Ken welcomes Mark Bodnarczuk back to the podcast. As he shared with Ken in March of this year, the fentanyl crisis in our country is real - and made an unwelcome visit to his home. Thomas, Mark’s then 17-year-old son, took a pill he bought on the Internet that he believed was Xanax. He died a short time after swallowing the tablet. The autopsy showed that it was fentanyl - a deadly dose in a single pill. It’s the subject of his new book (to be released October 15) - Finding New Life After the Death of My Son: Grace and Forgiveness in the Age of Counterfeit Pills and Fentanyl Poisoning. Mark shares his faith journey, and the impact of this unthinkable tragedy on his understanding of God, the Bible, science, and his years of therapy. A graduate of a Christian school (Wheaton College), his career has taken him to Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which is currently building the largest digital camera for space exploration ever made. Mark’s keen interest in science, from the atom to the cosmos has also been influenced by the work of famed psychologist Carl Jung. Mark shares how psychology and science have shaped his faith, his love for the Bible, and his capacity to forgive. It’s a very personal story that takes us from the courtroom to the mountains of Colorado to the labyrinth - both inner and outer. Ken and Mark talk about significant authors including C.S. Lewis, Tim Keller, John Ortburg, and Philip Yancey (who write the Foreword to Mark’s book). SHOW NOTES
March 2024 Podcast with Mark | Purchase the Book on Amazon | Mark’s Official Website
Become a Patron | Ken’s Substack Page
Become a Patron - Click on the link to learn how you can become a Patron of the show. Thank you!
The Podcast Official Site: TheBeachedWhiteMale.com
A dauntless memoir about leaning into life after grief, Finding New Life after the Death of My Son is moving in its examinations of life, death, and faith. Foreword Magazine,Clarion Reviews
Bodnarczuk writes with touching precision… As he stares down the hardest questions of all—why?—the pages pulse with a real spiritual struggle, described with rare frankness and clarity, worked through by a thinker who never professes to have all of the answers but whose hard-won insights, in the end, will offer comfort to other believers facing losses that might seem unendurable. Publisher’s Weekly, BookLife Reviews
This is every parent’s worst nightmare. You go to wake up your eighteen-year-old son on Sunday morning for church and you find him dead in his bed. Only later do you learn he bought a single Xanax pill on Snapchat for fifteen dollars to calm his anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic. He took the pill then ordered food from Door Dash, but he never lived to eat it. It was a counterfeit pill that contained over three times the lethal dose of fentanyl¾that one pill killed him. Mark Bodnarczuk’s heart-wrenching memoir begins just hours into his process of mourning the tragic death of his teenage son. With indelible sincerity and penetrating detail, Bodnarczuk shares the intimate details of his grief, inviting readers into his moments of anguish, confusion, forgiveness, hope, and transformation. If you allow Mark to be the docent, he’ll lead you on a journey down into the depths of grief and pain that plagued his soul, and then back up through his process of finding new life and a deeper sense of meaning after the death of his son.
RELEASE DATE: October 15, 2024
When Ken's Substack article (The Big Beautiful Wall) appeared on Philip Yancey's popular blog (Hole in the Wall), among the many comments was a grieving father who shared the tragic loss of his 19-year-old-son to fentanyl poisoning. Ken reached out to Mark Bodnarczuk to hear more of a story that would underscore the tragic crisis facing our nation. Mark's academic pedigree took him from the Nazarene tradition to Wheaton College, the University of Chicago, and on to Harvard. He currently works for Stanford University in the director’s office of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory as an institutional program manager. Mark has written a book (to be released this summer) telling his son's story in detail - the all-too-easy access to counterfeit pills and fentanyl poisoning. Mark also shares how the sudden, indescribable loss has changed him - leaving him with a new understanding of his own faith, the power of forgiveness, and a grace that sustains. In this touching conversation, Mark shares the journey of his extraordinary son Thomas, the otherwise ordinary evening on the Internet that took his life, the source of the illegal, toxic drug, and his encounter with the perpetrator who would face criminal charges. Mark also encourages every American to be aware, engaged, and alerted to the need to put an end to this deadly crisis. SHOW NOTES
Ken's Substack | Philip Yancey's Blog Post - Hole in the Wall
Become a Patron - Click on the link to learn how you can become a Patron of the show. Thank you!
The Podcast Official Site: TheBeachedWhiteMale.com
Thomas was born at 10:18 am at Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver, Colorado. His first home was on Lake Dillon in Frisco, Colorado, at 9,000-foot elevation in the high-country of Summit County. When Thomas was two-years old, he and his family moved to a log home that they built on a 40-acre parcel of land, south of Breckenridge, at 10,300-foot elevation in Park County, Colorado. At that time, Park County only had two traffic lights, and the county was twice the size of Rhode Island. From the time he was a tiny child, Thomas had a deep and abiding love for Colorado – fresh air, clear skies, snow-capped peaks, lots of snow, deep blue mountain lakes, crystal clear streams, enormous remote wilderness areas to camp and hike in, and the laid-back, high-country feeling of the Rocky Mountains.
Illicit Fentanyl is dominating the drug landscape and causing record numbers of drug deaths in America, particularly among our Gen Z youth. Learn the facts about fentanyl and take empowered action to protect yourself and your loved ones.
More Pending
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