Finally On A Worthy Bandwagon!

I love it when I'm in on the ground floor of things. Like, I actually got into R.E.M. in 1984 when a guy I was rooming with at a college orientation played the tape for me. I was into them way before anyone else I knew was. It was the beginning of the great heavy-metal phase-out of 1985.

Conversely, I tend to get annoyed with "bandwagons" once the hype machine gets going. Like the movie "The Matrix." I still haven't seen it and everyone I know says it's brilliant. In my experience, it's rare that something lives up to the hype. So, I figure that if it has to be that hyped up, it's probably overrated.

There's been a lot of hype in the circles I run in about a writer/sojourner named Brennan Manning. I had a lot of other books on my reading agenda and people had been after me to see what I think about Mr. Manning and I'd been resisting. In fact, I wasn't going to read him at all until two people I trust immensely (Blogger Friend Katherine and Blogger Resistor Jessica) both told me I wouldn't regret the read.

They were right.

I'm drawn to those that see through the Americanized Christian Subculture and firmly believe that the walk with Christ should be oh-so-much-more than what the masses live out...

A quote or two:

"The Christian community resembles a Wall Street exchange of works wherin the elite are honored and the ordinary are ignored. Love is stifled, freedom is shackled, as self-righteousness fastened. The church has become a wounder of the healers instead of a healer of the wounded...Put bluntly, the American Church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice."

"'Unless you become as little children...' Heaven will be filled with five-year-olds...If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge the fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people of other denominations and religions. We don't find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don't cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God's truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition."

Manalive.