All Is Grace_ A Ragamuffin Memoir - Brennan Manning [46]
Nowadays if I want to put on my jeans and shirt, someone has to help me. If I want to eat a slice of pepperoni pizza from Pete & Elda’s or an ice-cream cone, someone has to help me. If I have to go to the bathroom, I need help. To turn up the volume on the Yankees game, I need help. To access my medicine or open my Diet Coke, I must have help. To get into bed at night, help. To rise in the morning, help. To nap in the afternoon, help. To write this book, help. Carlo Carretto wrote, “We are what we pray.” These are days of prayer without ceasing—“Help me! Have mercy on me!” And my Father, who is so very fond of me, does.
In addition to my sister, Gerry, and her husband, Art, there is a man who has been my helper, the person who does all these things, since I returned to Belmar in 2009. Is this the way I’ve wanted things to be? No, definitely not. If I had my druthers, I would still be in New Orleans along the great big Muddy and among my friends in Algiers.
My caregiver’s name is Richard. We listen to CNN every day and the Yankees or the Knicks, depending on the season. He cooks a mean hot dog and keeps the water or Diet Coke nearby. He locks up at night and opens up in the morning. I’ve stumbled and fallen a few times in my house, and he’s always picked me up and dusted me off, much like a parent would do. He gets me to my appointments on time. He has been someone to watch over me. I find myself now back in the general vicinity of my childhood. I am being cared for in a way I longed for as a child. And of all the people I could spend my days in the company of, I have been befriended by a man with my very own given name.
And accompanied by my friend Richard, I have a lot of time on my hands these days; time to think, maybe like I haven’t in a long while. So I’m going to give you “the last sermon you’ll ever need.” If it sounds like there are traces in it of sermons I’ve preached before, that’s because there are.
19
Scripture is full of ragamuffins. I’ve overlooked one, no doubt for the obvious reason that he doesn’t appear to be a ragamuffin at first sight. His exploits are heroic, the stuff of legend. But stretching my mind to look deeper, I’ve seen his rags. His name was Samson, the long-haired strong man who took Nazirite vows, the last and most famous of the Old Testament judges, the warrior who slew the lion with his bare hands and a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. But his storied life ended in a prison, his hair shaved, his eyes gouged out, weak, blind, dependent, little more than a child. In one final mockery, Samson was chained between twin temple pillars at the feast of the god Dagon for the amusement of the people. But not everything was as it appeared. Had the Philistines assembled on that day looked closer, they would have noticed a lengthening shadow on the ragamuffin’s head; his hair had begun to grow back and therefore his strength. In one final witness to the God of Israel, Samson seized the chains and pulled. He brought the house down, literally.
With what strength I have left, I want to grab the chains and pull, one last time. My hope, as always, is to point to the God too good to be true, my Abba. I’ve no delusions of heroically bringing down the house of fear that imprisons so many. My desire is to witness, nothing else. My message, unchanged for more than fifty years, is this: God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be. It is the message of grace, the life-shattering gift my heart experienced in February 1956. It is the life-sustaining gift I remain broken by now in February 2011.
Some have labeled my message one