Brittany Dean
Staff Writer
When describing first-year Seaver College graduate student Russell Lingerfelt, his friends frequently use adjectives such as sociable, Christian and intelligent.
And while many students might recognize the 24-year-old religion major as the man with a shaved head who wears a T-shirt and jeans every day while studying in the Waves Cafe, there is much more than meets the eye.
Lingerfelt said he has been through many obstacles in his life, including struggles with friendship and learning to fit in with his peers. He said he decided to write a book that tackled these important issues all high school students deal with, from the death of a loved one to drugs and alcohol.
The book, titled “The Warrior of Ephes Dammim: When Teenagers Overcome their Giants,” is available in the Campus Bookstore.
Lingerfelt, who is a native of Alabama, said he has lived two different lifestyles that influenced his life and his desire to write a book.
Growing up in Alabama, he said he learned how to drive a tractor with a standard transmission and to hunt rabbit for dinner. He said the goals of most people he knew in Alabama were to graduate from high school, get married and inherit the farm.
With such low expectations, Lingerfelt said he always knew that he wanted to do more with his life. He decided to come to Pepperdine to fulfill a greater purpose, and he said that, in many ways, he feels blessed to have come so far.
On the other end of the spectrum, Lingerfelt has also traveled the world including countries such as Jamaica, Romania and Scotland.
“I love being somewhere where my five senses have never touched,” Lingerfelt said.
Lingerfelt added that he has a wide variety of interests, including reading classical, medieval and romantic literature. He said nothing is more enjoyable to him than sitting in the company of his four closest friends, enjoying conversation and occasionally smoking cigars over mochas.
But, most of all, Lingerfelt said he loves to write.
“I’ve always kept a personal journal,” he said. “I think my collected journal writings from high school and college would definitely exceed 2,000 pages.”
But his book is the latest development to come out of his passion for literature and writing.
In the book, Lingerfelt compares the biblical story of David and Goliath to the personal struggles he and a group of his high-school friends experienced. He said he was inspired by his involvement in counseling teenagers in various countries.
Lingerfelt said he began to realize that teenagers all over the world experience the same problems, and he wanted to give them a guide to help them get through their adolescent years.
“My life is an open book as well as those who have given me permission to recount their story,” Lingerfelt said. “I wanted to provide a piece of literature that I wish had been available to me through the most challenging times of my life: the teenage years.”
By opening his personal life to others, Lingerfelt said he believes people can not only avoid some of the mistakes he and his friends made, but also help people relate better to others.
Lingerfelt said he also hopes that, if anyone is going through the situations presented in the book, they might be able to feel a sense of comfort and get though their trials easier.
“By revealing the mistakes I have made in my life, it helps keep people from making the same ones,” Lingerfelt said. “They realize that they are not alone in the things they deal with, and that will give them comfort. It’s always good to know you are not alone in your struggles.”
Lingerfelt said he experienced many difficulties while writing the book. He said he didn’t realize the amount of patience that goes into completing a novel. He said he also found out how little he actually knew about how to deal with problems during the period of adolescence.
He ultimately spent four years during his undergraduate career at Auburn University gathering more information through interactions with teenagers at home and while traveling abroad.
Lingerfelt said he found himself spending a whole night working on a single paragraph that still needed to be erased because it didn’t fit into the book’s context.
The grueling experience of writing the book led Lingerfelt to an epiphany about writers, he said.
“You have to love it,” he said. “You can’t do it for any other reason.”
Lingerfelt had, in fact, originally planned to only write a pamphlet, but he decided to gather all the stories he collected into a book.
He sent a rough copy to a group of teenagers for feedback before his book was ready for print.
After sending the manuscript to eight publishing companies, J.C. Choate Publications offered to publish the first-time author last March.
The book sold 1,200 copies within the first four months of sales.
Lingerfelt said he wants readers to know that his book is not an autobiography, but a blue-print for getting through life’s struggles.
“Imagine lifting a book from the shelf and finding inside of it fragments of your favorite authors, the lessons you have learned in your youth, recounted memories from your youth and the lives of the youth around you,” Lingerfelt said. “A book that says everything you wish you could say not to only this generation but the ones that will follow. Such a book, for me, is this one.”
02-03-2005
