Library News from Bill Wade

Is There a God? And Does He Care

This week we have a special treat for you: two books to choose from! Both are by the same accomplished author and on a common subject. Perhaps this calls for an explanation.

For many years Reynolds Price, who died a few months ago, has been recognized as one of our most distinguished Southern writers. The author of thirty-five books of poetry and prose, he was also the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. In the spring of 1984 Price was suddenly afflicted with a serious physical disability that was ultimately diagnosed as cancer of the spine. A series of operations followed, accompanied by increasing anxiety for his survival and the onset of constant pain. After years of agony the cancer was stopped, but Price was left with permanent paralysis in the lower part of his body. He went through a long period of difficult physical and psychological rehabilitation and was finally able to resume his career as a teacher and writer, although confined to a wheelchair. As a part of his restoration he determined to write an account, not simply of physical recovery but of how through God's presence and help he was able to regain a sense of his former being. In his preface, he states that the book "is offered first to others in physical or psychic trial of their own, to their families and other helpers and then to the curious reader who waits for his or her own devastation." Its title is A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing. It is a beautifully written account of physical, psychological, and spiritual rehabilitation, but this is only half the story.

Some years later Price received a letter from one Jim Fox, a young medical student who had been forced to withdraw from his training because of the recurrence of cancer. He had read Price's book and needed help -- spiritual understanding more than physical encouragement. Price called it the most "compelling communication" he had ever received; he knew he must respond. He contacted Fox immediately by telephone but felt that a more substantive action was necessary. For months he struggled with a manuscript while Fox slowly declined, ultimately passing away and leaving Price, as he stated it, "in the baffling silence of one hand beating the empty air -- my lone hand oaring in the wake of a friend's departure." That manuscript was completed and published as Letter to a Man in the Fire: Does God Exist and Does He Care?