New Title From Bernard Bowman A Mennonite Boy s Odyssey

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1 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact Information: Bernie Bowman A Mennonite Boy s Odyssey by Bernard Bowman Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers / paperback / $15 New Title From Bernard Bowman A Mennonite Boy s Odyssey A Mennonite Boy s Odyssey is a story of courage and discovery. Some individuals are fully content to embrace answers provided by their own elders to life s great questions. For others, their elders way proves untenable. They must forge their own path, awakening through assimilation from alternate sources. A Mennonite Boy s Odyssey traces one such awakening, a life journey of spiritual development from growing up Mennonite in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the 1950s and 1960s, through decades of reading, thought, and enquiry. The book balances life experience with intellectual and spiritual transformation. This book is an accounting of a Hero s Journey, in the parlance of Joseph Campbell. Bernard Bowman currently resides in Maryville, Tennessee, with his wife, Carol Gingerich Bowman. He is father to Megan and John, and grandfather to Witt. Currently semi-retired, Bowman had a thirty-five year career as CEO of three different not-for-profit retirement community organizations. He graduated from Eastern Mennonite University and holds a Masters in Hospital and Healthcare Administration from the University of Minnesota. He has enjoyed community service. While living in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, he chaired the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission before being elected to serve on the City Council. In Maryville he has chaired the United Way board of directors and the board of trustees of the Blount County Public Library. He currently serves on the Alcoa Aluminum Company s Foundation Community Advisory Board. His interest in genealogy and family history resulted in two books, George and Barbara Bowman: Immigrants and Bowman House Builders and A Tribute to Oma Wenger Bowman (And Her Valley Wenger Ancestors).

2 Interview with Bernie Bowman Why did you write the book? After writing and self-publishing a book about my father s side of the family, then another book about my mother and her ancestry, somehow it seemed like a good idea to write my own story. Reflecting on it, I suspect the genesis for the book may have been in the eruption of communication among us nine siblings, first via snail mail then via , after the death of my father in That is when we began to talk with each other about who we d become as adults. That is when we began creating written snippets of our stories. How long was the process of writing and publication? I actually wrote the first paragraph, the Damascus Road experience, which in the end did not remain as the first paragraph, the middle of October The formal publication date was September 20, 2016, so writing and publishing took eleven months. The writing itself was completed by Easter of However, different people have commented that the book reads like I was writing it all my life, and there is some truth to that. The process of securing a publisher and getting it published took another five months. This is your first non-self-published book. What surprised you about the process? Working with Wipf and Stock was truly an experience in efficiency and professionalism. Once they accepted the book for publication, each succeeding step was clearly laid out. They were clear about what they would do, and what was expected of me. Different staff people were responsible for different steps in the process, but all followed a clear path toward the single goal of publication. I did not try to get either of my first two books published, and I must say, I was surprised to get two offers to publish for this one. Incidentally, I did not use an agent. After research, I contacted the publishing houses that seemed the best fit. Have others of your siblings written their stories? My sister Miriam, wrote a book several years ago based on her re-enactment of Bible stories that she had shared in her congregation. Brother Eldon wrote and self-published his story about three years ago. He even self-bound his books, using actual wood sheets for the front and back covers. Both Dan and Jim have books in process. I would like to see my other sisters write their stories, and I have encouraged them to do so. How nine different children coming from the same parents, growing up in the same household, could be so different as adults is an unanswerable marvel to me. If a person wanted to know more about Mennonites, where would you direct them? For starters, visit the official Mennonite Church web site, Also visit the Church s official publishing site, Herald Press at If a person wanted to know specifically about Mennonite in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, there are many books written with that focus. The classic is Harry Brunk s two volume history of Mennonite s in Virginia, but a web search for books about Mennonites in the Shenandoah Valley will yield multiple results. Fortunately the Virginia Conference is working to update Brunk s work.

3 To use TED Talks Chris Anderson s terminology, could you state the through-line in the book? My through-line is that we have one life to live; one lifetime to make right with whatever or whomever is behind our existence here on this planet. As the story progresses in the book, you can see I came to that point of comfort being the whatever of science and the scientific fact of evolution, and answers to existential questions, any spiritual experiences or truths, have to be complimentary of that to work for me. At the same time I never felt the need to wipe the slate clean, so to speak, of all vestiges of Mennonite-ism, nor of spirituality. I did re-interpret and re-integrate and granted, some may say I have ended up at a strange and vacuous place as relates to religion. But to me it is not that at all. It has been a journey filled with meaning and joy and is that not the point of all religion and spirituality? What tools in the broad sense of that word were most helpful in writing the book? For the first draft, it had to be Grammarly, an automated proofreader. Having begged, borrowed and stole from far and wide for decades, one of my fears was that I would fail to give credit to someone, having forgotten my initial source all those years ago. Grammarly helped with that as well. Second was a live professional proofreader and editor, plus several others who read drafts, making comments. Do you have another project started? Interview with Bernie Bowman cont. There is an extraordinary life in Carol s family that I would love to write about next. We will see if that comes to fruition.

4 An Excerpt from A Mennonite Boy s Oydessey It was a Damascus Road encounter. Fall was in full regalia, trees ablaze, with the sun setting in the west behind me as I drove along a two-lane paved road sandwiched between ready-to-harvest corn fields in northeast Iowa. It had been almost two decades since I had taken leave, in my conscious awareness, of the stark heaven or hell dichotomy of the religion of my childhood and adolescence. But somewhere, deep within me, the haunting pull of that religious viewpoint must have retained a lingering hold on me. Was life to be lived pursuing that carrot of heaven or dodging that stick of hell or some balance of both? Or could life be worth living for its own sake in the here and now? I thought I had answered that question, but now it came back to me as a crisis of decision. I felt like I was high on a precipice. For someone with acrophobia, it was not a pleasant place to be. I looked back, but I could not turn and go back to that old way of living. Looking ahead lay a vast open vista, clear blue skies and dark mountains and green fields and flowing rivers but nothing directly ahead to step on. The only way forward was a gigantic leap, off the cliff and into the unknown. Could I plunge forward trusting I had found another way to live and think about life; another way to understand its meaning and purpose? I could not endure on the cliff. The struggle reached its pinnacle. Then in my mind, I leaped! I felt as if I had instantaneously sprouted wings and began to soar. I rose as if on eagles wings. I have never landed. That was my Damascus road experience. This book is my story of life both before, and after.

5 Praise for A Mennonite Boy s Odyssey Bernie Bowman takes his reader on an intimate journey from childhood beliefs to adult doubts and reformations. Anyone who shares such a journey or who is about to embark on one will find Bowman s story to be an inviting, interesting, and trustworthy guide. David Galston, Academic Director, Westar Institute