David:     Have you read a good book lately?

Karen:     That’s a question that we ask a lot in our family and among our friends, or “What are you reading now?” is another way we might say it.

David:     And we’re going to talk about a book that both of us have read quite recently and I think you’ll be interested in it.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:     Okay Karen, I got the book in the mail, and I opened it. You hadn’t seen it yet and I thought, I have to read that. You know, that’s an author.

Karen:     So, you absconded with it.

David:     I did. I read it first and I didn’t realize that once I read the first chapter, I wasn’t going to be able to put it down. I got other things done and it took me a period of probably two and a half days, but I got to go through the whole thing and all the time, oh Karen, this is incredible.

Karen:     The book we’re talking about is “Where the Light Fell.” It’s the latest book by Philip Yancey who is a favorite friend and writer of ours and very highly respected in religious publishing. He’s published over 17 million copies of his books.

David:     That’s a lot of copies.

Karen:     That’s a lot of copies.

David:     He’s at the very top of the writer category in terms of the Christian world.

Karen:     I think he’s looked on by non-religious people as an excellent spokesperson. He’s intelligent. His writing is succinct. He’s picked wonderful topics. But this one is a memoir and so it means we get exposed to the early life of Philip Yancey.

David:     And when you say we’re friends, that’s a fair statement. I mean, it’s kind of snooty to be able to say Philip Yancey and his wife Jenna are our friends.

Karen:     Well, they lived in the Chicago area for 20 years. So, we knew Philip through various connections here. But Philip and I were also in a writer’s group together. We met three times a year. We called it the Chrysism Society after one of the old Orthodox saints. He hated that name. But that’s what we became. And so, we met three times a year.

David:     Recently they came through the Chicagoland there and called ahead and said, “Can we take you to dinner?” It’s not as though, you know, I know who he is. We’re relatively close with him. So, reading this is just fascinating because I never would have known his past nearly that much. What’s the title of the book?

Karen:     The title is “Where the Light Fell.” Actually, a lot of these stories I had heard before this book came out because I think even then he was working on “how do you tell those stories that have created me and made me in the environment in which I grew.” Now, his mother was a widow. His father died when he was a young minister of 23 years of age.

David:     When the father was a young minister.

Karen:     Yes, right.

David:     How he died without giving away the book, but how he died was unknown to Philip until he was adult. And it just kind of happened upon it. And then all of a sudden, many things began to dawn in his mind. So that all unfolds very beautifully. I mean, he’s an incredible writer.

Karen:     Yeah, he is.

David:     No question about that. And part of the reason he sent books to people he knew is that the whole world of publishing is changing.

Karen:     The marketing apparatus is failing right now.

David:     So, there used to be Christian bookstores all across the country. There still are some, but not nearly all of them.

Karen:     Oh, I mean, there’s nothing like that. And the Christian Booksellers Association is no longer CBA. I mean, that was the network and structure. What has happened, the best I can tell, is that non-religious houses realize that there is a huge market for religious books. There are lots of readers, lots of purchasers out there. And so, they’ve begun to pick up books and publish very fine religious writers. Now, Philip would be considered one of those very fine religious writers.

David:     And what he is saying is, read the book if you like it, tell your friends. I immediately talked to friends. In fact, one of them, we were at the farmer’s market, and I said to her, “Have you gotten Phillip Yancey?” and she’s, “Oh, yeah, I’ve already read it. It’s wonderful.”

Karen:     Yeah, it was a yeah.

David:     But I called my sister…

Karen:     Who’s an avid reader. Yeah,

David:     I said, “You need to get a copy of this,” which she said, “Oh, Phillip, yes, you got to do it.” So, she got it called back. But anyway, that’s what he wants.  How do we create the buzz? And it’s not hard because the book is incredible. At the same time it is very tough reading in the sense that his honesty and understanding the background in which he was raised, which is not that dissimilar to our backgrounds.

Karen:     Well, yours more, more than mine, maybe. He was raised in a very southern fundamentalist background. As you said, his dad died when the father was 23 and the mother, her heart had been set on going to the mission field with her husband. And of course, that dream was that she had two sons and she kind of imposed that vision upon them in sort of one of those ways that says, “God has told me that you will carry on this dream, this missionary legacy dream.” So, we read through his memoir, which is a catalog of the way he was raised in that environment. You may want to describe that environment a little more.

David:     I don’t think dysfunctional is adequate.

Karen:     Mis functional.

David:     Yeah. And he’s very tender because it’s his mother.

Karen:     But he’s honest.

David:     That’s the amazing part that the honesty comes out and you see the contrast between the two brothers as to the roads they took…

Karen:     …under that environment. And perhaps we need to describe it a little more.

David:     It’s legalistic.

Karen:     It’s extreme southern kind of fundamentalism. So, there’s all kinds of…

David:     We have all the answers. No one else is aware of the truth that we have.

Karen:     With a sort of racism that’s also developed into all of that as well. Black people are not as established as equal folk. And so, he’s writing about all of this stuff. I think the biggest way to describe without using his exact word is that his mother was kind of a split personality. She was a Bible teacher and well known in her area and highly respected. But at home she was kind of a Herod. Now she had two boys to raise by herself. They were strapped financially and living in quarters, sometimes living quarters that were substandard. But at the same time her worst side often came out with her sons and for children to watch that split where mom is just great when the people are outside and credentialing her and praising her because of her teaching facilities. And then to see this very negative impact and effect and the extreme narrow worldview and the heightened legalism was enough really when you read it you think how Philip turned out to be who he is. I mean how in the world did he turn out to be who he is?

David:     I would say that the milieu was the same as that in which I was raised where I thought I was the only Christian in the whole high school. I was a student body president, but I was odd. I didn’t go to movies; I didn’t go to the dances.

Karen:     Your Christianity was framed by what you didn’t do and was seemed to be what you expressed in the high school environment by what you didn’t do.

David:     It wasn’t nearly the degree that Philip was raised in. But at the same time the high school was probably a thousand kids and for me to think that there was not another Christian in the whole high school because I didn’t know anything but our church. If a person was Catholic that person could not possibly be a follower of Jesus. If a person was Presbyterian or went to the liberal Baptist church instead of the Baptist church I was in.

Karen:     Fundamentalist Baptist church.

David:     Yeah, and there was good in all of that. But anyway, there’s a lot of identification not to the degree that Philip went through but you read it and you say, “Yeah I understand that you know even the racial side of it.” I wish we could talk more about the book, but I don’t want to do that because I want people to get a copy of it. What is the title again?

Karen:     The title is “Where the Light Fell” and I’m sure it can be ordered over Amazon. And I mean most everything can be ordered over Amazon these days.

David:     And the beauty of what he writes, he absolutely touches you.

Karen:     Yeah, it’s very moving and it’s sad. Your sister was right to read it all. You just have this sad feeling for him and particularly when we’ve known him as an adult.

David:     Yes, he’s a remarkable person.

Karen:     He’s remarkable and then you say, “How in the world Philip did you become who you are?” And it really is grace. Can I just read the little point where he…

David:     Sure, you can.

Karen:     Go ahead and see what you…

David:     When you say it’s grace that’s a lot of what Philip’s books are about.

Karen:     His past books have been about what it yeah have been about grace. Lovely. He began as a teen to sort of slip away into nature again. He had an early childhood experience with it walking his dog through paths in the woods. So, he starts to do that again. He comes to a pond, and he sits there. He watches a spotted fawn approach the water. I mean this is beautifully written and he hears a deep bass croak and looks up to see a fat green bullfrog. He says they take my breath away. These brush strokes of nature that happen whether or not any human is there to observe. He quotes Augustine. “I have learned to love you late. Beauty at once so ancient and so new. Augustine confessed regretting how long it took him to turn to God yet in Augustine again. In my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely, created things which you made.”

Now, I think this is an expression of what Philip was experiencing in these moments. He’s in a very fundamentalist Bible school in the South. Classes at the school focus so intently on an invisible world on concepts such as omniscience, omnipotence and sovereignty, all theological concepts. But here in the visible world at the margins of belief or the margins of his belief I feel the first uninvited stirrings of desire to know the source of such beauty. Isn’t it? It just grabs you, doesn’t it? As G.K. Chesterton put it, the worst moment for the atheist and I think that Philip would have classified himself and was actually quite vocal about being an atheist, the worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.

David:     That should be cool.

Karen:     Nature teaches me nothing about incarnation or the victorious Christian life which was a major topic in his Bible school. It does though awaken my desire to meet whoever it is that’s responsible for the monarch butterfly. Gives you the chills, doesn’t it?

David:     Yeah, what’s the title of the book again?

Karen:     The title is “Where the Light Fell.” And I went through the book trying to see if it was quoting something in the book, but I think the whole book is sort of a chronicle of where the light fell.

David:     Yeah, I find that this is actually memoir writing, isn’t it?

Karen:     Yeah, this is.

David:     That’s very powerful as long as it’s honest. And you have the feeling that to the best of his ability, he’s telling you, his experience. And he’s saying, “This is how God was in what was unfolding in terms of my life.”

Karen:     In the end notes of the book, he tells about the process it took to write this, going back to the places where he had been, the talking to his family, who are still alive, and friends of the family, and going through records. And I mean, it was just an extraordinary, and I think he must have been working on it when we were in a writer’s group together, sort of the thing you do in the back of your mind, you start taking files.

And I know I heard a lot of those stories in that writer’s group as far as him, you know, sort of sharing the discoveries of his past life, and just giving it to the group because we were friends. But to put a piece like this together is a journey into reliving the feelings, reliving all of the negative associations. I mean, it is a journey to do this kind of work.

David:     Trying to get perspective on everything that’s going on, reflecting in retrospect, that kind of thing. Memoir writing, you actually taught memoir writing.

Karen:     Yeah, I wondered if we had time to talk about that a little bit.

David:     Sure, you do, go ahead.

Karen:     Well, I was very interested in the memoir writing form, partly because I do a lot of personal anecdotal or autobiographical writing in my own work. It’s sort of the jumping off place into other meaning, like I have a lesson I’ve learned that God has taught me, and I’ll share that personal experience, and then go on to the topic or the subject of the book, such as hospitality, one of the books I’ve written. But I began to examine memoir, and then I offered a class in memoir writing over Zoom. And this was from people from all over the country. We would extend our whole time for seven months and then meet twice a month over Zoom, and then people would submit the writing.

You can’t have a lot of people in a class like that, so it may be four to seven people at the top. But I had an extraordinary understanding that when people wrote their stories, and many of them were writing their memoirs just simply to leave sort of a legacy tool or historical tool for their families.

David:     Interesting, you know, they were not writing for publishing.

Karen:     No, they were not thinking publishing at all. They did submit the writing to the group, and I would often give assignments like write about something about yourself that no one else in this group would know about. Then we get, as I said, get together twice a month, but they would send their memoir work in, but then they would read it aloud. And that was such a powerful experience for the writers. And I understand more now why it was such a powerful experience.

David:     You’re saying for the writers, probably for the listeners too.

Karen:     For the listeners too. But as I was concentrating on what it did with the writers, and I think it was that extraordinary feeling of being listened to and being heard and understood. You know, I’m going to kick about that because I’m writing a book on what essentially is the neurological response to that, the way that God has created our minds and our bodies.

So that when we’re listened to and heard and understood, there’s kind of a what I call neurological happy dance that goes on in us. So, I began to see that that was occurring with these memoir writers. So, I find it to be a form that is instructive to the person who’s trying to get their life together, even a little piece of their life together. So, they create what our good friend, the neurologist, Dr. Vieth says, is a cohesive narrative. A cohesive narrative. They’re telling their story, and that’s what memoir writing does. It helps them to tell their story in a cohesive kind of way, not jumble, scramble all over the place. And it just was a turning point for me. When I saw that Philip had written a memoir, I was really intrigued to see what he had done. And of course, we find this to be a very powerful piece of work.

David:     Philip thinks this is the strongest book he’s ever written.

Karen:     The one he was meant to write.

David:     Yeah.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     That’s interesting. Karen, when I hear all of this, I think the church has kind of lost this in a way. I remember when I was growing up, it’s such a minimal illustration of what you’re talking about, but I was in church and they would say, “Does anyone have a testimony?”

Karen:     Oh, yeah. Right.

David:     So, testimony is another word for a memoir. And I said, do you have a memory that’s current of something God has done in your life?

Karen:     Mini memoir, maybe.

David:     Well, testimony is the word that was used, but testimony is a big part of how God has transmitted his message down through the years. A lot of the scripture is testimony.

Karen:     That we used to do that too, and those were powerful moments. I mean, sometimes you got someone who was a little pre-tier, you know, but the true telling of one story, how they met God in their everyday world. You brought tears to your eyes.

David:     You brought tears to the person who was sharing.

Karen:     Or hallelujah from the congregation. Yeah. Right.

David:     So, somewhere that’s been missed, and it is a very powerful means of communication. Be reminded that God has often used honest testimony to advance his cause. That’s my attempt to get Philip to look into a sentence.

Karen:     Say it again.

David:     Be reminded that God has often used honest testimony to advance his cause, or honest memoirs to advance his cause. They’re a little different, but people can see the connection just real fast in terms of being able to contribute to the conversation. This was a powerful part of revival history.

Karen:     Oh, really.

David:     George Whitfield, when he would travel and horseback from one location to another here in the States, this is during the Great Awakening.

Karen:     In what years were those?

David:     Well, you’re talking in the 1700s.

Karen:     Ok.

David:     He would begin his address, you know, this powerful voice so there’d be thousands of people who could hear him. He would say, “Well, let me tell you what God has been doing,” which is a testimony. And then he would talk about the last place where he was and tell these stories.

Karen:     I’ve changed lives.

David:     And then it set people up where they identified. They identified much more so than if he had said, my text for today has come to you and you’re, you know, and we’ve lost that in the church.

Karen:     Yeah, that immediacy of God’s work in an everyday world.

David:     And how it’s not just listening to somebody say, this is the passage of Scripture I’m going to go to. Although again, I would say that much of Scripture is testimony. It’s different because a lot of the people were not literate. But if you go back, say the story of Ruth, that’s basically a story of how in a phenomenal way God worked in her life. It’s not by her, I don’t think. I doubt whether she was literate in many ways, but it’s storytelling. All those are combined in a lot of ways.

How do you put them all together? But Philip has done something, and my personal feeling is that I think the Lord’s going to use this book in a wonderful way. I wrote to him, I said, “I’ve already told a couple of people.” And now through the podcast, we’ve been able to say this is an unusual book. It’s not like your normal book that’s coming out. I think it’d be whose people to get a copy. It’s a disturbing book. Don’t you think in a lot of ways?

Karen:     Well, I think your sister’s description, you do feel sad. You feel sad for these two boys and for their mother, really too. She’s lost her moorings.

David:     It’s a story of triumph as well.

Karen:     Of grace.

David:     Of grace, that’s a very good one. It’s a wonderful story of grace.

Karen:     Of grace working despite these circumstances. And I think that’s the value of the book to many readers. I think many readers have similar kinds of backgrounds. And the problem is that we understand intellectually the past and what has caused it and we do all that work. But there has to be an inner transformation as well so that the past, as a ruinous or detrimental as it was at the time, no longer has any power over our present. And we call that inner healing or sometimes the healing of the inner child. I mean, there’s all kinds of wonderful understanding as far as how we can be freed from the past. And all of those things, whether they come through the psychological community or the spiritual community, are acts of grace. God’s grace in our life freeing us from those things that could damage us completely into the future.

David:     Just a real fast word. During this 60th anniversary year of our marriage, dear friends and family have made it possible for us to go by train from Chicago to Portland, Oregon. We have a private compartment. They’ve all paid for that as a gift to us. And then we go from Portland to San Francisco. Where we meet with relatives and then San Francisco back by another route on the train where our meals are covered. And we just get to slow down the world for a little while.

Karen:     And watch America pass outside the windows.

David:     While we’re away, dear Dean has said, you know what, I’ll put on the podcast some past podcasts because he has all those. And so, he gets to pick them and…

Karen:     So, we don’t have to worry about that.

David:     We don’t have to make up programs when we come back.

Karen:     Who do you have friends? I’ll say that. We’re just going to go away.

David:     So, Dean, thank you in advance for what you’re doing. I’m just saying, wow, we get to have two weeks away just with no meeting.

Karen:     No responsibility.

David:     Friends who have made a wonderful experience possible for us.

Karen:     Friends and family.

Outro:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

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