Walking With Arthur: Finding God On My Way to New York [A Spiritual Memoir]

1984 was a big year for James (Jim) O’Donnell.

It was the year his delinquent father died. It was the year his salary was cut after achieving some heroic success for his firm. It was the year his 9-year-old son talked about killing himself. And it was the year that he decided to divorce his wife.

It was in 1984 that Jim discovered he believed in nothing. He held nothing sacred. He trusted no one. And no one he knew was worth trusting.

That was, until he met Arthur.

In this spiritual memoir, Jim recounts his daily commutes with Arthur. Commutes during which Arthur never preached to Jim or handed him a tract, but the two men just walked. And God worked.

Written in frank and inviting style, Walking with Arthur will make you feel as if you are taking this journey alongside Jim.

A Short Excerpt from the Prologue:

In meeting Arthur, in 1984, I awoke as if from a long sleep. From a lifetime of self-absorption, I awoke to want to learn about the purpose and meaning of life.

I’m writing this book to encourage men, especially, to seek good friends—not any friends. Men need to look for friends who will help them discover what’s important in life. I hope men will talk to each other about the kinds of things my friend Arthur talked to me about.

What follows are some things that two friends talked about during five special years together. Our conversations appear in no particular order, though they are linked by the common hope that men might learn, grow, discover, and desire the good life—the really good life, that is.

This is a story about the great good that real friendship can do. It’s a story about my friend Arthur, how we met, what we did, what we talked about, and the profound effect his friendship has had on my life. I hope you have—or one day will have—such a friend, because such a friend is priceless inthe confusion and difficulty that life holds for us.

If hope you find a good friend with whom to share your won life and to grow wise, as good and wise a friend as Arthur was to me. May you find that someone, or may you come to desire to find such a friend—someone with whom you can share trivia as well as search out the deepest riches of wisdom. I hope you find a friend who not only watches Monday Night Football with you but who challenges your deepest convictions.

For me, that someone came into my life in 1984.

JAMES O’DONNELL spent many years as an executive in the financial services industry with such firms as Fidelity Investments and the Dreyfus Corporation. He is currently a professor of Business and Economics at Huntington University. He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and his MBA from Columbia University. He is the author of Letters for Lizzie and Walking with Arthur, which chronicle his wife’s battle with cancer and his spiritual journey as they walked through those trials together. O’Donnell currently resides in Huntington, Indiana.