The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Man pens book on ‘Love & Affliction’
The first title Timothy Beidleman gives when asked to describe himself is “community member.”
The 38-year-old Elyria native soon adds the rest of his titles — he is a service-disabled veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Navy, he serves on various boards across the county and now he can add published author to that list.
Beidleman’s recently released book, “Love & Affliction,” started off as a Sunday school lesson he gave at the West Side Catholic Center in Cleveland for his mother’s church.
He said there were issues with giving the lesson because of his audience.
“It was a little difficult to give a lesson on my philosophy on life when I was getting cursed out, a little bit, because you get all types,” he said. “The book was kind of based on that, that you kind of trust the process.”
Beidleman said he chose to put the lesson in the format of a book because he saw there was more of the story that could be told beyond the bounds of Christianity and into the realm of humanity in general.
His writing up to the point of penning this book had been relegated to academic pieces. Beidleman holds a PhD in management.
“This is the first time I, kind of, took some of my expertise in organizations and how people view the world,” he said. “Management is a part of the social sciences. Few people view it that way; they see organizations as businesses and ways to raise money or something like that.”
Beidleman said the book is set up around profiles of figures throughout history and in modern times such as Job, Nehemiah, Socrates, Jesus Christ, Muhammad and his own mother, Beverly Beidleman.
“I also mention Sylvia and Tiara,” he said. “They’re this mother and daughter who live in the Cleveland area that went
Beidleman said the book is about both the internal and external struggles people go through. There is a section called The Search which deals with the process of working through some of these high concepts.
through different kinds of hardships that drew parallels to what people went through in historical times in order to become these figures that learn how to love differently.
“By ‘differently,’ I mean where it’s not conditional,” he continued. “Where a parent cares about their child, but if they don’t care about other people’s children, they really don’t know how to really love their own children.”
According to Beidleman, the book presents the reader with questions.
“What is the question for your life?,” he said.
“What’s your purpose? Why are you here? And these questions don’t have an easy written answer. They don’t have proofs to back up how you can derive your hypotheses or conclusion, you have to literally step through that pattern with a feeling of frustration and somehow you’ve come up being better and you don’t really know how you got better.”
Beidleman said the book is about both the internal and external struggles people go through. There is a section called The Search which deals with the process of working through some of these high concepts.
“In one of the chapters I say, ‘The greatest leaders are the ones most despised’,” he said. “So the ones who went through that soul-searching journey and they came out with something good. They didn’t necessarily hide from themselves.”
Readers of Beidleman’s book should come away upset, he said.
“If you don’t go away from this book upset or frustrated, then you didn’t learn anything,” he said.
“Love & Affliction” is available on Amazon.com.