On “The Giving Way of Life” by Manfred Arthur Fraund

I was given this privately published/printed book nearly a decade ago but only now got around to reading it. It was by the father of various kids I grew up with, a friend of our family's and of my parents. Alas, at this point, the author is no longer alive, nor my father, so I can't write him to thank him for the collection and his thoughts. In the closing years of his life, the author took to writing books of essays, poetry, and memoir. This is one of his books of essays. Truly, this is a man who thought a lot about his faith and about God. Once in a while, I'd get a more personal insight about his life or family, something that would have been wonderful to read more about. As it is, the five extended works in this book are made up each of twenty very short essays on a given spiritual subject. They read, in a way, like devotionals, though usually with the focus on a spiritual idea rather than one particular scripture. Written as it was, I suspect that there would be more to glean from reading this in small bits, picking up the book and reading one essay and then maybe returning some other time, meditating on the small passage, much as the author likely wrote the pieces. And that is how I'd largely read it until the last couple of months—though returning to it far too infrequently—when I decided I'd read it through, so that I could say I'd actually read it all.

What is there to say of our lives? We pass from one place to another. When I met Mr. Fraund at a church picnic where he handed me the book, he seemed excited to see me and to share his work with me, this kid who had grown up with his. Occasionally, he'd had contact with my dad, who still lived in the same town but who had taken a slightly different path when it come to his spiritual journey and ended up in a different fellowship, though they believed largely the same thing. The rest of Mr. Fraund's family, it appeared, had taken yet other paths. As family, of course, he was still involved in their lives, but outside of a Facebook contact list (that I rarely ever touch), I would no longer be likely to come across any of his children in real life, given our own diverging paths and places of abode and worship. It is wonderful that technology can put us in touch or keep us in touch with such people, in ways that were not possible twenty-five years ago, but at the same time, one is reminded constantly of how our lives converge for a time and then diverge, the blessing of a friendship for a few years and of the memories that go with it. I could write of such memories here (so many of them, indeed), but I will save those perhaps for some other venue, not focused as much on my reading, and some other time.