Day 14: A Non-Fictional Book

Okay, so if you read my last post, you already know that my "expertise" on non-fiction novels is very limited. I just don't really get into them very much and can't say I've finished a very high percentage of the non-fiction books I've started. So, you would think that picking a single book to highlight for purposes of this blog post would be easy... but not so. I am, of course, still me... and therefore one of the single most indecisive individuals on the planet.

So call it a the "default" answer... or blame it on the time... or the fact that I've actually finished this particular non-fiction book cover-to-cover... or - more likely- just call it the selection of the non-fiction book that has had the most profound impact on me in my life, and there. I have my answer.

I'm not sure I have any readers (or friends that read my blog ;0) that are not of my same faith and beliefs, so to most of you this probably isn't a shock. But the one non-fiction book that continues to pop into my head right now is The Book of Mormon. I'm not sure what to write about it... this whole free-association thing sometimes hits bigger road blocks that you'd expect...

...

I have been reading and studying The Book of Mormon for as long as I can remember, and likely as long as I have been alive. It remains one of the only books that I am always reading at some stage or another. And it's effect is always the same. Whether I have read a few lines or a few chapters... and whether I consciously gleaned anything at all... I know that when I'm done reading whatever bit I've read, I am better in many ways. It lifts me when I am going through the deepest valleys of life, but it also washes away the small, mundane frustrations that occur on any other normal day. It does not grab me like many of the other books I choose to read, and yet the insights it provides are much more profound than those I receive while reading just about anything else. I know that when reading I learn not just through the words of the book, but through the Spirit that emanates through the words. And what I learn is not the full benefit of reading. It's as if the book, its words and Spirit make me whole and leave me healed from whatever it is I am facing. It gives me encouragement, strength and a desire to endure that I have yet to experience while reading any other book - fiction or non-fiction. It is the best way to start my morning and an even better way to fall to sleep at night. And the more I read it, the more I feel it becomes a part of me.

Which is the ultimate accomplishment of reading - to become something new at the end, different than when you started, to be changed through the experience.