All Is Grace_ A Ragamuffin Memoir - Brennan Manning [33]
In the spring of 1983, I received a phone call from a man in Billings, Montana. He wondered if I would be interested in coming and giving a series of talks. He had heard some of my taped talks. It sounded rather unorganized, but it promised some income so I agreed. He took out an ad in the local paper and convinced an Assembly of God pastor to host the event. The first day, I spoke to almost a thousand people. The second day, we had twelve hundred. By the last night, we had a crowd of fifteen hundred people. The pastor said, “Brennan, you Catholics don’t know how to ask for money, so let me make an appeal.” His words were very biblical about supporting those who preach the gospel; I remember feeling deeply moved and appreciated. The collection was taken, and I returned to New Orleans with a check for fifteen thousand dollars. When I handed Roslyn the check, she had to sit down.
Three weeks later I received a phone call from Bob Krulish, the director for Young Life in the Rocky Mountain region. Bob had heard me speak as a priest back in 1968 at Calvary Community Church in San Jose and had evidently seen and heard something he liked. He called to ask if I would speak at their annual staff- and leadership-training weekend at Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs. I didn’t come home with a check for fifteen thousand, but I did okay. That weekend began a long tenured relationship of speaking and ministering to the leadership and staff of Young Life.
Then one week later I received a call from a man named Mike Yaconelli. Mike was the life force behind the Youth Specialties ministry. He had scheduled a conference speaker, who had canceled, and asked if I could possibly come and speak in her place. I agreed. Once again, the money didn’t rival Billings’, but the time I spent there was beyond rich, and that experience began my long and notorious friendship with the “beautiful sinner,” Mike Yaconelli.
Those three phone calls were the rebirth of my speaking ministry, and they happened one after the other, just like that. Those opportunities were an affirmation of my deepest calling as an evangelist, a shot-in-the-arm of encouragement that I sorely needed at the time. They were also a truckload of assurances to Roslyn, obviously in the financial sense, but much more in the sense that God had not abandoned us. Yes, it’s an evil generation that keeps asking for signs, but a tangible sign of God’s approval every once in a while can bolster your courage for months, not to mention pay the bills.
14
I want to share three small movements that happened during my life with Roslyn: the good, the not-so good, and the ugly. There was the initial honeymoon phase, followed by the settling in, and then the creeping distance. I said earlier that my greatest regret in life is not knowing how to be married. That’s true, but in no way do I regret trying.
The Good.
I enjoyed my new life, I really did. I chose it, and much about it was good, very good. We lived in a wonderful house in New Orleans at the time, a house well suited for entertaining, which we did often. The house was just down the street from where Roslyn’s mother lived. As I’ve said, Roslyn was the consummate hostess; she knew how to throw things together in a moment’s notice. That was good because she quickly realized that “a moment” was about all I would often give her. I was constantly inviting people into our home on the spur of the moment—to visit, celebrate Mass, or join us for dinner. I loved the feel of a house filled with chatter and the smell of food; maybe that was a carryover from my days in Alabama. It was not uncommon for Roslyn to have no idea who this or that person was; sometimes I didn’t either. Our house was more than a house; it was a hearth, a safe place for people to gather. And there were flowers, always flowers. Roslyn had the gift of arranging azaleas and petunias and begonias