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Walk This Way
I Am This One Walking Beside Me
by Daniel Gebhardt
by Daniel Gebhardt
Daniel Gebhardt’s amazing little book I Am This
One Walking Beside Me isn’t really little at all
but is instead huge in the way all books should
be huge, and that is to say that it is full of
heart.
Mr. Gebhardt is an HIV positive gay man who
has created a book full of meditations and
prayers on how to live life without the negative
restrictions imposed on one’s self that can come
with that disease. However, what he has
unwittingly done is created a text just as
applicable to anyone, with or without disease,
that liberates both the mind and soul and states
in a little under a hundred and thirty pages that
we are all human but despite our humanness
are never truly helpless.
Gebhardt, a handsome and healthy looking
man, is a data manager for the AIDS Clinical
Trials Unit at Case Western Reserve University
in Cleveland, Ohio and who has been living with
his disease for the last twenty years. His
perspective, both as a Christian and as a gay
man, can be at times repetitive but never heavy
handed. His meditations are insightful into his
life and because they are common ailments of
the spirit, any reader is apt to make
comparisons to their own lives and nod in
agreement at the tricks and games the mind can
play that cause self-doubt. The topics cover
everything from monetary woes, medical test
results, self-destructive behavior, healthy diet,
sleeplessness, moving forward with your life
despite bad news, and so on.
What one takes away from the book is what
Gebhardt has done himself, and that is to better
connect to his inner self and to connect that self
to God, creating a lifeline to a support system of
a higher power while retaining responsibility for
his actions and choices, allowing himself to help
himself. The title of the book is translated from
a line in an amazing poem by Juan Ramon
Imenez, titled Yo No Soy Yo which begins I am
not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I
do not see. With subtle grace and through
example, Gebhardt shows both what mortals we
men be but what ascension we can achieve
right here on earth. P&A
One Walking Beside Me isn’t really little at all
but is instead huge in the way all books should
be huge, and that is to say that it is full of
heart.
Mr. Gebhardt is an HIV positive gay man who
has created a book full of meditations and
prayers on how to live life without the negative
restrictions imposed on one’s self that can come
with that disease. However, what he has
unwittingly done is created a text just as
applicable to anyone, with or without disease,
that liberates both the mind and soul and states
in a little under a hundred and thirty pages that
we are all human but despite our humanness
are never truly helpless.
Gebhardt, a handsome and healthy looking
man, is a data manager for the AIDS Clinical
Trials Unit at Case Western Reserve University
in Cleveland, Ohio and who has been living with
his disease for the last twenty years. His
perspective, both as a Christian and as a gay
man, can be at times repetitive but never heavy
handed. His meditations are insightful into his
life and because they are common ailments of
the spirit, any reader is apt to make
comparisons to their own lives and nod in
agreement at the tricks and games the mind can
play that cause self-doubt. The topics cover
everything from monetary woes, medical test
results, self-destructive behavior, healthy diet,
sleeplessness, moving forward with your life
despite bad news, and so on.
What one takes away from the book is what
Gebhardt has done himself, and that is to better
connect to his inner self and to connect that self
to God, creating a lifeline to a support system of
a higher power while retaining responsibility for
his actions and choices, allowing himself to help
himself. The title of the book is translated from
a line in an amazing poem by Juan Ramon
Imenez, titled Yo No Soy Yo which begins I am
not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I
do not see. With subtle grace and through
example, Gebhardt shows both what mortals we
men be but what ascension we can achieve
right here on earth. P&A
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