Conway’s Donald Ray Patton will be the first one to admit that life sometimes is not easy, but what you do to help you through the hard times just might be the inspiration that someone else needs to help them down a rocky path.
Patton, 54, recently released a book of Christian, inspirational poems he has written through the years, poems that helped him though his darkest hours.
Entitled, “The Door to My Soul,” Patton, who, also, is a minister and singer-songwriter, said the collection was his way of helping others.
“My first wife died in 1992 with cancer,” Patton said. “At that time, the stress threw me into full-blown postpolio syndrome (He had polio as a child). I went through some deep, deep valleys. I went through about six or eight years of it. I got to the point where I couldn’t work. I’ve been in the ministry for about 16 years and I just decided to lean on God. I was so confused and had done so many things, so I just started searching my soul for the answers and that’s where the poems came from. God just began answering my questions in the form of poetry and I was writing it down as fast as it came to me.”
Patton said his poems were a part of his own personal soul searching and never thought they would one day become a book.
“I never dreamed I would write a book,” he said. “Now I’m on my third book. After my first book , I started writing my life story. It is ready for publishing, now. I’ve always wanted to write and I’d thought about it for about 30 years ... I never really had a lot of confidence growing up so it just took me a while to develop, I guess.”
Patton has written about 100 songs, so writing poetry was something that he had some experience with.
“Basically, all my poems are just songs without music,” he said. “I don’t think there is a poem I’ve written that couldn’t be put to music. It just seems to be my format for writing poetry.”
When words come to Patton, he might have a song or poem completed in a matter of minutes, or it might take years.
“It just comes so many different ways,” he said. “Sometimes I can sit down, write a song, put the chords to it and have it done. Other times, I might just have a line or a verse that might lay there for a few years before I finish it. Sometimes when the inspiration comes to me I just have to write it down and see where it takes me.”
Patton isn’t hoping for “Door to My Soul” to make money or big royalty checks. He said it is about sharing and healing.
“My main intent for putting my book of poetry together was to help others,” he said. “My ministry is my No. 1 interest God helped me out of a lot of dark places and I know there are other people going through a lot of the same things. I figure if people could read what I went through and what brought me through it, it might help.
“If it just helps one person, it’s all worth it to me. It was never done to make money. However, I’m just like everyone else and can use all of the money I can get, but that was never my intent.”
