If, at the ripe old age of 19, you had told me that I'd be reading a "new age" book, I'd have kicked you in the groin on the spot.  Having grown up on uber-rural Whidbey Island, new age folks and hippies abounded, and I never really got along with any of them.  It seemed a little too "out there" for my (at the time) very empirical mind.  Science rules all, donchaknow.

    So here I am, ten years later, writing a review of a VERY new age book of my own volition.  Life's funny sometimes.

    But why is that?  Well, If Morning Never Comes has a distinct advantage over most of the rest of the genre (hell, it could be the rest of the genre for all I know) by actually telling a great story in addition to evangelizing self-healing and stuff.  The book is more or less an autobiography of VandenBush's trials and travails in the Vietnam war.  Enlisting in the Army at the age of 18, he was sent into the thick of things and found himself a hardened and emotionless squad leader by the time he was 19.  He'd seen so much death that it didn't matter to him anymore.  And with fewer than 90 days left before his tour was to be over, he was caught by shrapnel from a friendly-fire bomb and killed.

   Waitaminnit.  If he was killed, who wrote the book?  It was written by Bill, of course, after he had come back from the Other Side.  This was the part of the book that was make or break for me.  Usually, when folks start talking about Near Death Experiences, my eyes glaze over and I tune out.  Admittedly, there were times in If Morning Never Comes that I did tune out or crinkle my upper lip and say, "Whaaaaat..."  But VandenBush shows his skill as a writer by keeping the reader engaged with enough anecdotes of his tough, tough recovery period that the story never slows down.  His writing style is totally down to earth and the book reads like a conversation you're having with your buddy.  It's light-hearted at times, painful at others and overwhelmingly good.

    The message in If Morning Never Comes is simple:  we all have our own Spirit that guides us along the path that we need to take.  It is our decision to either listen to the Spirit or not that form our lives, and, according to VandenBush, if we listen more than question, our lives will be far more rewarding.  He doesn't preach a particular religion or faith, but rather, I dunno, kind of going with your gut instinct.  You know that vibe you get when you know you're going to do something that feels really right (or really wrong, depending)?  That's more or less the Spirit that VandenBush talks about.  Though I cringed a little bit every time I read "Spirit" (always capitalized), it's really the most correct word that anyone could use.

    I don't know if I can attribute my enjoyment of this work to my more mature spirituality, which is as vague and formless as VandenBush's Spirit, but there were a bunch of times when I fairly pointed at the book and said, "Yeah, it's just like that!"  There were also times when my cynicism came out and I'd spit, "What a crock!"  The former far outpaced the latter, however, and as I finished the last page I had myself a head full of questions about what I'd done, what I'm doing and what I was *gonna* do.  Spirit or no Spirit, I think I'm going to start looking for those good vibes and see where they take me.  Is that being opportunistic?  Maybe.  But it sure feels like the right thing to do.

Rating: A Satisfying Spiritual Meal out of 10