Rock and Roll, Cancer, and Gods 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 Mansfields years in the music businessworking with George Harrison and Waylon Jennings, among othersStumbling 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
Kens 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 Gods 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 everythinglife, success, fame, disillusionment, faith, questioning faith, cancer, the death of friends, and staying very close to ones spouse and Creator in the face of life-threatening challenges. This book might make you a little uncomfortable, but thats 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 its like to trust God, no matter what.
Bernie Leadon, founding member of The Eagles
Ken Mansfields Stumbling on Open Ground is one of the most extraordinary messages of healingspiritual, physical and emotionalI have ever read. As someone who is paid to write, Im 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. Kens 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 successon the rooftop with the Beatles for their final performanceto 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. Gods answers lie between the pages of this book.
Mancow Muller, nationally syndicated radio and television host
