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To Choose
Stories of Life: The Nature, Formation, and Consequences of Character is more than just a memoir; it is a journey and a call to readers to examine their lives and souls and to gain a better understanding of themselves. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I’ve always been made of stories, and as I look back I recognize that a lot of these are both good and quite unique. I’ve always taught—as a minister and as just a friend—that “the meaning of life” can be found in having the best answers to two questions:
A. Who, at my very best, am I? (Because that’s who I damned well better be becoming!)
B. How should I live, so that when I look back I can be glad I lived that way?
I think a lot of these stories can help readers address these questions in their own lives. So in that way, this book is a continuation of my 23-year career as a minister.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
Well, not much was hard to write about. The long-suppressed memory of the effects of our unit misfiring artillery rounds on a tiny hamlet was the most painful when I finally remembered it in a dream/nightmare 40 years later. God, the sight of that mother and her two injured children singing and dancing in front of their thatched-roof house our artillery round had hit! Still hurts. But I don’t mind revealing stories that show my faults, my weaknesses. They’re part of life, as are our strengths, and it can help other people face their own mistakes.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
Hmmm. The whole subject of “heresy”—understanding that it just comes from the Greek verb meaning “to choose”. Not bad, not choosing wrongly, but choosing differently from our herd. Yet almost all progress in history has come from our heretics, without whom we’d still believe what the Neanderthals did.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from your story?
The centrality of moral/heretical courage in almost everything important and essential about us. Life is short but sacred. And sacred things deserve the very best that we have and are. So do we.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter
Character refers to our basic style of being and behaving. We’re born with much of it, while early experiences, influences, and mentors help shape the rest.
Focusing on the nature, formation, and consequences of character, Davidson Loehr presents a witty, poignant, and brilliant book that has been described as “mesmerizing,” “captivating,” and “life-changing.” The book was designed to help the reader look closely at deep styles in his or her own character and question them. In frequent YOUR TURN sections, the many colorful stories of Davidson’s unusual life are used as windows on the reader’s own life and soul, providing a chance to know oneself and one’s character more intimately, and inviting the reader to find the influences, mentors, negative experiences and people, etc. who helped or hindered the formation of their own character.
The heart of any real religion-and of this book-is to answer 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?
LITERARY TITAN 