Book Review: A Beautiful Mess

     A Beautiful Mess with Tom Roland is a biography/autobiography the country band, Diamond Rio.  Rowland did a great job of communicating the full complete story.  I have to admit that the book was a bit hard for me to get through.  It contains alot of music lingo and many names which made it very difficult to get  engaged.  The setup of the book was hard to follow as well.  It would have been easier to follow if the chapters on each of the band members came first so you knew who was who before you got into how they came together, their rough times and where they are now.
     A Beautiful Mess was an appropriate title for this book.  Many aspects of this book were beautiful and many more just a mess.  I was inspired by some of the parents of the band members.  Two points in this book touched my heart (one in a good way and one a bad way) and brought tears to my eyes.. 

     The first was about a band members father.  Brian's dad was an alcolohic and abusive.  After many rough times, Brian asked his mother why she continued to stay with his dad.  She answered, "He was my husband.  It was a different generation, and 'til death do us part meant 'til death do us part.  I recognized that alcoholism is a disease, but so is cancer, and I would not have left him if he had that."  What a woman of honor and integrity!  This was a "Beautiful" part of this book.  She made a commitment and wasn't going to use a selfish excuse to get out of her marriage....she stood by her man even if she had to stand at a distance.  Amazing!!!

     The second was about the marriage of band member Dana.  I had just finished reading about the band recovering from some pitfalls and being redeemed when the very next chapter started off with, "Dana came to the realization that he and his wife had been growing apart for years."  It continues with, "But he suddenly felt a spark for a longtime friend....he told his wife that he felt it was time to end their marriage."  Then he goes on to say, " I ask the Lord every day for forgiveness for it....I feel better and I'm happier...if I did anything wrong, as far as in God's eye, then that's why we have forgiveness."  Our generation knows nothing of commitment or God for that matter.  All this generation knows is feeling and selfishness.  God's forgiveness does not give us a license to sin or do whatever we want because it feels good or right. It doesn't work that way.  Notice how Dana's focus was on himself and Brian's mother's focus on her husband and not her feelings.

     I brought up these two points because Rowland pulls this whole story together in the final chapter with these words, "Commitment is, in fact, a recurring theme that's been present often in their music.  And commitment is something they've lived out professionally in a way that few bands have managed."  Family and marriage are more important than a commitment to the band.  While these men were committed to the band, three of them were forgetting their commitment on the altar.  Three of the six band members are divorced and they are yet another poor example and role model in the public eye for the children growing up in this generation.  I really respect Marty, Gene and Jimmy.  Thank you for being "men" and commiting to the band and also continuing to carry out your committment to your family. 

     I believe family is the backbone of society and our communities.  It really does take a family, so that is why those two points in the book stood out to me the most.  I was truly touched by the whole story until the end, "Where are they now?" stories and it just ruined the beauty of the redemptive work in Chapter 12, except for seeing Marty Roe's life change.