Home to Harmony - Philip Gulley

by Tristi Pinkston | More from this Blogger

10 Feb 2007 08:42 PM

The Episcopalians have the "Mitford" series, the Mormons have the "Fairhaven Chronicles," and now the Quakers have "Home to Harmony."Author Philip Gulley, himself a Quaker minister, brings to life a small town where every child can safely walk to the drugstore for a soda and where progress just isn't to be thought of.

Our character, Sam Gardner, was born and raised in Harmony and left for a time to go to college and begin his ministry. A wife and two sons later, he misses the idyllic life he had as a child and takes his family back to Harmony. He attains the ministry of the Quaker Fellowship in the town and tells us of the comings and goings of his circle, as well as some of their triumphs and foibles. But rather than being one continuous plot from beginning to end, each chapter is a small vignette, with a concluding thought at the end.

While this book isn't as tightly written as the other two series I've mentioned, I have to be honest and say that overall, I like it more. Gulley isn't afraid to take a light-hearted look at religion, the world around him, and the scrapes we can get into when we try to do the right thing but forget to use common sense. This is not to say that he's sacrilegious; he's not. But he's willing to find humor where humor exists, and there's plenty of it.

My favorite chapter in this novel: Sam is donating an old bus to the Choctaw nation to enable them to get to and from church. He takes two of the elders with him and on the way, they get a little sidetracked in St. Louis and decide to see a Cardinals game. They don't realize that the camera is panning the crowd and gets a shot of them cheering wildly, all the while they're supposed to be out on a humanitarian mission. It takes them a little while to convince their wives that they didn't invent the whole "Choctaw" thing just to get to see a live baseball game.

This book is absolutely clean, uplifting, and enjoyable from beginning to end. I will be keeping my eyes out for more books in the Harmony series and I plan to read every one.

(This book was published in 2002 by HarperCollins.)

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At Home in Mitford

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Learn more about Tristi Pinkston

I've been a blogger for Families.com since August of 2006.

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