when the story moved closer to a form I could relate to.

Overall, it’s a worthy summer read that can be purely entertaining or just keep Meyer fans satisfied until Breaking Dawn is released on August 2, 2008. But honestly, like Meyer’s other novels, hidden behind the hype is a whole lot more.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.

Ephesians 5:25

Thank you, ph, for loving by His example.

The Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our family today?

Spring is not only wedding time; it is anniversary time. We celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary next week. Our best anniversary gifts are from celebrating the 40th wedding anniversaries of both sets of parents.

Paul’s parents celebrated their 40th this month. Despite the fact that our immediate family lives 1000 miles away from his parents and siblings, Paul had a business trip at the same time and was able to join the celebration.

While he was gone, I realized that in the past few years his business trips/visits home by himself are a blessing to his relationship with his parents, my relationship to them and our marriage relationship.

I haven’t been an easy daughter-in-law. Meshing two people together is difficult enough. Then, we are supposed to mesh well into already existing families. Time and maturity have helped me.

But even more, his visits by himself help. He can be just their son and not have to be a husband, father and a son all at the same time. I couldn’t have planned for that blessing.

For my parent’s anniversary celebration, we presented them with a surprise copy of their 40-year story together. I interviewed each of them separately. They told stories and expressed feelings about situations that I had only known from a child’s perspective. My siblings and I compiled their story and pictures into a book and published it with Heritage Makers.

The writing process of their marriage story showed me how their marriage grew stronger over time. Ironically, my mom said that the times they drew closest together were the times when they had challenges and would have to work together to deal with those challenges.

Congratulations to our givers of gifts! We love you.

I did not intend to create a theme on women in my posts this week, but writing and thinking about feminine influence led my thoughts through a discovery process. I began with an ideal in a Review of Womanhood, considered the role of mothers building communities, showed an historic example and current examples of wives in marriage, and shared the practical struggles of building sisterhood.

Now it is time to hear from you, preferably both male and female readers.

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I am the wife of an LDS (Mormon) bishop. My best friend from high school is the wife of a Jewish rabbi. By reconnecting on the Internet we have discovered that as wives of clergy we have a lot in common and that the congregations our husbands lead have far more similarities than we imagined.

A common theme has emerged in my mind as I travel around the world of mothers on the Internet—the deep emotional response of women about the divisiveness in our current world culture.

Robin at Around the Island writes in her post Why Do We Hate,

How is it that so many millions, billions, of people in this world honestly feel it is better to hate and to fear than to extend a hand in friendship? How can anyone raise their children to hate, to fear, even to murder those who are different? Are we really so different from each other? What would happen if we all chose to enact a change, to let that change begin right here, right now. To let go of hate and fear and learn to celebrate our differences.

In another of Robin’s posts, The Importance of a Supportive Community I found another Mother in Israel writing this true statement, “Every family needs to be part of a connected, supportive community.” Her post includes an important list of ways we can make our community stronger.

Building social capital has been a topic in our community of late, and I posted a poll on what helps you feel that you belong to a community.

As I consider Robin’s statement to “celebrate our differences” I wonder if our real purpose is not to find what is different but to find as she says that we “aren’t so different from each other.”

Lis of Woolgatherings, in an interview with Michelle at Scribbit, talks about blogging and staying away from controversial topics like religion and politics. She says,

Although every blogger has the right to include what she wishes on her blog, I don’t think it’s fair to force your opinions on others. I tend to stay away from blogs that are overtly negative or criticize, and especially those that are close-minded. I have one real-life friend whose religious and political views have always been the complete opposite of mine. And yet, we have so much other than that in common.

Our intolerance of differing opinions is contributing to broken families, divided communities and ultimately to hate, fear, murder and war, and that itself is a controversial topic.

However, it is a topic that mothers especially should be considering and writing about in a positive way precisely because as Lis says, “We do have so much in common and we aren’t so different from each other.”

I served as a regional president of a large women’s organization for nearly five years. I found that the more we focused on diversity, the less unity we attained. And, the more we focused on what we have in common, the more unity we gained.

As we aim to build communities throughout the world, despite our differences, our purpose should be to seek unity, not diversity, by finding what we have in common.

There is a movement to highlight diversity as a goal rather than a fact. Differences are real and the very word itself implies a lack of agreement. But magnifying our differences divides us.

In our culture we have come to look for what differentiates us from those we disagree with, explore or magnify those differences, build evidence for our side, find others who agree with us, and ultimately divide ourselves into separate groups who engage in divisive communication with the groups who oppose us.

Once these separate groups occur, we have little ability to move between separate groups and regain or form larger and stronger communities.

The website Indivisible: Stories of American Community

portrays—through the original artistic contributions of leading photographers and interviewers—the creativity, energy, and richness of local involvement in America, a largely untold story of the many individual and combined acts that are shaping communities and ultimately the future of the country.

While each person will have their own experience in this documentary gallery, I am inspired by the similarities of individuals and places, not their differences.

I envision a community to be just what it means—a group of people in the same place or locality who build on their common interests. And our ability to communicate about what makes us compatible will connect our communities, one family to another, the world over.

^{Read more of Finding What Inspires in April when I post the series, “Conversations with a Jewish Rabbi and a Mormon Bishop” on Wednesdays as part of Everyday Biography.}