Review: A Ragamuffin Memoir: All Is Grace By Brennan Manning
A son, brother, solider, journalist, priest, husband, father, friend, and alcoholic these are what makes Brennan Manning. This was an interesting memoir to read. I have to be honest, I have not read any of Brennan’s writings. All Is Grace was a Christmas gift and I knew of Brennan Manning and I have also intended to read The Ragamuffin Gospel and I actually owned it and lost long with some other valuable books.
By far this has been one of the most moving memoirs I have read and a must read for anyone who has ever read one of his books or has had the chance to heard him preach or teach. Brennan puts myself out there and talks about some of the darker points of his life. He has made in known before of his struggles with alcoholism and he makes it a point to address it in greater detail than he has before. I have grown to appreciate the honesty of Christians who come out and acknowledge that they do not have it all together… read page 31.
Brennan says, “My story is a rosary, the breads of which are the people and experience that have made what I am.” Let this story of man who has truly lived a life of faith and notorious sinning open up the eyes of those of us who think the Christian journey is all about living the comfortable life. Through Brennan’s life he shows us that we do wrestle through our journey with the junk that we collect in life and there HOPE in the end.
I recommend this book because of the unique journey Brennan has been on and his ability as a writer to bring us along for the ride. A ride you will not regret taking.
Like this:
Review: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
The Great Divorce by Clive Staples Lewis is a mind blowing, allegorical tell of a bus trip from hell to heaven. The reason why I read The Great Divorce was at the end of Rob Bell’s Love Wins Bell suggestive reading on the subject of hell was The Great Divorce. I already had The Great Divorce in my library, so I decided to dust off this old classic and give it a read. To be honest, I could not put it down. Lewis ability to grab his read and making them want more is what honestly makes him one of the all-time literary greats.
There is couple of topics that Lewis touches that adds to the conversion on the journey that we go on after we leave this life. Every chapter has a different character and a different reason why this person does not choose heaven.
Grey Town
Lewis’ Grey Town is Hell. When Lewis is on the bus to Heaven, one of the passengers talks about Grey Town as a place where you can imagine anything. All one has to do is like about and it appears. But the problem is that no one can live near each other. There are thousands of houses that stretch for a million miles and many of them lay empty. There is no community in Grey Town.
The person describes a journey that he took because he heard that Napoleon lived in Grey Town. The journey was long and hard, but the character on bus found Napoleon’s house in Grey Town. What he described was an Empire style mansion with rows of windows flaming with light. What was he doing? Great questions, this is what Lewis describes Napoleon’s situation:
“Walking up and down – up and down all the time – left-right, left-right – never stopping for a moment. The two chaps watched him for about year and he never rested. And muttering to himself all the time. ‘It was Soult’s fault. It was Ney’s fault. It was Josephine’s fault. It was the fault of the Russians. It was the fault of the English.’ Like that all the time. Never stopped for a moment. A little, fat man and he looked kind of tired. But didn’t seem able to stop it.”
There is no fire, no person running around in a red suit with a pitch-fork, just people that are unable to leave their bitterness, anger, and shame behind. Instead of letting them go, they spend eternity in Grey Town where there is no color, neighborly love, or morning.
The Encounters
When the bus stops it lets the people, who turn into phantoms, they are not actually let off in Heaven but in a lush valley looking up to this city that is bright, like looking into the morning sun. This place was lush with grass, trees, and with streams flowing through the valley. In phantom form, the characters from the bus had a hard time walking on the grass. The grass hurt their feet. Lewis described it like walking on diamonds, very uncomfortable.
For each phantom that got off the bus (one phantom once off, run directly back on the bus after a five seconds in the valley) they were meet by people from their past that are already in heaven. Each conversation is about something about
Predestination and Universalism
Lewis challenges Predestination and Universalism views towards the end of the book. His teacher tells him this:
“If ye put the question from within Time and are asking about possibilities, the answer is certain. The choice of ways is before you. Neither is closed. Any man way choose eternal death. Those who choose it will have it. But if ye are trying to leap on into eternity, if ye are trying to see the final state of things as it will be (for so ye must speak) when there are no more possibilities left but only the Real, then ye ask what cannot be answered to mortal ears. Time is the very lens through which ye see – small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope – something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourself parts of eternal reality. But ye can see it only through the lens of Time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. It is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have otherwise. Neither the temporal succession nor the phantom of what ye might have chosen and didn’t it itself Freedom. They are a lens. The picture is a symbol: but it’s truer than any philosophical theorem (or, perhaps, than any mystic’s vision) that claims to go behind it. For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom. Witness the doctrine of Predestination which shows (truly enough) that eternal reality is not waiting for a future in which to be real; but at the price of removing Freedom which is the deeper truth of the two. And wouldn’t Universalism do the same? Ye cannot know eternal reality by a definition, and it must be lived. The Lord said we were gods. How long could ye bear to look (without Time’s lens) on the greatest of your own soul and the eternal reality of her choice?
It’s a choice! We choose heaven or we choose hell. We can say yes or no. We have freedom!
Falling in love with Love
There was one character that said something quite for profound. She told the phantom she was talking to, “I have fallen in LOVE with LOVE.”
This lady understands 1st John 4:7-12
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
In Heaven we will experience the fullest of God’s love for us and we will be in awe of it. But the reality is that some people will think that God’s love is ugly. Most of these people who separate themselves from God’s love will not experience love and have a hard time receiving love.
Concluding Thoughts
I am not going to lie. This was a hard review to write. I actually finished the book almost six months ago! It is hard to pick the mind and work of one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Here is my attempt to crack the mystery of The Great Divorce:
Heaven and Hell is a choice. It is a choice that we make every day. Are we going to make the choice to follow Jesus today and bring a glimpse of heaven? Or are we going choose our own path of jealousy, anger, and fear that brings hell? I am convinced that Jesus is the WAY to Heaven both in the afterlife and here on earth. Jesus embodies the LOVE of God and is the one who brings freedom to receive and give God’s love. He restores us our true humanity.
Heaven and Hell is a choice and it falls on who you believe Jesus is!
Like this:
Defeated
- Image via Wikipedia
I have been defeated lately. No motivation, no drive. You can ask my wife, when I get home I either sit down and watch TV, get on the computer, or play the PS3.
What happen to me?
Why have I become a downer?
I am not saying I hate my life. I have an absolutely wonderful wife whom loves and takes care of all me needs. I have two beautiful children whom are the wonders of God’s GREAT creation. I do have friends who call on me and careabout my well being.
Why do I feel defeated?
Where is my energy?
I feel like the prophet Elijah did after the Mount Carmel experience. What happen on Mount Carmel was God flexing His power for the people of Israel to see. The Northern Kingdom turned away from YHWH and turned their attention on god Baal and goddess Asherah. While turning from YHWH, King Ahab under the influence of his dominatrix wife Queen Jezebel, Ahab was hunting down the Prophets of YHWH and executing them one by one.
For most of Elijah’s ministry he was on the run.
But YHWH provided.
YHWH also showed up.
He showed up on Mount Carmel by FIRE!
Why was Elijah still on the run after the Mount Carmel experience?
This is what the Dominatrix Jezebel (who had the real power in the northern Kingdom of Israel)
1st Kings 19:1-2 The Message verse: Ahab reported to Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, including the massacre of the prophets. Jezebel immediately sent a messenger to Elijah with her threat: “The gods will get you for this and I’ll get even with you! By this time tomorrow you’ll be as dead as any one of those prophets.”
YHWH had just preformed an amazing act. YHWH had won and shown that Baal and Asherah were false. Why was Elijah on the run again?
Here is where our story begins.
Elijah was down.
He felt defeated.
1st King 19 (Message) says that Elijah prayed, “Enough of this, God! Take my life—I’m ready to join my ancestors in the grave!”
Mountain top experiences do not last long. I can remember times when I felt on top of the world because I was on top of the mountain and experience God! It was GREAT! Usually this experience happened on a church trip, conference, classroom, or
retreat. But when the everyday weekly grind kicks in again, sometimes the feeling despairs. For Elijah, before he received
Jezebel’s message felt alive. He did not have to run away more. The false prophets of Baal and Asherah were dead, YHWH had revealed Himself in a wondrous way, and the truth had been revealed, job completed. Elijah did not have to run away…
But that was not the case.
The next day, the daily grind was back. Elijah was on the run. He wanted to die.
YHWH was not finished with Elijah. He called to Elijah and sent him on another journey. YHWH wanted to minister to Elijah.
YHWH sent Elijah to a different mountain, a mountain far away, a mountain where Elijah could be alone with YHWH. Here is what happened (1st Kings 19:3-12 The Message):
When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there and then went on into the desert another day’s journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all—to just die: “Enough of this, God! Take my life—I’m ready to join myancestors in the grave!” Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broombush.
Suddenly an angel shook him awake and said, “Get up and eat!”
He lookedaround and, to his surprise, right by his head were a loaf of bread baked on some coals and a jug of water. He ate the meal and went back to sleep.
The angel of God came back, shook him awake again, and said, “Get up and eat some more—you’ve got a long journey ahead of
you.”
He got up, ate and drank his fill, and set out. Nourished by that meal, he walked forty days and nights, all the way to the mountain of God, to Horeb. When he got there, he crawled into a cave and went to sleep.
Then the word of God came to him: “So Elijah, what are you doing here?”
“I’ve been working my heart out for the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,” said Elijah. “The people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed the places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me.”
Then he was told, “Go, stand on the mountain at attention before God. God will pass by.”
A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper. (The Message)
When Elijah was in the silence, he heard the gentle whisper which was the voice of YHWH. When Elijah heard the whisper he
covered his face with his cloak.
Sometimes when we are defeated and down we look for God in the music or in book. Sometimes we need to quite our minds.
Seek silence.
Sometimes when we prayer, we just talk and talk and say AMEN and end the conversation.
Seek the whisper.
God is big, God does answer in fire, wind, and He does make the earth move.
But…
He touches our heart with His gentle whisper.
May we find God in the silence when we are defeated.
May we quite ourselves to we may heard Him speak in His gentle whisper.
May we know that YHWH’s love always wins!
