Another book project I worked on in 2023 was Listen, Learn & Love: Building the Good Ship Zion by Richard Ostler.
I suspect this will be the last book installment of the LLL series, at least for awhile. Richard started his podcast focused on the personal stories of LGBTQ people, expanded it to include other challenges people have in life and religion, kept expanding to include two books on outreach … and announced recently on his podcast that he’s narrowing back down to just LGBTQ support. He really has taken on a lot and it got to be too much. Frankly, I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did before refocusing.
That said, his two books of Improving Latter-day Saint Culture and now this one are really excellent tutorials on How to Be a Better Person and How to Build Zion Now. They both cover a lot of territory but when you drill down, the heart of it all is loving people as they are and accepting them where they are. That’s it. I said a long time ago that his first book, Supporting LGBTQ Latter-day Saints, could be summed up with, “Don’t be a jerk to gay people.” The whole series is – don’t be a jerk. Really. Just be kind to people. Why are you not kind to everyone? Come on, we can do this.