Stumbling on Open Ground: Love, God, Cancer, and Rock 'n' Roll - Softcover

Mansfield, Ken

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400204607 ISBN 13: 9781400204601

Verlag: Thomas Nelson, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

 

Rock and Roll, Cancer, and God’s Love Collide at the Crossroads of Doubt and Faith

Stumbling on Open Ground is a story of private trial and faith like those found in the books of Esther and Job. Punctuated with stories from Mansfield’s years in the music business—working with George Harrison and Waylon Jennings, among others—Stumbling on Open Ground is a private dialogue between a charismatic man, his loving wife, and the extraordinary God who transformed them both in the middle of a heartbreaking disease.

“Dealing with cancer is not as linear as most books describe the ordeal. Going into it, going through it, and coming out of cancer is not that orderly. The battle is more of a hanging on, a falling apart, a sense of loss, and a lot of lonely flailing among the rubble.”

                                                                                    —Ken Mansfield

Ken’s story is told in tandem with his wife, Connie. She is the enduring comforter, a co-victim of cancer whose capacity for selfless, empathetic eros comprises the human counterpart to God’s agape. This is the consummate love story of two people on a journey with God to the edge and back.

Stumbling on Open Ground is a must-read for anyone who has ever needed strength in moments of trial and doubt.

 

“Ken is jarringly honest about everything—life, success, fame, disillusionment, faith, questioning faith, cancer, the death of friends, and staying very close to one’s spouse and Creator in the face of life-threatening challenges. This book might make you a little uncomfortable, but that’s probably why you should read it. We must all at some point face similar challenges, face mortality, losing everything material, and Ken talks about what it’s like to trust God, no matter what.”

—Bernie Leadon, founding member of “The Eagles”

 

“Ken Mansfield’s Stumbling on Open Ground is one of the most extraordinary messages of healing—spiritual, physical and emotional—I have ever read. As someone who is paid to write, I’m genuinely in awe of his descriptive powers . . . and he needs them all to convey the Tolstoyan experiences of his past trials, and to describe the miraculous. Ken’s writing is truly magnificent and this is a book that will be savored and remembered forever by those lucky enough to crack it open. Thank God for keeping Ken alive to write it.”

—David Asman, host of Forbes on Fox, Fox News Channel

 

“Ken Mansfield's harrowing journey from the pinnacle of success—on the rooftop with the Beatles for their final performance—to the depths of near death is a story both heavenly and hellish as he openly faces his God with the questions very few trust their heavenly Father enough to ask. God’s answers lie between the pages of this book.”

—Mancow Muller, nationally syndicated radio and television host

 

 

 

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ken Mansfield is the former manager of the Beatles' Apple Record Company and an award-winning producer. Ken is an ordained minister and public speaker who appears at churches and colleges across the nation.

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STUMBLING on OPEN GROUND

Love, God, Cancer, and Rock 'n' Roll By KEN MANSFIELD

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2012 Ken Mansfield
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4002-0460-1

Contents

Tomorrow Never Knows........................................................xiiiDeep in the Jungle..........................................................xviiBook One: Bodega Bay, California, 1996–2002...........................1Chapter 1 The Beginning of the Edge.........................................3Chapter 2 Cancers and Cadillacs.............................................13Chapter 3 Dying and Doing...................................................19Chapter 4 Credit Card Statement.............................................27Chapter 5 Missing in Attitude...............................................33Chapter 6 "The Dock Will See You Now".......................................39Chapter 7 Kass in Point.....................................................43Chapter 8 Cornflake Confusion...............................................51Chapter 9 The Old Man and the C.............................................57Chapter 10 Past, Present, Future............................................63Chapter 11 On the Road Again................................................71Chapter 12 My Sweet George..................................................77Chapter 13 Blinded by the Light.............................................87Between the Cracks..........................................................95Book Two: Calaveras County, California, 2009–2012.....................99Chapter 13 Wally............................................................101Chapter 14 Tattered.........................................................107Chapter 15 Pathétique..................................................113Chapter 16 Passing Understanding............................................119Chapter 17 The Second Time Around...........................................125Chapter 18 Guts Ball........................................................131Chapter 19 Dog Spelled Backward.............................................137Chapter 20 Rabbi Trail......................................................143Chapter 21 The Lightning at the End of the Tornado..........................151Chapter 22 Waiting..........................................................157Chapter 23 Pride and Lost Dignity...........................................163Chapter 24 Gideon...........................................................173Chapter 25 If You Don't Know Me by Now......................................179Chapter 26 The I of the Storm...............................................185Chapter 27 School of Heart Knocks...........................................191Chapter 28 Take This Job and Love It!.......................................197Chapter 29 Heart of the Matter..............................................203Chapter 30 Stage Fright.....................................................209Chapter 31 Days of Yore—Daze of Your..................................215Chapter 32 Beauty and the Belief............................................229After Words.................................................................235Acknowledgments.............................................................239Notes.......................................................................241About the Author............................................................243

Chapter One

THE BEGINNING OF THE EDGE

December 1996, Santa Rosa, California

He appeared calm as he scanned the results. "I have gone over your recent blood work, and I want to have a special lab run some additional tests." The look on his face was relaxed and matter-of-fact. I could tell it was nothing serious. He was just being thorough—he was a "specialist" in his field, after all.

The atmosphere and mood in the warmly appointed office was very laid-back that day. It was my first time visiting his practice, and though I did not know this doctor, I was comfortable there. I had been sent to see him by my family doctor because of his specialty, rheumatology. The medical form he held in his hand had to do with the results of the blood tests he requested for arthritis in my knees. In going over the paperwork, he noticed a small spike in one of the tests that had nothing to do with his area of expertise. The odd little indicator required an explanation, so one specialist was sending me to another.

He handed me a piece of paper with an address and a little map on the back showing how to get there. I never worry about those kinds of tests, in part because of an old friend and mentor at Capitol Records many years ago who displayed a plaque behind his desk with a quote from sixteenth-century essayist and statesman, Michel de Montaigne:

MY LIFE HAS BEEN FILLED WITH MANY MISFORTUNES, MOST OF WHICH HAVE NEVER HAPPENED.

I have forgotten many of the things this great man said, but the words on his office wall stayed with me. Driving away from the doctor's office I knew it was all good—nothing to worry about.

* * *

Connie and I lived in Bodega Bay at the time, and the address on the small slip of paper was in Santa Rosa, California, about forty-five minutes from our home by the ocean.

The appointment was scheduled for eleven thirty in the morning the following week. Because that location was on the north end of town, we decided that after the consultation and lab work we would head into the adjacent wine country, have a nice lunch, and maybe do some wine tasting in Healdsburg. We loved the little town square there, and the drive back through the vineyards and coastal ranges is very scenic. If we timed it just right, we would be driving home into the filtered sunset. The days were short, but the weather was nice that time of year. We would take the day off and have some fun.

The day of the appointment came, and things were already off to a bad start. At that time Connie was an associate director in television (Hee Haw, the Dove Awards) and currently working on The Statler Brothers Show on cable TV. Early that morning I put her on a plane in San Francisco and drove back north to Santa Rosa for my afternoon appointment. This was supposed to be a fun day in Sonoma County, but my appointment kept getting pushed back until it collided with Connie's career. Nashville called; the taping schedule was tight, and it would keep her for at least a week.

I went alone.

Following the directions on my slip of paper, I rounded the last corner on my way to my destination and was shocked when I saw the street number I was looking for etched on a sign that read, Oncology Center. What was I doing here?

Things went into slow motion. What did this have to do with itchy knee sockets? Maybe it simply had to do with the equipment, or maybe this was the only place that housed a particular medical feature in our area.

I parked a long way from the entrance, a sort of logistical denial of the sign on the street, and entered a world I had never seen before. I couldn't help looking away in the lobby waiting room as I saw pale and emaciated young people, many without hair, moving listlessly about the area among old women and older men with gaunt eyes and lifeless faces. Bandannas on women. Crutches leaning against the side of a chair where a sad old man sat. Bags with pumps and tubes going into different noses and up various sleeves. It was all so alien and distant. Scary.

When I got on the elevator to the second floor where I was instructed to go, I felt...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Thomas Nelson
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1400204607
• ISBN 13: 9781400204601
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Reckitt Benckiser Deutschland GmbH; consumerhealth_de@reckitt.com; ; Darwinstrasse 2-4; Heidelberg; 69115; Deutschland