Throughout recorded history, there have been legends and myths about “shining cities on the hill, places like Avalon, Arcadia, Cockaigne, Lemuria, City of Enoch, Paititi, Lyonesse, Shangri La and Zion. In 1630, Puritan leader John Winthrop set sail for America to establish such a place, as he called it, “a Shining City on the Hill. It became Boston and fell short of his expectations.
In The Invitation to the Shining City, the book’s primary characters, Joey and Dana Kunz, stumble upon Salem Springs, a town and spa hidden in the mountains, when they are “compelled” by Joey’s grandmother to take her to such a place…a place not found only any map, a well hidden city of mystery. In The Invitation, the reader is faced with the question, “if you discovered a place where the people were of one heart, one mind, dwelt in righteousness with no poor among, what would you pay to gain entrance there? In the book, that’s the challenge that Joey and Dana Kunz face when they stumble onto a magical place where the people are of “one heart, one mind, dwell in righteousness where there are no poor, no illness and no death. The story follows them as they try to return, taking as many others with them as they can.
It begins in our day, but reverts back to the year 1925 when Calvin Coolidge is president and where he reminds the citizens that “government rests on religion...’the claim to the right to freedom, the claim to the right to equality, with the resultant right to self-government–the rule of the people–have no foundation other than the common brotherhood of man derived from the common fatherhood of god. if this faith is set aside, the foundations of our institutions fail, the citizen is deposed from his high estate...society reverts to a system of class and caste, and the government instead of being imposed from reason from within is imposed by force from without. freedom and democracy would give way to despotism and slavery. i do not know of any adequate support for our form of government except that which comes from religion.”
The book offers a sharp contrast to the political climate which Americans face today: a poisonous divide, no tolerance for disagreement or alternate opinions and where political opponents are demonized. As one reader describes it,” The Invitation takes us on a ride to a place that stirs our imagination and taps into a yearning that all people of faith share. Just as James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" took us to Shangrila, GM Jarrard's The Invitation takes us to ‘a shining city on a hill’ during a time of contemporary cultural distress. Readers will share a desire and wish ‘if only the fantasy could be true.’”
