John D. Geen
About me – the author:
First – let me tell you who I am and a little bit about who I was!
Born during the depression, – it was 1933, life started on a small, unproductive dirt farm of which I still have memories.
My education was in a one room schoolhouse without running water, flush toilets, or a football team. In fact, there were never more than twenty-five students in the whole eight grades.
I don’t feel that I was brought up – I was just allowed to grow!
I left home at the tender age of seventeen. Now four score and more years later I am leading a rather comfortable life, far away from my family roots and those dusty, boulder-strewn acres.
I would like to tell you that I prospered because I was smart, innovative, and assertive – but I wasn’t. In fact, I have written a book recording how my life has been enriched abundantly, morally, and happily, by the acts and sacrifices of others. Some Godsent power beyond my comprehension has placed me where I am.
As you may now guess, my book expresses feelings on religion which may not correspond to that of my pastor – and our church members, so I have held it all-in. Now, after many decades of suppressing my feeling on modernizing our Christian faith, I turned it all loose in the first chapter of my book – The Other Book of John.
About the Book:
The book is a soft spoken but hard-hitting story of the life I lived. Nothing has been sugar-coated!
During the COVID lockdown years I undertook to document exactly how I felt about my relationship with God. I had never really put it into words. This eventually became the first chapter of the book.
I then began remembering and documenting my childhood. As the memories came rolling back, I sensed that there was a story. The farm my parents lived on consisted of a house, barn, the henhouse, and a machine shed – that was my world.
Still, as a preschool child I learned to expand my world. I would hitch a ride on the horse drawn cheese factory milk wagon to my aunt’s house, a few yards away to the top of Gravel Pit Hill. Adventure probably moved into my genetical makeup then. My reward was Aunt Anie’s cookies and milk and an eventual escort home by an older cousin.
I grew to learn the facts of life by observing farm animals and learned about people participation from the hired man. I was never sure just where the word sin fit into the picture. To this day I am not sure where the will of God ends, and a perception of sin begins.
The purpose of my book?
To express my understanding of why there are powerful enticements in life and the need to forgive those who have been cast into the flames of temptation.
My eventual marriage survived extensive travel and prolonged absences from my family. My career survived challenges I was not prepared to handle. I arrived at where I am at by the grace of God.
I beseech my readers to benefit from my understanding of the needs of those we love.
