{"id":7162,"date":"2017-02-23T06:42:05","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T11:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=7162"},"modified":"2017-02-23T06:42:05","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T11:42:05","slug":"ragamuffins-judgment-searching-for-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=7162","title":{"rendered":"ragamuffins, judgment, & searching for more"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ragamuffin-gospel-450x369\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He was born Richard Francis Xavier Manning, born in 1934, passing away almost four years ago.<\/p>\n

According to his widely publicized obituary\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cBrennan was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. After attending St. John\u2019s University for two years, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving overseas as a sports writer for the U.S. Marine Corps newspaper. Upon his return, Brennan began a program in journalism at the University of Missouri. He departed after a semester, restlessly searching for something \u2018more\u2019 in life. \u2018Maybe the something \u2018more\u2019 is God,\u2019 an adviser suggested, triggering Brennan\u2019s enrollment at Saint Francis Catholic seminary in Loretto, Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Manning \u2014 more commonly known as Brennan Manning to his loyal legions of followers and fans \u2014 seemed to find that \u201cmore.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He left the Franciscans in the late sixties, joining the Little Brothers of Jesus of Charles de Foucauld, a religious order committed to an \u201cuncloistered, meditative life among the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Wikipedia’s bio: \u201cManning transported water via donkey, worked as a mason’s assistant and a dishwasher in France, was imprisoned (by choice) in Switzerland, and spent six months in a remote cave somewhere in the Zaragoza desert. In the 1970s, Manning returned to the United States and began writing after confronting his alcoholism.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By all accounts, Manning was a humbled, faithful man. He began writing\u2026 and writing.<\/p>\n

He wrote many books, with his most popular being the bestselling The Ragamuffin Gospel,<\/em> originally published in 1990.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much in The Ragamuffin Gospel<\/em> that appealed to me then\u2026 and so much I find relevant still now\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

(\u2026 sometimes I indeed feel all of the above…)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 In effect, Jesus says the kingdom of His Father is not a sub-division for the self-righteous nor for those who feel they possess the state secret of salvation. The kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

(\u2026 sometimes it\u2019s challenging to come to grips with the reality of our own\u00a0moral struggles, much less anyone else’s…)<\/em><\/p>\n

With all his wisdom, transparent sharing, and encouraging articulations, Color Green Films has actually made a movie about Manning\u2019s life, entitled \u201cBrennan.” The following quote is included; it’s also especially, seemingly relevant now\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don\u2019t know we can\u2019t do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we\u2019re told not to judge. Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Read that again, friends\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 none<\/strong> of us has ever<\/strong> seen a motive\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026 we can\u2019t do anything more than suspect<\/strong> what inspires another\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026 for this good and valid reason,<\/strong> we\u2019re told not<\/strong> to judge.<\/em><\/p>\n

And yet a lot of us these days \u2014 myself included \u2014 sometimes feel\u00a0so capable.<\/p>\n

Craving for more wisdom\u2026\u00a0recognizing the existence of ragamuffins…<\/p>\n

Respectfully\u2026
\nAR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He was born Richard Francis Xavier Manning, born in 1934, passing away almost four years ago. According to his widely publicized obituary\u2026 \u201cBrennan was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. After attending St. John\u2019s University for two years, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving overseas as a sports writer for the U.S. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “ragamuffins, judgment, & searching for more”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7162"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7167,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions\/7167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}