This weekend, I finished 3 of the books on my list - Yancey, Nouwen, and the Advent reader. Following the suggestion of my wonderful mother (who has greatly influenced my love of books...among other things...), I have picked up Brennan Manning's classic The Ragamuffin Gospel as one of my next ventures. I first read it during the summer of 2004, with my beloved Godspeed team, and I'm picking it back up again at a very different place in life. Like any book, its contents must be taken with a grain of salt, but seeing as I've also inherited from my mother a penchant for analyzing EVERYTHING I come across (often to the point of being ridiculous...), salt very rarely seems to be lacking in my literary diet! But in the midst of my frequent over-analysis, something very refreshing jumps out from the pages. Honesty. And grace. What Manning writes in his introduction, regarding his book, I think could be expanded to describe the Gospel itself.

[The Good News] is not for the super-spiritual. It is not for muscular Christians who have made John Wayne and not Jesus their hero. It is not for academicians who would imprison Jesus in the ivory tower of exegesis. It is not for noisy, feel-good folks who manipulate Christianity into a naked appeal to emotion. It is not for hooded mystics who want magic in their religion. It is not for Alleluia Christians who live only on the mountaintop and have never visited the valley of desolation. It is not for the fearless and tearless...It is not for legalists who would rather surrender control of their souls to rules than run the risk of living in union with Jesus.

[It is] for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out. It is for the sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to the other. It is for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together and are too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace. It is for the inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker. It is for poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents. It is for earthen vessels who shuffle along on feet of clay. It is for the bent and the bruised who feel that their lives are a grave disappointment to God. It is for smart people who know they are stupid and honest disciples who know they are scalawags.

From one closet scalawag to another, my cheese has completely fallen off my cracker. I am in desperate need of grace.