In his sermons and books, Brennan Manning's message has remained unchanging: "God loves you as you are and not as you should be." Throughout his ministry, Manning has brought countless and diverse disciples to the awareness and acceptance of the love of "Abba" in the face of Jesus. Over the years, Manning has framed this message in so many ways...personal stories, parables, Scripture, theology, earthy experiences, glorious revelations and painful epiphanies--always with a unique passion for God's love. Now finally, Manning does his best to offer the message grace once more in part memoir, part confessions, part teachings of God's truth, part story in All is Grace.
Manning gives readers chronological sketches of his life that hit the highlights of his boyhood home life, beginning college, joining the Marines during the Korean Conflict, going to seminary, joining the Franciscans then the Little Brothers of Jesus, starting a Christian community in Alabama, ministering on a college campus, and then pursuing speaking and ministry engagements. Brennan shares how in the midst of these events he struggled with alcoholism to the point of being a falling down drunk that required treatment more than once. He also shares how he fell in love with a woman who would become his wife and then his ex-wife and the reason for him leaving the Roman Catholic priesthood. But once a priest, always a priest, as one of his friends writes in the book.
I became acquainted with Brennan Manning in 1990 when I came across a couple cassette tape sets of "A Week of Renewal" that Manning had done for parishes in 1976 and 1977. I listened to the tapes until they would no longer play and I had portions of them memorized. I have read all of his books and given away most of them for others to read, saying "You have to read this!"
In All is Grace, readers will hear some of the same stories that never cease to move us closer to God. We also see new glimpses into Manning's life, struggles and triumphs. These are particularly appreciated. Manning avoids details of his sins and failures but points them out enough for readers to know that any steps forward in his life were closely followed by steps backward. Like Philip Yancey in the foreword, I wonder about Manning's confession to breaking all of the Ten Commandments over again. Is this literal or figurative? In his heart, at least, they appear literal to Manning.
Manning emphasizes his addiction to alcoholism and its destructive force. He admits that no addict can avoid also being a consummate liar - they go together. In that vein of writing, this memoir seems part confession for apparently sprinkling his stories in the past with untruths to create more drama or toward the well-intentioned end of revealing God's love more. I was surprised to hear that his namesake Ray Brennan died in a house fire from smoke inhalation rather than falling on a grenade in Korea to save his foxhole comrades' lives, something Manning had shared in a prior sermon on Christ's love. Whatever the truth to Ray's death is, Manning and "Ma Brennan" became son and mother. Manning admits in his memoir to not being able to remember everything as he wished he could. Maybe that is why I was left still wondering about the man who has had such a powerful ministry to all sorts of people.
Manning responds to the question he thinks his followers may ask..."How could a man that seemed so intimate with God and Jesus' message and ministry of love and grace struggle so much with addiction, self-hatred, loneliness, and marriage?" His answer is to say, not flippantly, that "These things happen." He has always said that his life after Christ has not been an "upward spiral toward holiness."
Another thing that Manning has said in the past is to quote Carl Jung who when commenting on Jesus' teaching about "the least of these" said "`What if you discovered that the least of the brethren of Jesus, the one who needs your love the most, the one you can help the most by loving, the one to whom your love will be most meaningful - what if you discovered that this least of the brethren of Jesus...... is you?'" Could you treat yourself with tenderness and grace? What we learn from Manning's memoir is that he, like us, is one of the least of these brothers of Jesus and needs grace and the "accepted tenderness" of Jesus. Here, I think, is Manning's attempt to love himself and finally come to an acceptance of himself in writing, and it is for all of us who struggle, too, with self-acceptance and loving ourselves as we are. That revelation more than any knowledge is wisdom.
When Manning has told us over and over that he is just a "Ragamuffin," he wasn't kidding, and neither was he kidding when he told us that Jesus came for Ragamuffins. So did Brennan Manning. Thank God for him and God bless him.
