{"id":1567,"date":"2011-10-20T16:42:33","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T20:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2011-10-20T16:46:01","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T20:46:01","slug":"ragamuffin-brennan-manning-teaches-that-all-is-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/ragamuffin-brennan-manning-teaches-that-all-is-grace.html","title":{"rendered":"Ragamuffin Brennan Manning Teaches That “All Is Grace”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Brennan Manning's new memoir<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everyone loves a reformed sinner, and Brennan Manning provides that in spades in his new memoir All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir.<\/em><\/a> On second thought, I think the Irish-American Catholic writer might borrow from Protestant reformer John Calvin in adopting the motto \u201creformed and always reforming.\u201d Manning would be the first to tell you he hasn\u2019t really changed that much from the irascible ragamuffin\/ recovering alcoholic<\/a> we have always imagined we knew.<\/p>\n

This memoir is the first thing I\u2019ve read of Manning\u2019s in a very long time, and I found it unexpectedly powerful. It\u2019s good that he recounts his life in chronological order, because by the time you get to the \u201csin boldly\u201d part, in which he reveals his deeply troubled adult journey, you\u2019ve already read about a childhood so loveless and miserable it would make a Roald Dahl character appear cherished by comparison. His mother\u2019s seething, cold angularity; his father\u2019s ne\u2019er-do-well abusiveness; the sudden death of his only true boyhood friend: It\u2019s all there, along with urban poverty, the Great Depression, and the proverbial wolf at the door.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my observation that kids who come from shame-based backgrounds tend to head in one of two basic directions: they either 1) program themselves on \u201crepeat,\u201d mimicking their parents\u2019 substance abuse and descending into chaos, or 2) they sublimate the dangerous self by trying to be The Good Child. During my turbulent adolescence\u2014which was on my mind constantly while reading this book, the weekend I read it marked the first anniversary of my own father\u2019s death\u2014I chose what was behind Door #2: social acceptance, academic success, a place in the world. The shadow side of that path, the one they never warn you can be every bit as destructive as what\u2019s behind Door #1, is that external approval becomes its own brand of addiction, and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep it real and fight what Manning calls \u201cthe impostor self.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manning, rather magnanimously, chose both paths. He did this in an almost laughably stereotypical way, by becoming the good Catholic boy who stumbles through mass on Sunday morning because he\u2019s still hung over from Saturday night. \u00a0By age 18 he was drinking a dozen beers every night (every night?!<\/em>), a pint of rye whiskey every other day, and a liter of sake about once a week. He was also beginning to write (a talent he honed in the military, of all places), discovering his unexpected gift for captivating audiences with his words while feeling an even more unexpected tug to the priesthood.<\/p>\n

Manning was a priest for many years, and then, just as suddenly, he wasn\u2019t anymore. He had fallen in love. His discussion of this phase of his life is one of the most tender and joyous parts of the book, but it doesn\u2019t last. It wasn\u2019t long before Manning resumed the alcoholism he hoped he had laid to rest forever when he became a priest. One particularly heartbreaking scene in the book has him admitting that he would provide spiritual wisdom for audiences and delight the crowds immediately before checking himself into an anonymous motel in that town, unplugging the phone so his wife couldn\u2019t reach him, and drinking himself into a stupor. He would be on his bender for several days and then fly from that city to his next speaking engagement so as to avoid facing his wife.<\/p>\n

But there is true repentance in these pages, genuine sorrow for the ways he has damaged the people he loves. It is a beautiful book, its intensity all the more vivid because Manning is now ill and probably dying. As such, the beginning and end of the book offer a kind of festschrift <\/em>to frame his story. Numerous friends and mentees share memories of how they met Manning or how he helped to turn their lives around. In the end, these loving voices do much to quiet Manning\u2019s own articulated fears that his sins have outweighed the good he has done with his life. And throughout, always, is the underlying rhythm of a loving and forgiving God\u2014a God Manning will meet sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

Grace, in the end, is everything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This book review is part of a Patheos.com Book Club discussion. For other reviews (including folks who disagreed with me!) and an excerpt from the book, check out this link<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone loves a reformed sinner, and Brennan Manning provides that in spades in his new memoir All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir. On second thought, I think the Irish-American Catholic writer might borrow from Protestant reformer John Calvin in adopting the motto \u201creformed and always reforming.\u201d Manning would be the first to tell you he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,5],"tags":[274,838,837,22,846,844,21,536,847,738,446,841,634,839,842,845,840,843],"class_list":["post-1567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-christianity","category-emergent","tag-alcoholism","tag-all-is-grace","tag-brennan-manning","tag-flunking-sainthood","tag-forgiveness","tag-grace","tag-jana-riess","tag-patheos","tag-patheos-book-club","tag-patheos-book-roundtable","tag-patheos-evangelical-portal","tag-philip-yancey","tag-prayers-for-strength","tag-ragamuffin-gospel","tag-recovering-alcoholics","tag-repentance","tag-rich-mullins","tag-roald-dahl"],"yoast_head":"\nRagamuffin Brennan Manning Teaches That "All Is Grace" - Flunking Sainthood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/ragamuffin-brennan-manning-teaches-that-all-is-grace.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ragamuffin Brennan Manning Teaches That "All Is Grace" - Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Everyone loves a reformed sinner, and Brennan Manning provides that in spades in his new memoir All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir. 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