All Is Grace_ A Ragamuffin Memoir - Brennan Manning [4]
I expect these pages are about to open up some new connections to Brennan for you as well.
You should know that one of the reasons I am actually alive on this day is because I heard Brennan that long-ago afternoon. To whatever degree I am fully alive today, it is because of what I learned from him.
I learned the truth of the gospel from Brennan, the same gospel you will find in this book: That in the end, my sin will never outweigh God’s love. That the Prodigal can never outrun the Father. That I am not measured by the good I do but by the grace I accept. That being lost is a prerequisite to being found. That living a life of faith is not lived in the light, it is discovered in the dark. That not being a saint here on earth will not necessarily keep you from being in that number when the march begins.
When that march begins, I myself am hoping for a spot in line with the New Orleans cohort, the number that includes a magnificently fully recovered Roman Catholic priest and all the rest too gentle to live among the wolves, the ones who are marching into Zion mostly because we were fortunate enough to stumble into Brennan at the moment when the Word was ready to be spoken into us by one of God’s very own.
Thanks be to God for Brennan, and the Truth he has lived, and these pages he has given us.
Robert Benson
The Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, 2011
To go on the grand tour
A man must be free
From self-necessity.
Patrick Kavanagh, “The Self-Slaved”
A WORD BEFORE
All Is Grace was written in a certain frame of mind—that of a ragamuffin.
Therefore,
This book is by the one who thought he’d be farther along by now, but he’s not.
It is by the inmate who promised the parole board he’d be good, but he wasn’t.
It is by the dim-eyed who showed the path to others but kept losing his way.
It is by the wet-brained who believed if a little wine is good for the stomach,
then a lot is great.
It is by the liar, tramp, and thief; otherwise known as the priest, speaker, and author.
It is by the disciple whose cheese slid off his cracker so many times
he said “to hell with cheese ’n’ crackers.”
It is by the young at heart but old of bone who is led these
days in a way he’d rather not go.
But,
This book is also for the gentle ones who’ve lived among wolves.
It is for those who’ve broken free of collar
to romp in fields of love and marriage and divorce.
It is for those who mourn, who’ve been mourning most of their lives,
yet they hang on to shall be comforted.
It is for those who’ve dreamed of entertaining angels
but found instead a few friends of great price.
It is for the younger and elder prodigals who’ve come to their senses
again, and again, and again, and again.
It is for those who strain at pious piffle
because they’ve been swallowed by Mercy itself.
This book is for myself and those who have been around
the block enough times that we dare to whisper
the ragamuffin’s rumor—
all is grace.
INTRODUCTION
It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. Some have wondered if I was even still alive. I am. The last few years of my life have been hard, hard in the sense that things haven’t turned out the way I’d planned. In fact, nothing is like I’d planned. I’ve been uprooted and transplanted in familiar but foreign soil. That sentence is both literal and figurative. I am alive, but it’s been hard. I signed the contract to write my memoir almost five years ago now. If I would have sat down right then and there and began writing, this would be a different book. But I didn’t.
I delayed writing this book for many reasons, one of them being that I wrestled with why anyone would want to read a book about my life. I recently asked my friend (and cowriter) John this very question, and his reply was “Brennan,