All Is Grace_ A Ragamuffin Memoir - Brennan Manning [45]
I tried for a short time to resume my speaking ministry in 2008. This was attempted with the help of my good friend Fil Anderson. Fil was pure support and encouragement at a time when I needed it dearly. We would share the speaking responsibilities on a given weekend, me leaning on Fil more than the other way around. As has been the case for more than forty years, if I am not traveling and speaking, I don’t know what to do with myself, so I had to try. I suffered two falls prior to that brief try-again period—one figurative and the other literal. These falls pressed my cospeaking engagements with Fil into another realm entirely, one where a tried-and-true friend is most recognizable.
In March 2009, I stood before a packed church in Charlotte, North Carolina, ready to greet those gathered with my signature opening, followed by some Yiddish humor, like I’ve done a thousand times before:
In the words of Francis of Assisi as he met Brother Dominique on the road to Umbria, Hi …
One day Alan the tailor was walking down the street, and he meets Moisha the banker and asks where he’s going.
“Synagogue,” Moisha says, looking horribly distraught.
“Why?”
“I’ve gotta talk to the rabbi.”
“Why you’ve gotta talk to the rabbi?” Alan asks.
“Aye,” says Moisha, “A terrible thing has happened! My son become a Christian.”
“Oh, Moisha,” says Alan, “Let me tell you a very funny thing. My son is a Christian!”
The two of them arrive at the synagogue and open the door. Out comes the rabbi, who says, “Moisha, Alan, what is going on?”
Alan says, “We got a catastrophe in our families. Our two sons become Christians.”
“Into my office!” says the rabbi. “Lock the door.”
After a long pause he looks up and says, “Let me tell you a very funny thing. My son is a Christian.”
“No!” says Alan.
“We are lost!” says Moisha. “What are we going to do, rabbi? You the Answer Man!”
“Yes, we do something,” says the rabbi. “Come with me.”
So they march across the synagogue and into the sanctuary.
The rabbi says, “Kneel. Shut up. I pray. Yahweh, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God of Israel, God of the prophets, what on earth is going on? Judaism is gone down the tube. Everyone’s becoming a Christian! Yahweh, give us a word. Yahweh, speak a voice to us.”
Long pause. Finally God says, “But let me tell you a very funny thing …”
I should have been able to do that bit, but shortly into my opening, my mind went blank. For someone who has preached for years the motto of my friend Mary Michael O’Shaughnessy—“Today I will not should on myself”—that was an evening I wish I could have. I should’ve been able to do that bit, but I couldn’t. I just stood there trying, desperately trying, but I had nothing. I simply could not remember my lines. That had never happened before. I looked out at the crowd and asked them to please pray for me.
But let me tell you a very funny thing. After a long, awkward pause, the crowd surprised me; they gave me a standing ovation. I was being affirmed for my silence. That had also never happened before. I don’t know when I’ve felt such genuine compassion from a group of people. I retired to my room and got some rest. The next day I was back hitting my marks, able to conduct the scheduled sessions as if nothing had happened. But something had happened. I have no idea what the people gathered there in Charlotte thought about that dark Friday night. I’m not even entirely sure what I thought about it, other than it scared me.
Following that weekend, my return home was nothing short of traumatic. Because of significant problems with my vision, I fell down an escalator at the New Orleans airport, breaking my shoulder and ribs. That crushing pain, on the heels of my dark Friday, told me that Brennan Manning, like Belmar, was no longer a summer place.
I have said countless times that losing our illusions is difficult because illusions are the stuff we live by. We believe we’re invincible until cancer comes knocking, or we believe we’re making a comeback until we tumble down the stairs.