Stumbling on Open Ground by Ken Mansfield

Stumbling on Open Ground chronicles the author’s journey through two kinds of cancer over 13 years. In his younger years, Ken Mansfield was with Apple Records and worked closely with the Beatles, with all that lifestyle entailed, and became a Christian in the decades following the Beatles’ glory years. The description of the author’s conversations and walk with God is the best thing about this book. His prayers are honest and beautiful, such as this one: “Father, I love the search—the involvement of trying to place my will into yours. I wish I could reach out to you all the time like I do when I am really hurting and pleading on my knees for your presence within me. In the fleeting moments when everything seems okay, I miss the searing intensity of your all-consuming fire blazing in my face—when conviction is hot on my trail and the heat of the trial burns your purpose into my heart.” There is much to learn from Mansfield’s unwavering faith and his refusal to lose ground with God, even while physically suffering in almost unimaginable ways. If you are not a Beatles fan, the author will seem to have been starstruck, as in this description of his presence at the last Beatles’ performance: “Little did we know then that this would be one of the most historical moments in rock and roll, and that those of us who were there would be members of a very special and intimate society, eternally bound together by the sheer emotional immensity of that day.” I hate to be the one to break it, but this is pop music; barely worthy of an asterisk in “history”, and eternity is a long time to be “bound together” by something as frothy as that. The worst thing about this book is the sense it sometimes conveys of the author’s being impressed by his own turns of phrase, the worst of which was a chapter title: “Days of Yore—Daze of Your.” If that kind of attempted hypercleverness intrigues you, then this is the book for you. If it repels you, be forewarned. While this is an interesting, challenging and inspiring book, it bogs down in the last quarter, reiterating previous thoughts so that I felt I was waiting for the book to end. Biblical truth is conveyed effectively, but the book is overlong and overarticulated. I received this book for free in exchange for my unbiased review through the Thomas Nelson BookSneeze Program. http://brb.thomasnelson.com/