About the AuthorJohn Murphy and his wife Marylee have resided in Orrington, Maine since 1973. They have raised ten children, six homemade and four adopted, plus numerous foster children over the years. They have been members of East Orrington Congregational Church (EOCC) since 1985. John is a retired professional Structural Engineer. In 1992, as EOCC was considering a new meetinghouse to replace the existing inadequate buildings, he volunteered his engineering expertise as the principal designer of the new church facility, which opened in November of 1994. John has served on many EOCC committees, including two extended terms on the Board of Deacons. It was while on the Board of Deacons that he penned devotional essays entitled "The Deacon's Bench" for the EOCC bi-monthly newsletter, the Pen of Power. A compilation of these newsletter essays entitled From the Deacon's Bench was published in 2013.Following the onset of blindness in 2005, he was encouraged to continue writing similar essays with a focus on his experiences as a blind guy. In 2015, he published Blindsight, a compilation of an additional thirty of these essays. The Blind Side is a compilation of another thirty essays.