....... and Then Some

From a rich reservoir of inner creative talent, Graham in his new work, 'One Life..And Then Some' has achieved 3 great goals, all in a single volume.
(1)It's Inspirational. 'Reaches The Heart';
(2)It's Informative. 'Unearths the Hidden History of Days Gone By'; Graham makes the past alive and real again!
(3)It's very Educational 'Truth is Our Best Teacher'.

source - Barnes & Noble


A prodigal son?
One of the most gripping stories in the Bible is that of the Prodigal Son, which may have a moral for all too many of us. The New Testament story, of course, concentrates on the forgiveness of the father rather than the excesses of the son. A recently published book by an American cleric living in Northerrn Ireland has echoes with this Biblical drama. However, the second volume of the Rev Gordon Graham's autobiography entitled, One Life... and Then Some, takes us only on the racy journey of the earlier years.It does not quite reach the mature redemption which eventually led him into the Christian ministry and, in his latter years, to his appointment as a clergyman in the Church of Ireland Diocese of Down and Dromore.
Graham has had an eventful life, which is succinctly described thus: "In this volume of the 1950s, Gordon experiences political, sexual and spiritual awakenings; he defends academic freedom at Harvard, journeys across America and Europe into cathedrals, auto assembly lines, migrant stoop-labour fields, vagrant jail cells, New Orleans and Neopolitan brothels, military counter-intelligence in Cold War Germany, civil rights initiatives, Congressional lobbying, Christian Ecumenical ventures, and finally to marriage and a wedding reception in the garden of Washington's British Embassy."All of this, and we are only at Volume Two of his story.
This is the unexpurgated account of a young man growing up, but written in a style where little or nothing is left to the imagination.Many young men of the Fifties might have a similar, if less colourful, tale to tell, but would not want it recounted in quite the same ultra-open way.This volume was written primarily for the 50th reunion of his Harvard Class of 1955, and what might read like a ripping yarn to Graham's classmates could also be an altogether too graphic an account for those who do not personally know the man - who may well be a sensitive and decent soul hiding inside an apparently thick skin.
Perhaps, of course, it is the American way of hollering from the rooftops , and telling it the way it seemed to have been. However, in little ole Northern Ireland in the mid-to-late Fifties there was a convention, as I recall, that young gentlemen did not talk abut their sexual conquests, much less name names.I am not sure that total exposure to such experiences is enhanced with time.
The book, which has its illuminating moments of self-mockery and repentence, has a literally saving grace as Graham records how he could never quite shrug off his spiritual awakenings. There is a parallel here with the Francis Thompson poem about the sinner's vain attempt to flee from God in The Hound of Heaven. Thompson, of course, does it rather better.Graham records early on that his reading of the Modern Library edition of Dostoievsky's classic, The Brothers Karamazov, began his journey "back to some religious faith," but the fulfilment of that journey must await until a volume three, if and when it appears.
It is an achievement in itself for anyone to have a book published, and people are always fascinated by the redemption of any prodigal son, American or otherwise.I might even suggest a title for volume three: 'Father Forgive Me,' but I would urge Graham to tighten his writing style, which is greatly discursive, while a rubble of acronymns litters his literary landscape.
In the meantime, I wonder what his fellow-clergy in Down and Dromore, not to mention the laity, will make of this latest volume. Thankfully, in Northern Ireland we no longer place clergy on impossible pedestals - well, very few of them - but I'm not sure how many of the faithful would wish to read about such details of a redemption journey. We all know that the prodigal's pool was murky, but we do not necessarily need to wallow in the water to get the point.

THE PRODIGAL SON
One Life... and Then Some
by Gordon Graham
Xlibris, £21 hardback, £12.50 paperback

Alf McCreary,Religion Correspondent
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

source - Belfast Telegraph