Listen to Ralph's interview with Nadia Kidwai, host of the Weekend Morning Show on CBC radio in Winnipeg.
   This is a fascinating memoir that should interest a wide audience. Its focus is on a type of father-son relationship that is fairly common in its broad outlines. The author's father responds emotionally, sometimes sensually, in his writings about nature, his wife, and his being in the world. He’s shown more as a well-liked pastor in the community than a theologian. However, the irony comes out starkly that in many of the interactions with his family, it's the theologian (at least as a purveyor of formulaic words) that comes to the fore, not so much the attentive father.
   But this memoir also deals sensitively with fundamentalism and adaptation to modernity in Canada and on the tensions and opportunities in our multiple religious, ethnic and other identities.
   Overall, the author provides an empathetic and critical reading of his father's life and of his own development, while drawing in the wider historical and social context. A good read!
- Lee Thiessen
   I bought the book last night in Steinbach and it's top on my To-Read list. I'd like to comment on Ralph's reading which I found to be particularly enjoyable.
   Ralph's chosen passages were suitable and served as a sequential description of the book; first as an introduction, then becoming increasingly more personal and poignant. A fine taste of what's to come.
   Ralph's humility, humour, candour, and humanity were on full display. I was transported to the tiny Steinbach of my childhood and the many fond memories I hold dear. Ralph also, without malice, it seemed to me, gave us some inkling of the challenges he faced. Challenges not singular to the author, I'd add.
   But see (hear, feel) for yourself—Ralph has another at-bat scheduled for the 11th in the friendly confines of McNally Robinson, in the big smoke.
   It will be almost like that time, back when the family was gathered together, "eating Platz and criticizing the Catholics..."
- Mitchell Toews
   What a marvelous, candid, courageous book. So elegantly written. Sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, the writing drew me into Ralph’s world. I identified with much of the struggle he describes, cringed with recognition, admired his defiance while always allowing his father his due. Dad, God, and Me is life writing at its finest."
​​- Armin Wiebe

   Dad, God, and Me is not a book a reader might casually pick up if he did not have a connection with the Mennonite community. I did not, so it took a small leap of faith for me to buy Mr. Friesen’s book. I am very glad I did!
   My family background is radically different from the author’s. I do not come from a large family, and my parents were not nearly as stringent in their religious observances. Nonetheless, time after time, in“Dad, God, and Me”, Friesen recalls incidents that remind me of my own youth, my struggles growing up, my striving to belong and connect. So much of Friesen’s story seems universal in its focus. It was very easy for me to identify with young Ralph. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 14, “Peter Ralph: Too Big or Too Little”, and the incident where Ralph tried to play an April Fool’s trick on his father--with disastrous results. Oh my! The poignancy!
   Friesen plays on my heart strings constantly with his descriptions of young Ralph struggling to integrate the demands of “being saved” with a natural skepticism, a wish to experience the world at large, and yet also a wish to be a good and loving son. The emotions these struggles elicit are very familiar and hardly exclusive to young Mennonites! Equally poignant for me is the growing realization Friesen has that, as a youth, his father was much more like young Ralph, than he ever realized.
   Friesen writes with compassion and fearless honesty, demonstrating throughout an impressive understanding of human nature and its frailties.
​   As the book progresses, so does a sense of “journey” for the reader. It is no small feat to re-live and reassess your youth, to examine every nook and corner of anecdote and letter and document to draw a true portrait of a father who you barely knew as a child. At the end of it all, Friesen leaves the reader with a sense of forgiveness and love: for himself, his father and for all who shared a life with him.
- Brian d'Eon​


Just finished reading Dad, God, and Me. I was moved! I grew up in Steinbach, grandson of Rev. Isaac A. Warkentin, founding minister of the Steinbach Mennonite Church. My father, Jacob Nickel worked for Friesen Machine Shop during the 1950s and I remember meeting Barney Friesen there. I also remember meeting Alvin, your brother. Your book surprised me! I realize that I wasn't the only young man in high school with acne who had struggles with religious pressure to conform. Thanks for your honesty and courage. The book is inspiring and cathartic for me!
- Robert Nickel

Last night I finished reading this heartbreaking book by Ralph Friesen. It gripped me from the start and I sometimes literally could not put it down. Those are cliches but true. I could say that it is beautifully crafted and that would be true also and yet it seems a falsification because of the devastating honesty that makes the book so compelling. I admire how Friesen writes in what I would call "Mennonite plain style" to make the art of his book disappear as the figure of his father emerges by slow degrees into the foreground. As I do whenever I read a powerful biography I was left with a feeling of tremendous loss. Not only the loss of this one man but more broadly the loss of the stories about all the other people in the world around this one man, people whose lives mostly are never recorded. Few are blessed to have a son who carries through with the enormous labour of love required to write this kind of a tribute. As Armin Wiebe said, this is life writing at its best.
- Magdalene Redekop March 10, 2020

From Heritage Posting (Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society) March 2020
Ralph Friesen, Dad, God and Me. Remembering a Mennonite Pastor and His Wayward Son (Victoria: Friesen Press, 2019), pb., 275 pp.
Reviewed by Lawrence Klippenstein

   What is the book about? this is very traditional book review question, with a back cover blurb offering an
answer upon which this author cannot meaningfully improve. “In a compelling, honest and transparent
account, Ralph Friesen tells the story of his father Reverend Peter D. Friesen of Steinbach, Manitoba. He
also tells his own story of the search for his father and a crisis of faith.”
   To complete this task, one for which I volunteered, turned out to be more complicated than expected. For me there was first of all, a concern about objectivity. I have been connected to the Friesen family to some degree for sixty five years -- the context, issues, personalities and life stories for many of them.
   My wife was a life-long (till marriage and a little longer) member of the church which Pastor Friesen served as minister and pastor. I am personally acquainted with a large number of the people we meet in the book and I have known the congregation for 65 years. I think I visited Friesen's shop once or twice. I have also been acquainted for quite a long time (not sixty five years) with the author himself and appreciate that acquaintanceship to the present – to the point that I am tempted to say, “I think I know where the author is coming from”.
   As things stand then, I found myself unable to find solid “footing” as a regular reviewer as I drew more and more comparisons with my own relationship with my father with whom I shared just over fifty years of my life before he passed away in 1983. I also did not get to know him as I should have. If given another chance I would try to do so. But I am also in my in my advanced years and discovering at least some of the meaning of a “crisis of faith.”
   You should read this book, and may you the reader take the contents and judge them any way you wish. I think Ralph will be okay with that. He is not a novice in writing; he has authored or co-authored two other important books. I will not say I read his new work in one sitting because that would not be true, though I sat longer at reading stretches than I have with many other books. And could summarize with the words, “Good job, that!”
   This book is gripping, it is sad, it is happy, it is puzzling, it is well organized and edited, comfortably detailed, but possibly unfinished; it is whatever it will become to its readers. It would be interesting someday to see how the author’s children will interpret all of this. Others too. We all have all had a father — as a baby, as a young child, as a teenager, as a young adult; for each one there is much of what Ralph has trekked through that has been equally experienced by others.
   If I had it to do over I think I would trek differently with my Dad. Not long before he passed away we made a family visit to his therapy spot at Eden. I walked with him along a sunny sidewalk for a while, chatted about small things, went in where I asked him at the bedside if I might pray before we left. He said, “yes” and then asked. Where did you learn to pray like that (a usual but audible prayer),and I answered as I thought I needed to, and he touched my hand – he had never done that before In a few days he passed on during or right after shock treatment. Like Ralph, I too am not sure I really got to know my Dad as Ishould have — or he me

From The Mennonite Historian, June 2020
Ralph Friesen, Dad, God, and Me: Remembering a Mennonite Pastor and His Wayward Son (Victoria, BC: FriesenPress, 2019), 288p. Reviewed by Mary Ann Loewen, Winnipeg

In the introduction to his memoir, Ralph Friesen says that this biography/memoir represents the challenge of “not only get[ting] to know my father better, but also . . . get[ting] to know myself better” (3). And indeed, Friesen’s story reveals a comprehensive look at his father’s life as well as an examination of how that life has impacted his own. This thorough account makes use of sources from both parents: diaries, postcards, letters, photographs, and sermon notes. The story begins with Friesen’s paternal grandparents and extends well beyond his father’s death, into his own adult life as he grapples with his father’s influence.There are many fascinating, moving, and sometimes funny stories included in this memoir, and the extensive breadth of research is truly admirable. Yet the ultimate strength of this narrative lies in Friesen’s insistence on honesty in his depiction of events and in his willingness to lay bare his own vulnerability. For example, Friesen quotes boldly from exceedingly romantic letters his father wrote to his mother, and includes jarring testimony from his mother’s diary of how difficult her life was after his father’s stroke (at the young age of 56). And Friesen does not stop at vicarious frankness. He describes his own teenage life this way: “I did not do well in mathematics and chemistry. . . . I suffered from acne . . . . I tried to divert myself from . . . self-condemning thoughts by making smart remarks in class” (243). Later, as a middle-aged man, he admits that he “had not escaped from [his] ... never ending slow motion wrestling match with my own unfulfilled dream” (264). Indeed, Friesen’s humility and his desire for acceptance and love become the driving force behind this affecting memoir.For while this narrative is a factual account of a man’s life, it is also the story of a son trying to find an emotionally absent father. Friesen writes, while “there was nothing terribly unusual, when I was young, in having a father who was often absent, or reserved in emotional expression toward his children” (117), yet, “growing up, I missed my father” (137). This longing is felt throughout the account, and is reinforced by the various dreams that are sprinkled in amongst the chronological story. Friesen’s choice of vocation as a therapist allows him to delve deeply into this relationship. After a particularly troubling time in his life, he ends an imaginary conversation with his father with these words: “I love you, Dad. No matter what you do, or did. . . . and I am accepting myself, loving myself. Goodbye, Dad. . . . I miss you. I love you” (266). An absolution for his father and for himself, perhaps?But this book represents much more than a son searching for his father. For the historians, social scientists, religious students, there is much to be gleaned. There are researched accounts of Mennonites settling into Steinbach, of various businesses that were active in the 1950s and ’60s in Steinbach, and of religious movements that affected the Mennonites in the East Reserve. Certainly, the religious aspect of Friesen’s family life is integral to this story. His father was very active in his ministerial and other church-related duties, which he took very seriously, and which often took him away from home. And while there was undoubtedly a connection between the trendy evangelicalism that took many Mennonites by storm in the 1950s and the business ethos of Steinbach Mennonite merchants, Friesen has only good things to say about his parents’ business-minded friends. Readers with various interests will find this an absorbing read. To me, it was, at its core, at once a brutally honest and compassionate ‘take’ on a father’s life from a questing son’s point of view.

Mary Ann Loewen is the editor of two recent books on parent-child relationships, Finding Father: Stories from Mennonite Daughters and Sons and Mothers: Stories from Mennonite Men.
 

 Review: Dad, God, and Me: Remembering a Mennonite Pastor and His Wayward Son
June 16, 2020 emcmessenger
by Mary Ann Smith and Terry Smith

Ralph Friesen tells of how his father, Peter D. Friesen, grew up in the KG/EMC and served as a minister and, later, the lead pastor of Steinbach EMC for years while supporting his family as a businessman. His Dad suffered a stroke in his 50s and lived uncomfortably for several years before dying in his early 60s. As Friesen said in an interview elsewhere, the book intertwines two stories: his father’s and his own.
His father served as a pastor while trying to be a peacemaker between traditionalists and reformers within the congregation; and his son tried to find his personal identity amid a tangled faith and culture with expectations that sometimes seemed to leave inadequate room for authentic searching. The book is an act of respect toward understanding his father and the faith tradition in which they were both raised; and it is an act of respect toward Ralph’s own spiritual journey.
There are lessons in this book. Ralph’s Dad sacrificed much for the church, yet was moved aside when it both elected a minister with an advanced formal education and decided to provide a salary. Friesen, though, had an education gained within the church and a salary might have reduced his stress (was the stroke related to his stress?) and workload, permitting more time with family. While Paul served as a tentmaker, he taught that the labourer is worthy of his hire (1 Tim. 5:18), which followed Jesus’ words (Lk. 10:7). (By the way, the minister said he felt “no aversion, no rancour” from Friesen.)
A pastoral couple and church do well to realize that the Lord does not make up for the lack of time and attention children receive just because their parents are dedicated in service to Christ. If children are “an inheritance from the Lord” (Ps. 127:3-5), would we treat an inheritance with neglect? Mary Ann’s parents, Peter and Susie Thiessen, whom she loved and respected, were dedicated servants of Christ involved in church and camp work even while farming (and sometimes both had other jobs as well). Reading Friesen’s book was a healing experience for Mary Ann as she remembered her home church’s tensions with traditions and interpretation of Scripture.
To “wayward” children, button-holed, labelled, and whose questions were brushed aside: many of us are aware the journey of faith in Christ is neither simple nor easy. Questions are welcome, a local church can disappoint us, and we can dislike simple answers to complex situations. (His Dad and family sacrificed for the Lord and the church and yet to Ralph the “reward” seemed to be his Dad’s irreversible brain damage and paralysis. Ralph objected to people saying this was part of God’s will or plan.) We “know in part” (1 Cor. 13:12). May dialogue continue.
This is a quote with meaning for Mary Ann: “For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited to suffering and subject to sorrows and death—he had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair…He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death” (Dorothy Sayers). She also refers to the quote, “The Church is the only army that shoots its own wounded.” She would remind us that people raised in the Church are on a journey (see Phil. 1:6).
There is a sad, surprising lack of Jesus in some of this book—surprising because Jesus chastised some religious leaders (Mt. 23), rejected wrong traditions (Mk. 7:11-13), cautioned against simple answers to suffering (Lk. 13:1-5; Jn. 9:1-2), and warned against mistreating children (Mt. 18:5-6). Jesus, the most challenging figure in history (given such claims as John 14:6), remains of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:1-6); and the Bible, even when critically sifted in its history and confession, points to his uniqueness. Jesus remains worthy of following even when simple answers don’t fit and the church disappoints.
Dad, God, And Me: Remembering a Mennonite Pastor and His Wayward Son. By Ralph Friesen, Victoria, BC: Friesen Press, 2019. ISBN 9781525560880 (paperback). 275 pp. $22.50.
Mary Ann Smith is a health care worker raised in the EMMC by parents with an Old Colony background; and Terry Smith is an EMC minister of United Church background who joined Steinbach EMC in 1979.


From The Messenger July 2020
by The Messenger
Dad, God, And Me: Remembering a Mennonite pastor and His Wayward Son, Ralph Friesen, Victoria,BC (Friesen Press). 275 pp. $22.50. (paperback) ISBN 9781525560880. Reviewed by Thiessen siblings: Paul, Danny, Afrieda, and Loreena, all with EMC connections and all following Christ in his Church.

The very innocent looking photograph  of Ralph and his father on the cover of this book introduces the beginning of a complex father-son relationship expressed in the subtitle: Remembering a Mennonite Pastor and His Wayward Son.
This is a story that gives glimpses into the history of Steinbach, as well as the theology and past religious practices of the EMC. More personally, this is an account of a pastor and his son. The author tells of his growing up years with a father who is very busy—too busy to take time with his son. The pastor-father is businessman, a preacher, and an influential leader, and yet the son rejects his message.
Even if you didn’t grow up in Steinbach, as we did, this book is helpful for understanding the early thinking in our churches.
When Ralph is a teenager, his father suffers from a stroke and everything changes for the family. The once very busy father is now an invalid and needs a lot of help. Ralph’s reflections on caring for his father show a different kind of father-son relationship. Now his father is always present. But it is not the same father.
At the same time as Peter D. Friesen was much appreciated by the church, Ralph feels distant from his father: “I would say that those of us who were never baptized wished for his blessing, but were not able to receive it in this way because of everything else we would be obliged to accept” (183).
Of his teenage experience at Red Rock Bible Camp, Ralph says, “I turned my heart into stony ground,” rejecting the pressure to follow Christ. Although as a child he had once identified with Christianity, as an adult he could no longer say, “I have decided to follow Jesus,” but was unsure of what or whom to follow.
Having grown up in Steinbach and understanding many of the issues that Ralph writes about, my brother Danny, my sisters Alfrieda and Loreena, and I decided to read this book and discuss it. We found ourselves a part of this story as we read details about our father, Isaac J. Thiessen, the shoemaker.
As we sat together reflecting on Ralph’s story, Loreena said, “I’m Ralph!” As a teenager, there was a time when she thought that if everything was considered sinful anyway, then you can do whatever you feel like doing. Reflecting on the teaching that everything was either good or evil, Danny said that it had taken him years to get a more balanced view. He felt that strongly opinionated parents can sometimes cause children to block out much of what they hear. Alfrieda emphasized her appreciation for Ralph’s transparency.
Even if you didn’t grow up in Steinbach, as we did, this book is helpful for understanding the early thinking in our churches. If you are looking for a story with a happy ending where the wayward son repents of his sin, accepts his father’s faith, and becomes a follower of Jesus, you will be disappointed. But if you are willing to listen to the thoughts and experiences of a person who tells his life’s story with honest vulnerability, by reading this book you will gain some insights that may help you to understand similar people around you. This book may even help you to understand yourself.




 Dad, God, and Me: Religion without Limits
Blog: The Meanderer, John E. Neufeld
August 7, 2020
   Ralph Friesen has written a fine book called Dad, God, and Me. Let me say at the outset that in reviewing this book I am not neutral. The author Ralph Friesen has been a friend of mine for many years. We grew up in the same town, Steinbach, and curled together from time to time.  In fact I was a little bit younger than he was, and I and my friends considered him and his friend Patrick Friesen intellectual leaders of our generation. But I realized after reading this book that our experiences growing up in this town were very different.
   Ralph’s upbringing as the son of a Kleine Gemeinde conservative Mennonite Church, was very different from my experience, the son of much more moderate Christians. My parents were much more liberal in the religion they doled out. I would say that Ralph’s life was soaked with evangelical religion. To me Ralph paints a picture of parents with a shockingly totalitarian view of Steinbach in which children were nearly suffocated with religion. In other words, it was religion that invaded all of life. Frankly, I found even the much more liberal theology of my parent’s  church too stifling for my taste. More conservative members of our community considered it barely religion at all. I can’t imagine how I would I would have survived his upbringing.
   The religion of the Kleine Gemeinde (little congregation) was, to echo of phrase of Albert Camus, religion without limits, making it as unpalatable as politics without limits. I thank Ralph for giving me a peek into his world. It was a fascinating look. Now I know how lucky I was not to be raised in that environment.
Not that Ralph’s family was not loving. They were certainly loving. The parents, the father in particular, just wanted to determine everything about his son’s faith. Nothing else would do. As Bob Dylan said, the parents were “Making you feel that you gotta be just like them.” Every book, every piece of music, every sporting event, every relationship was viewed through an evangelical lens. Nothing was off limits. That is what religion without limits is all about.
   Before his father got saved or born again, thanks in part to an itinerant evangelical minister, Ralph’s father enjoyed life outside the church. In particular he loved movies. The theatre in Steinbach was driven out of town as some Mennonites, like the Kleine Gemeinde became ever more evangelical. I remember as a youth how sad I was at that. I loved going to movies and my parents did not discourage me from doing that. I remember one day I had gone to see the movie Heidi about a young Swiss girl. I loved the film. It was a joyful experience. But when I walked home all alone on a Friday night I was approached by 2 old crones who stopped me and asked me what I was doing out this late on a Friday night. I exuberantly told them about his wonderful movie I had just seen. The women were shocked. This was awful. Did I not realize I was bound for hell if I did things like that? I was totally mystified. What could be wrong with seeing a film about Heidi. I could not understand. In time I did of course but to a young lad this was a scary experience. These were the evangelicals of our town.
   As Ralph explains in the book, “The Mennonites mistrusted the arts, and all individual creativity, as belonging to the sinful world, distracting the Christian from the serious worship of God. Dad fell into line with that view after his conversion. If he was to express himself creatively, he would contain that expression within religious boundaries, as in composing sermons, or leading choirs, or signing hymns.”
   Does that not sound totalitarian? Religion intended to dominate all of life. Some Mennonites, thank goodness, saw things differently. But to the Kleine Gemeinde religion was that absolute. It was everything.
Ralph describes that milieu with precision, but with compassion. He clearly loves his family, but did not allow them to choke him. Ralph, unlike most Mennonite youth in such circumstances managed to bolt for freedom.
   I would suggest that no matter whether you are a Mennonite or not, Christian or not, you can enjoy this book. It is well worth the trip.
http://themeanderer.ca/dad-god-and-me-religion-without-limits

August 30, 2020
Dad, God, & Me: Remembering a Mennonite Pastor and His Wayward Son
by Ralph Friesen
Victoria: FriesenPress, 2019
$20.49 / 9781525560880
Reviewed by Randy Janzen

   After reading Ralph Friesen’s Dad, God and Me, I was struck by the common human urge to understand the past and reconcile ourselves with long-ago events. It is no wonder that history is such an important discipline; and Friesen, an accomplished historian, invites us via this book into his very personal relationship with his father, his distinctive Mennonite heritage, and his intimate struggle with understanding God. That is not to say the story is insular; on the contrary, Friesen retells a poignant story that has universal appeal.
   Friesen offers a historical account of his Mennonite pastor father, Reverend Peter D. Friesen, who played an important role in the history of the town of Steinbach, Manitoba, where he navigated his conservative congregation through decades of turmoil, assumed the role of visionary and mediator, and offered such endless behind-the-scene support that sometimes he didn’t seem to have much time left for his own family. The touching retelling of his father’s life goes beyond the man, however, and delves into the backdrop of Mennonite history, culture, and life in general, and specifically into the Kleine Gemeinde (“little church” — a conservative Mennonite sect whose members were among the first European settlers in Manitoba). This background milieu provides the context for Friesen’s search for a connection with his father, who was prematurely taken away from him after suffering a debilitating stroke.
Dad, God and Me is about unfinished business, relationships interrupted by illness and death — relationships complicated by cultural norms that paradoxically bring loved ones together while also setting them apart. By the end of the book we are left not so much with a resolution as a coming to terms with the tensions, paradoxes, and mysteries of complex family relationships that span generations and traverse changing cultural and generational norms of this ordinary Mennonite family on the Canadian prairies. This well-written story can make an ordinary life seem extraordinary, while at the same time compel us to empathize with seemingly preposterous cultural practices of a conservative Mennonite sect (especially when viewed through a modern lens). It is a story of reconciling incongruities — the sometimes harsh and dogmatic rules of morality juxtaposed against unwavering community solidarity and mutual support; the family relationships characterized by formality and distance juxtaposed with unshakable commitment and quiet nurturing.
   For those interested in Mennonite history, Dad, God and Me provides a personal account of living through a significant cultural transition of Russian Mennonite life in Canada, where religious practices, language, and everyday cultural norms became increasingly out of touch with those of the dominant Canadian society. But the book will appeal to an audience larger than just those interested in Mennonite History. Friesen’s book is not exclusively inward-looking — the story is a universal one written for a general audience where the reader understands the intergenerational struggles between those hanging on to the old country and those who are pushing the boundaries to embrace modern Canadian life, layered with the tensions between traditional religiosity and modern secularism. This process could be described as a universal passage by any immigrant community, whose journey from old ways to news ways is marked by challenging family dynamics, unfulfilled expectations, letting go, and an ultimate and unique assimilation passage by the younger generation who ultimately adopt the modern ways of the Canadian dominant society.
One theme that Friesen explores throughout the book is the relationship between religion and family, and how religion impacted what Friesen tried to decipher as a normal father-son relationship. God, it seems, sometimes gets in the way, with interesting and unpredictable consequences. As Friesen recounts the coming of age stories of himself and his siblings, he comes to realize that to reject religion is also to reject his father. The broader cultural milieu inextricably links the love and connection of his pastor father with the embracing of organized religion. The journey to accept one left little room to disavow the other.
The relationships between Dad, God and the author are complicated. For example, Friesen struggles with the two sides of his father: he nurtures the physical and spiritual needs of his large congregation, but he is almost inattentive to his son and farms out the role of saving his soul (which ostensibly was the most important job of a father) to others – to visiting evangelists, camp counsellors, and aggressive ministerial persons who corner the young Friesen in sometimes comical and even frightening interactions. The disconnect is felt in a number of ways. Ralph Friesen and his father are able to salvage something, even if he never embraces the salvation that his father so wants. However, there is an undertone of hurt – why did my father spend so much time working on the spiritual well being of the entire community, but not my own?
In this biography of Peter Friesen, his son manages to tuck in a number of stories about himself in ways that enrich the book with the coming of age turbulence of a boy at odds with his father and with God. It is hard to untangle all three. In one memory, Friesen shares a time when his father gave him the strap. He muses on the incongruity of the use of corporal punishment as an invitation to experience God’s love and forgiveness. After the strap there is the ensuing prayer, a call not only for forgiveness but also for being called back into the fold for reconciliation, and a childhood misdemeanour is a crisis with the ability to bring Dad, God, and Ralph back together.
   What happens when all these narratives are interrupted by a profound health crisis? When Friesen’s overworked father has a life-altering stroke, everything changes. Rev. Friesen becomes paralyzed on one side and confined to a wheelchair, with his speech and cognitive functioning compromised. Ralph Friesen’s ongoing quest for father-son bonding is now forced down an unforeseen and unfamiliar path. He is now placed in the strange and new role of caregiver for his ailing father, a role for which his father’s distant and formal demeanour did not prepare him. His longing for physical affection and basic touch from his father only gets fulfilled through their awkward reversal of roles as he helps his father with personal care in a way that Friesen describes as uncomfortable and unsatisfying.
   The book’s narrative continues long after Friesen’s father has passed away. He recounts how his adult life, marriage, and his own parenting seem to be made intricately complex by his unresolved relationship with his father. In fact, the book itself may be Friesen’s best way to achieve the longing connection with his father, even if he is already gone. As Friesen writes, “I have refused to release him until I receive a blessing.” That blessing might now come from those who read this book, who will no doubt connect with the author by his sharing a truly human story of familial love.
   Compelling, searching, and revealing, Dad, God, & Me: Remembering a Mennonite Pastor and His Wayward Son can offer us all a story of hope and connection to help us navigate our own unfinished and unreconciled relationships with our parents, our communities, and our history.

Born in 1964, Randy Janzen was raised in Steinbach, Manitoba. He completed a BA in Sociology (1989), a BN (1990), and subsequently worked as an outpost nurse for a number of years in isolated communities in Canada’s north. He then earned an MSc in epidemiology and moved into teaching at the post-secondary level at Selkirk College. In 2007 he completed a year of graduate course work in Peace Studies, and then moved into the Taos Institute where he completed his PhD dissertation. In 2010, he was appointed Chair of the Mir Centre for Peace at Selkirk College, where he taught undergraduate courses in Peace Studies, managed the peace centre, and developed community education and service projects. He has also worked in Guatemala (1993 and 2007-8) and in Kosovo (2011). Randy and his wife Mary Ann live in Nelson.
The Ormsby Review. More Books. More Reviews. More Often.
Publisher and Editor: Richard Mackie
The Ormsby Review is a journal service for in-depth coverage of B.C. books and authors. The Advisory Board consists of Jean Barman, Robin Fisher, Cole Harris, Wade Davis, Hugh Johnston, Patricia Roy, David Stouck, and Graeme Wynn. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Provincial Government Patron since September 2018: Creative BC.


I am the same age of Ralph, growing up in a small Mennonite community in Saskatchewan, attending a Conference Mennonite church. Anyone familiar with Mennonite communities will immediate recognize some of the differences between my life experiences and Raplh's. The Mennonites in our community either came from Russia in the 1920s or from the United States after coming from Poland in the 1870s. The Mennonites who came to Manitoba in the 1870's were different.
I appreciate the openness and the transparency as Ralph tells the story of his father, and EMC pastor, and his own experience as a son who decided to reject the faith of his parents. I found it particularly interesting to read of the transition of Kleine Gemeinde in the southern Manitoba during Ralph's experience growing up. In 1964 I attended the EMC church in Creigton, and particularly appreciated the attendees, all transplants from southern Manitoba who were there on a "mission". At the time I had no appreciation of the history of the EMC.
Ralph told the story of his struggle with the faith of the family with incredible openness. I did not have that struggle as I embraced the faith of my parents, although it has become different in many ways from that of my parents. As I read Ralph's account I did think a lot about my children and their experience's in our home, wondering how they would write their story of their experience our home where they were being encouraged to embrace the faith of their parents.
I thought the book was so well written. Ralph was able to keep to the theme of his own search for meaning in life, both outside of faith and later on within the the faith community as a told the story of his life growing up in a pastor's and his life after leaving home. In his book Ralph's tries to come to an understanding of his father and his relationship with him with an honesty and balance that is difficult to find.
-- Ken Wiens, 2021

Should I do the same remembering of the special people in my life as you have, I would begin with you, Ralph Friesen. Throughout the years I've so often recalled you to others as having been my first editor, that you sacrificed your summer holidays to assist a very terrified me to get the book Night Travelers in shape for publication. You were a patient and encouraging editor. I recall only digging my heels in once around a word change, and in the end gave way. Good thing, once the book was done, every time I came upon the word during a reread or public reading, I recalled your generosity.🧐
-- Sandra Birdsell, Facebook comment, January 1, 2023

"It's a book that is the voice of many who wrestled with the 'faith of our fathers.' This done with such honesty, and with humour when least expected."
-- Elsie Neufeld, February 21, 2023

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed reading your book. It is so well written - easy to keep turning pages! Congratulations on remaining true to yourself - oh wayward one - even as a child! How courageous. Yet you didn't make yourself the hero, but rather a learner, and a generous one at that.
While reading your book I felt nostalgia for the time, the hymns, and found the photographs beautiful.
I like how you interspersed words from Low German into the text. As an ESL teacher, I'm a lover of words and language and meaning!
Chapter 8 was profoundly sad to me, how people get it in their hearts and souls that movies, creativity, dates, sports, even stories are associated with evil.
My favourite line in the book was, “Had he voiced such doubt, he would have caught my full attention” (p. 223).
I must stop - this is getting too long! But thank you for an excellent read, a validating read, a heartfelt read.
-- Alison Hanks, May 16, 2023
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