And There Was Light book review

And There Was Light – Book Review

First I want to open with the description Gordon B. Hinkley gave of this book,
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“The world of violins and flutes, f horns and cello, of fugues, scherzos and gavottes, obeyed laws which, were so beautiful and so clear that all music seemed to speak of God. My body was not listening, it was praying. My spirit no longer had bounds, and if tears came to my eyes, I did not feel them running down because they were outside me. I wept with gratitude every time the orchestra began to sing. A world of sounds for a blind man, what sudden grace!”

D&C 25

“For a blind person music is nourishment, as beauty is for those who see. He needs to receive it, to have it administered at intervals like food. Otherwise a void is created inside him and causes him pain.”

We need to seek beauty and cleanliness.

“My God, give me the strength to keep my promises. Since I made them in a good cause, they are yours to keep as well as mine. Now that twenty young men – tomorrow there may be a hundred – are waiting for my orders, tell me what orders to give them. By myself I know how to do almost nothing, but if you will it I am capable of almost everything. Most of all give me prudence. Your enthusiasm I no longer need, for I am filled with it.”

Prayer to God as the Resistance started.

“An unaccustomed radiance filled my head, and my heart stopped beating out of rhythm. All at once I began to understand everything I had been seeking and not finding for the past weeks. As to my own conscience, it no longer troubled me. I had dedicated it to a cause which must have the power of truth since it was teaching me to speak all those words I had never uttered before.”

Scripture – good filled with light and bad cut off dark

If you want to be ordinary and nothing to shout about then sit on the fence. My choir teacher told us to not be timid as we would sing. If you are going to make a mistake, make it a good one, but sing with your heart and be confident. Great men and women pick a side of the fence and they are bold and courageous about their beliefs.


When two of the most courageous leaders of the French Resistance were asked what fault they found hardest to bear in other people. They both immediately answered, “Dullness.” Dullness and mediocrity is not what leaders are made of. One of them went on to say, “If some character says yes to me to be obliging and just to be let alone, I want to hit him.” Jacques Lusseyran, explained further, “Society was divided into two parts, the Hard and the Soft. It was not cowards one found among the soft ones, and certainly not traitors, for traitors were almost always the hard ones who had gone wrong, but the formless race of the procrastinators, and all the ones who approved of what we were doing and were careful not to be involved in it.”
Revelation 3:15-16 (KJV) says, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. We need to chose now where we stand and we then need to stand for what we believe in courageously and boldly.
“Fear kills and joy maintains life.” Jacques hit a turning point in the Nazis prison camp. He began helping others and he said that was how he lived and survived.

Jacques said, “We had to live in the present; each moment had to absorbed for all that was in it, to satisfy the hunger for life. Take away from suffering its double drumbeat of resonance, memory and fear. Suffering may persist, but already it is relieved by half. When a ray of sunshine comes, open up; absorb it to the depths of your being. Never think that an hour earlier you were cold and that an hour later you will be cold again. Throw yourself into each moment as if it were the only one that really existed. Just enjoy.” Oh, that we could do this daily. That we could take a good thing and not diminish its goodness by remembering something bad.



This was not just a book about a man who played a key role in resisting the Nazis’ terrors and his imprisonment, but it is also a book about the life of a blind hero and a book about friendship. Jacques said, “Friendship was salvation, in this fragile world the only thing left that was not fragile. I promise you one can be drunk on friendship as well as on love.” I’m amazed at all the friends that Jacques found along his path in life. It is my belief that he was so gregarious because he lived with fervor and that people are attracted to this. He often was in the middle of things, organizing, helping, and living. He was constantly thinking, learning and improving. This is attractive to others, especially to those of like minds.

I believe as it is shown in this book that the more we use our resources, our minds and talents, we do not wear them out, but we charge them and more thoughts and talents surface.

Jacques explains how to survive and have joy in a Nazis prison camp, I believe hat the truths he found there can help us live everyday. He said to survive in the camp one must not live for oneself alone. The self-centered never survived. And this I love and will close with, “Be engaged, no matter how, but be engaged.” Whatever you don in life do it well. Whatever you believe in live it well. Don’t live just for