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

 

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

 

 

 

Ordained minister and celebrated record-industry veteran Mansfield shares a thoughtful and affecting account of his trials as a man of faith struggling with not one but two bouts of cancer. In what is part the record of a spiritual journey and part a patient memoir, Mansfield writes about his faith with the fervor of a new convert but recounts his agonizing doubts, both mundane and spiritual, with equal candor. Mansfield’s struggle with cancer is as much his wife Connie’s story as it is his own, and her brief reflections at the beginning of each chapter add another level of intimacy to what is already a deeply personal tale. Readers of spiritual memoirs will recognize the major markers highlighting Mansfield’s journey of faith, the moments of peaceful acceptance, the debilitating crises of faith, and all the searching and contemplation in between. But the quiet joy and confidence of Mansfield’s voice as he reframes the pain of his illness and the vicissitudes of his treatment into a crucible for personal spiritual growth make this a moving read nonetheless. --Taina Lagodzinski