Confronting Adversity and Finding Grace - by John Francis Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

This memoir describes the insights and personal growth of an American lawyer after he sustained a serious injury in a remote village of South Africa.

Book Synopsis

In early 2006, John F. Smith III, an American lawyer, civic leader, and frequent international traveler, broke his pelvis and sustained urological injuries in a horseback riding accident in a remote part of KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. Although he suffered painful back spasms and internal bleeding, he was unable to get from the primitive location of his accident to a health care facility for over twenty-four hours. This memoir describes the journey that Smith and his wife made from the Zulu village where he was injured to a small but capable regional hospital in the town of Empangeni, his experiences there, and his subsequent medical repatriation to the United States. More important, it is an account of the remarkable people who helped them along the way and the insights that arose out of this shattering-but ultimately transformative-experience.

Review Quotes

"John Francis Smith III has given us a lively, vivid, and spiritually reflective account of experiencing and recovering from an adventurous traveler's worst nightmare: suffering a sudden, life-threatening injury in a remote part of a country half a world away from home. Smith takes us through the excruciating agony and terror of those first few hours as he is transported to Empangeni Garden Clinic, a regional hospital in South Africa's KwaZulu Natal province. The experience changes his life.... I appreciated Smith's lively narrative, astute social commentary, sober meditations, and wisdom-all of which made me grateful for this book. I recommend it highly." -John A. Fry, President of Drexel University and Honorary Consul in Philadelphia for the Republic of South Africa

"In Confronting Adversity and Finding Grace, Smith offers us a compelling adventure that does the dual work of a good travel memoir. First, taking us far away from the familiar, in this case, the Main Line of Philadelphia, into the remote reaches of South Africa. Then more deeply into the author's own unexplored heart. This exposition of vulnerability, fear, fragility and the inner resources conjured to meet them offers us a valuable gift. All told, it is an excellent addition to a spiritual bookshelf for all the reflective explorers among us." -Rev. Dr. David Messner, Interim Minister, Main Line Unitarian Church

"John Smith III's governing philosophy is wonder, that in this world-and especially during this time-we owe it to ourselves to stop and look deeply. He finds delight, excitement, and peril. Confronting Adversity and Finding Grace is a work of depth, subtlety, and resonance which will change how we see ourselves in unfamiliar places, especially in a small hospital in South Africa-the developing world. This work is a meditation on a life's journey and easily follows The Day I Shot a Squirrel: Stories of a Twentieth Century American Boyhood, his youthful memoir. Reading both books, we learn that the wonder never ceases." -Oliver St. Clair Franklin, CBE, Honorary British Consul, Advisor to NatWest Group and Liminal Capital LLC, Co-Founder of City Fellows, former President of International House Philadelphia

"John's excellent memoir shares with us a moving experience he had while visiting South Africa. His writing is deeply reflective and poignant and captures the adventure and drama of his experiences in South Africa. It is a beautifully written work that encourages all of us to pause and think of what are the most important things to us, within our shared humanity." -Osagie Imasogie, Senior Managing Partner, PIPV Capital; Board Chair, Zelira Therapeutics; Trustee, University of Pennsylvania; Chair, Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

"Our forebears in liberal religion sought a middle path between salvation by 'faith' or 'works, ' finding it instead in 'character'-a human quality combining courage, risk, humility, curiosity and concern for others. I once traveled with John and Susan Smith to visit human rights groups in India. This tale of adversity met in South Africa, told with both depth of insight and graceful economy, simply shows how they live their religion-giving themselves to the best, knowing that our ultimate dependency is upon one another and sources beyond our making or deserving. Read this poignant story and share it widely!" -Rev. Dr. John A. Buehrens, Past President, Unitarian Universalist Association