These three thoughts are related.  I don’t know how.  I just know they are.

Jacob 5 — When you read this long allegory, don’t miss the forest for the trees (nyuk nyuk).  Don’t get so deep into wondering which branch corresponds with which historical event that you miss the main message of the chapter.  We are his fruit.  He treasures us up.

D&C 4 and 6 — the field white to the harvest is not the mission field. Read these sections, it never specifies that. It is the field of treasure and blessings. We grew up with a mulberry bush that grew on our way to church. We’d halt our walk afterwards and pick a few when we were in season. When we are back in the old place, we usually drop around to make sure the mulberry is still there. Ripe fruit free for the picking is that memorable. Today, everyone is just happy and lighthearted when a neighbor or somebody asks if we’d like to pick their apricot or their apple or a couple of months ago their pomegranate. Yes, we would! It’s delightful to get free, delicious fruit! That is the sense in which you should read D&C 4 and 6, with the same spirit as someone picking free fruit or like a bargain hunter coming across a big garage sale.

A Gentleman in Moscow — I just read this book and liked it. I didn’t altogether approve of the main character’s morals and the author every now and again remembers that all modern novels have to be postmodern so he inserts a cutesy aside that he is bad at. But at root the book was about good luck, grace, unearned blessings, being fortune’s favorite child–and so it was delightful.