Kin-Ship Spirituality: Analysis & Prospectus....Ideas to inspire & Meanings to Enlighten, Guide, & Bless.

By Doak M Mansfield

"Rev. Doak" has dedicated his life to exploring the profound mysteries of spirituality and delving into the existential questions that define our human journey. His remarkable life story includes a miraculous heart transplant in June 2010, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. 

As a seasoned p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hemingway Publishers
• Release date: Oct 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088121856

Book preview

‘Kin-Ship Spirituality’

Expansive Love, Larger Hope

A Metamodern memo: Analysis & Prospectus....Ideas to inspire & Meanings to Enlighten, Guide, & Bless.

By

Doak M Mansfield

Copyright © 2023 by Doak M Mansfield

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Published by Hemingway Publishers

Printed in United States of America

Dedication

This work is dedicated to my gran-ones: Ava Reese Mansfield, Wesley Cohen Mansfield, John Maddox Mansfield, James Caleb Mansfield, & Cooper Henry Mansfield. They carry my name and, if science be valid (which it is), a bit of my DNA (for good & bad). I trust someday, they will read this and remember me. I am mighty proud of them. May they discover more about me and return a bit of that pride and gratitude.

​​​-DMM

Contents

An Introduction

Prayer

Kin-Ship Spirituality

Preface

Prayer

Chapter 1: Where Are We?

Prayer

Chapter 2: Who Are We?

Prayer

Chapter 3: What Ails Us?

Prayer

Chapter 4: How to Cope?

Epilogue

Prayer

An Introduction

It is important for me to tell of a significant, truly life-changing event that has influenced me and informed my interpretations of lived experiences. Before we explore the ongoing transformation of human interpretations of reality and my offering of ideas and possibilities for engaging future challenges, I want to tell you about myself.

On the first day of summer, June 21, 2010, I received the heart of a thirty-two-year-old African-American woman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She had not woken up from thyroid surgery the day before. I was a sixty-one-year-old white male with inherited severe heart disease. In the early 1990s, I had a mild heart attack, got a stent, did rehab, and went back to life after a month.

The dramatic event of that hot summer in New Orleans was the result of what began as a severe case of congestive heart failure in the fall of 2001. With the care of an excellent cardiologist in Laurel, Mississippi (Dr. Joe Proli and staff), and my wonderful new wife, Peggy Owens-Mansfield (we had married on January 21, 2001; she died on February 23, 2020), I survived nine years. A pacemaker-defibrillator was implanted in 2004, but by the winter of 2009 to 2010, the defibrillator was shocking me often—at one point, fourteen times within two hours! Our blessed machines are God-given but limited. After some terribly painful experiences with medical laser attempts to find usable passages in my damaged heart, it was determined that I needed a heart transplant to survive, and soon. The heart transplant team at the University of Mississippi Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, gave me a great workup and prognosis: It’s bad, and we will not be able to get to you in time. Find someone who can!

So, off to the Ochsner Multi-Organ Transplant Center in New Orleans, with the referral of Dr. Proli, went Pegs and I. We made two trips from Laurel to New Orleans (ninety miles) for their workup on me. On the first trip, returning home at night, we hit a grown deer as we drove through rural Mississippi. The deer and our van died that night. Thankfully, we were okay; airbags are wonderful things. I felt like I had a bit of reprieve, hopefully, to live longer.

During the second visit, after a commute in another new old van, I went bad during a procedure. My blood pressure bottomed out, so I was admitted as a patient. Halleluiah!

Dr. Hector Ventura, head of the transplant unit at Ochsner, did his thing and made an application to whatever powers in the system handle such things, and he was granted a fifteen-day window to find me a suitable heart within a five-hundred-mile radius. I am type O negative; thus, I can only have an O-negative donor. Tricky challenge that. I, to overcome