Dr. John Edwin DeVore’s autobiography, “Sitting in the Flames: Uncovering Fear to Help Others,” is a personal record of a man’s ongoing journey as he confronts past emotional war scars and travels towards inner-peace.
DeVore wrote another book titled “Golfer’s Palette: a golfers’ guide to the perfect golf game” that incorporates the same method of self-reflection that he began to explore in “Sitting in the Flames.”
DeVore received his Ph.D. and MBA at the University of Denver, but his story doesn’t start there. To give a brief overview: DeVore studied at United States Military Academy, West Point, before serving two years of combat in the Vietnam War. Having first been stationed at Fort Carson, DeVore found himself back in Colorado during an attempt to transition from a life of combat to a life of business.
After graduating DU, DeVore took a class titled “Spiritual Models of Social Action” taught by Judith Simmer Brown at Naropa University in Boulder. From here, DeVore began the process of healing.
Q: Your autobiography, “Sitting in the Flames: Uncovering Fearlessness to Help Others,” offers hope and inspiration for persons other than yourself. What inspired you to write?
A: At the time I was going to school at Naropa University, and the program that I took there was the religious studies program, and the specific course that I was taking was called “Spiritual Models of Social Action,” and the instructor for that course was a woman by the name of Dr. Judith Simmer Brown. Judith, as a matter of fact, wrote the foreword for “Sitting in the Flames” in the front of that book, so I always give her credit for saving my life.
Judith in class one day put a book on the corner of her desk, and she looked at me and said, “John you need to read that book.” The name of that book was “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning” written by Chris Hedges…what he talks about in that book is that there’s a big difference between the myth that we create in our culture around the whole concept of war (i.e. it becomes a rallying point).
There’s a big contrast between that myth, or that rallying point of war, and the actual experience of war for a soldier that goes off and fights, and gets shot at and has to shoot other people. Underneath that, all the heroics and ego, is a lot of fear.
As a result of that book, I started then, with Judith’s help, going back and visiting my time in combat for two years. Judith had us write a lot of reflection papers…so out of those papers then, over a period of time, I said, “Gosh, you know, maybe these papers could end up in a book,” which they ended up doing.
Q: Within the header of your website is the phrase, “We can unleash the artist within!” Would you say this is a personal philosophy that dictates your writing style? When and how did you unleash your inner artist?
A: It’s that artist that we free up, if we sit with our traumas and deal with our trauma, not run away from it…If you really have that artist unleashed you can create the type of life that you want. We all have an artist within us. Each of us needs to find that artist, but the way we do that, in my opinion is… going to the breath, quiet[ing] the mind, mak[ing] a connection. And then, when you connect, that artist becomes unleashed.
Q: Do you have any new aftethoughts, post-publication? Have you received any reader feedback that was of particular value or interest?
A: The answer to that is yes. When I first wrote that first book, “Sitting in the Flames,” the change has been a real evolution from just an experience of war to an awakening about what I call this journey of life..I think the thing that has been the most humbling for me about having written “Sitting in the Flames” is to have a daughter or a son of a war veteran or a family member come up to me and say, “you know, for the first time in my life I’ve been able to reconnect with dad or mom about their war experience.”
John DeVore currently resides in Arizona with his wife and three kids. He still writes today and is in the process of writing a third book that explores the connection between piano, life and golf. His books can be found and bought at www.johnedwindevore.com, Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
