Sunday, December 14, 2008

my latest outrage

Jason and I were at Costco a couple of weeks ago looking for Christmas presents for his parents and I stumbled upon a book that disgusted me. The title is Love Letters of Joseph and Emma illustrated by Liz Lemon Swindle and Angela Eschler.I think that is such a gross invasion of privacy. These are two people that gave up everything for what they believed in. They gave up so many material things and gave up so many of their family. So many of their babies were buried in the ground and left behind. The hardest thing any parents would have to do. Joseph gave his life and in the end Emma was alone. Their love for each other was something so precious and something so personal. It is between any husband and wife and here are some people parading it around for everyone to see all so they can make a few dollars out of it. In the end Emma did not have the heart to go to Utah. I highly doubt that she would be all to appreciative about some one trying to make money off of her personal love correspondence to Joseph. Shame on them for putting money above respect of the prophet who restored the true church and for his wife who sacrificed so much.

4 comments:

Lisa said...

AMEN! What is next? Finding her personal diary and publishing that? I have some friends that want that for Christmas and I have had to keep my mouth shut (I am attempting not offending people we will see how that goes) and it absolutely slays me how people don't even think about what they are reading. Many of those letters contained doctrine and THAT information has already been published! grrr I am right there with you!

Kristen said...

Okay so let me play devil's advocate for a second... I am not trying to step on toes, I just want you to look at a different point of view for a minute....(keep in mind I haven't seen the book, just have seen advertisments and what you have written)

Maybe it's not about greed and money. Outside of the LDS church Joseph has always been "picked on". He was too young. Why him? What made him special? What kind of drugs was he on? All sorts of things. My personal thoughts on the book would be maybe they are trying to show Joseph as a normal human being. He loved Emma more than any of us will ever know. But by publishing these letters, it shows truly what kind of person he was and how deeply they loved each other. Emma gave up so much for Joseph--her children, her home, her family and most importantly she lost her true love to the Church. It just goes to show how strong they both were and how much they loved each other. I would think of it more of a love story than anything else.

Hope maybe you can look at from another angle...or maybe I am totally wrong.
Something to think about.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you too. They do it all couples through out history and I don't really agree with it becasue true love is so sacred that it should only be shared between them and their family.

I can see how others would want to buy it becasue they think it is romantic but I don't want to read about someone elses love I want to experience it for myself. It is something so special that people shouldn't want to sell it as something cheap like the world does.

Brigette-boo said...

I don't know, I think I more agree with the view point of Kristen, I love history and have a deep love for the Prophet, I don't necessarily think its disrespectful to publish them. If I actually did something extraordinary in my life and Mike and I had written love letters, and more then a century later people wanted to read them to know me better and the person I was, I think I would be fine with that, in fact I would WANT people to understand. Why not share the special bond they have? that said, I doubt I will read the book and I respect your opinion on it. I just doubt Joseph or Emma Is up there fuming about it.