The Furious Longing of God

I just received an advance copy of The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning. As usual with his books, some things he said make me mad, others make me laugh at myself for the same incorrect thinking, other things leave me speechless. Tag along with me for the next week or so as I pull out some extracts.

For twenty-one years, I tried desperately to become Mother Theresa. I lived around the world in griming poverty and depersonalizing squalor. I lived voluntarily for six months in the garbage dump in Juarez, Mexico, garbage as high as your ceilings. It was a place filled with everyone from four- and five-year-old children to senior citizens in their eighties, all crawling over broken whiskey bottles and dead animals, just to find something to eat or possibly sell to hawkers on the side of the road. I've lived voluntarily as a prisoner in the prison in Pueblo, Switzerland; the warden there believed priests shouldn't be chaplains but actual prisoners. Only the warden knew my identity. I've lived on the streets of New York City with eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-year-old prostitutes, both boys and girls, and ministered to them through Covenant House. I just knew if I could become a replica of Mother Theresa, then God would love me.

Pretty impressive, right? Yeah, right.— The Furious Longing of God, page 29

<idle musing>
Wow. If ever anybody looked right on the outside...but he still felt unloved. Why? He talks about that as the book progresses. Stay tuned :)
</idle musing>