The Cricket and Seagull Fireside Chat

While the Eyre's are internationally-known and respected family and relationship experts, they often have to hold back from sharing all they could depending on the audience and the situation, but not here.  In this new book which Stephen R. Covey says "every LDS parent" should read, you'll find a wealth of reminders of all the amazing resources our Father has given us for raising his children the way he raises us.

Whether it's sibling rivalry or chores, disrespect or worries about worldly influences, nearly every challenge parents face in this all-too-physical world has simple spiritual solutions.  I think you'll feast on what they Eyre's have to share, including one of my favorite-ever interview quotes, "Well, we may as well have a testimony meeting as just sit around fighting..."

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull.

Since the day of the Western celebration of Easter changes from year to year, it's the holiday that often finds itself overshadowed in the Latter-day Saint world by General Conference, Stake Conference, or Fast Sunday observances.  But Easter can come alive for you and your family through this excellent new book by BYU Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture, Eric Huntsman.  As you'll hear in the interview, it's the work of years of study and thought.

"God So Loved the World" is a fascinating scriptural, visual, and doctrinal walk through the people, places and events of the amazing final week of the life of Jesus Christ.  Whether you're a knowledgable scriptorian or a youngster learning from paintings and pictures, your celebration of the atonement and resurrection will be enriched by this new book, written in part by a desire on the part of the author to communicate these important events to his own family.

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull.

In spite of outward smiles, many people go through the motions attending church, giving service, and nurturing families, while feeling empty, broken, doubtful, and even guilty inside.  They tell themselves if they only work harder, they'd somehow earn the blessings of peace, security, and unconditional love they hunger for.

Using the scriptures, words of prophets, insightful analogies, and stories drawn from poignant personal experiences, best-selling author Toni Sorenson explains that simply by the virtue of being a child of God, each of us is already loved beyond comprehension, without boundaries or conditions. No matter what our disappointment or failure or loss may be, allowing ourselves to be defined by Christ will lift us out of the darkness and into His light.

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull.

Composer Rob Gardner has never been less than ambitious in telling the story of the Restoration and the scriptures in music.  With "Lamb of God," he fulfills a lifelong dream in focusing on the week of the Atonement and the many individuals from the Apostles to Pilate to the mother of Christ—those who interacted with Jesus personally and lived the despair and new-found hope of that most important week.

In this audio interview Rob talks about the writing process, recording with the London Symphony, and the thousand choices a composer makes in writing a sacred work, including deciding whether you're ready to tackle the most important subject that ever lived.

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull.

Diana Turnbow, Curator of Photography at the BYU Museum of Art, takes us on an audio tour of this fascinating exhibit shot by well-known photographer Dorothea Lange, which appeared in LIFE magazine in 1953.

Besides exploring small-town life in the rural towns of Gunlock, Toquerville, and St. George, the photographer and her essayist son comment on the beauty created even in isolated communities, happiness in spite of hardship, and the deep respect they share with many historians on the strength and character of these Mormon women from a time that is disappearing from living memory.

Explore the exhibit's website while you listen at 3mormontowns.byu.edu

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull...