This has been one of my most favorite books to review yet.
There are few books that have reached the part of my soul that this book did. Mr. Mansfield captures thoughts that I have had and was unable to come up with the words to describe them. This has been a book that as I read I underlined sentences, sometimes entire paragraphs to re-read again later. His style of writing is almost lyrical, definitely descriptive, and if you allow it, it will change you as his road trip changed him.
Between Wyomings – My God and an iPod On the Open Road by Ken Mansfield, is a journey best taken slowly. Allow yourself the time to read this book and learn from his journey. Don’t pick it up if you are expecting music industry inside stories. While he does recount stories of his time in the business, it is for the purposes of giving a background and understanding of what shaped him and made him the person he has become.
Each segment of the book is broken down by “mile markers”. Different eras of his life are highlighted by different areas he visits on this cross country journey. In the beginning he starts with “Between Dawn and Dusk” – “In looking back I have this sense I stumbled through my life with the music of my circumstances blaring so loudly that I missed the meaning of the lyrics.” (page 3)
When he goes back to visit a home in LA that he once lived in he says “Memories like reverse echoes begin rolling down upon me from the hillside like a “rock” slide as I turn back into the twisted trek that drove me up and down those stairs in the days of my crazed years in the music business.” (page 51)
He shares the life God has blessed him with and brought him through, how as a child he attended church but had no use for God later when he was out on his own. And how God’s grace, mercy, and love are always there for us, as long as we are willing.
To share any more would take away from the journey you will experience as you read this book. All I can say is, go get your own copy and be ready to embark on a trip, that if you allow God to use it, will surely show you something about yourself that you may not have ever known.
