The only way to survive is to know that God loves me as I am and not as I should be, that He loves me beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity; that he Loves me in the morning sun and in the evening rain, without caution, regret, boundary, limit, or breaking point; that no matter what I do, He can’t stop loving me. When I am really in conscious communion with the reality of the wild, passionate, relentless, stubborn, pursuing, tender love of Christ for me, then it’s not that I have to, or I’ve got to, or I must, or I should, or I ought: suddenly, I want to change because I know how deeply I’m loved.
I have a good little friend, a 55 year-old nun named Mary Michael O’Shaughnessy, who has a doctorate in theology. She has a banner on her wall that says, “Today I will not should on myself.” One of the wonderful results of my consciousness of God’s staggering love for me as I am, is a freedom not to be who I should be or who others want me to be. I can be who I really am. And who I am is a bundle of paradoxes and contradictions: I believe and I doubt, I trust and I get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty if I don’t feel guilty.
Aristotle said we are rational animals. I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer. It is the real me that God loves. I don’t have to be anyone else. For twenty years I tried to be Brother Teresa. I tried to be Francis of Assissi. I had to be a carbon copy of a great saint rather than the original God intended me to be. A black evangelical preacher from Georgia once said, “Be who you IS, because if you ain’t who you IS, you IS who you ain’t.”
The biggest mistake I can make is to say to God, “Lord, if I change, you will love, won’t you?” The Lord’s reply is always, “Wait a minute, you’ve got it all wrong. You don’t have to change so I’ll love you; I love you so you’ll change.” I simply expose myself to the love that is everything and have an immense, unshakable, reckless, raging confidence that God loves me so much He’ll change me and fashion me into the child that He always wanted me to be.
回忆录也提到自己在纽约市的一个艰困的爱尔兰天主教家庭长大，那个没有爱，不堪回首的童年。他后来加入海军陆战队，体验到一次出奇的悔改经历之后，生命大转弯进了方济修会。有段时间他在大学或神学院作校牧；参加法国的「耶稣小兄弟会」（Little Brother of Jesus），作工匠的助手或是洗盘子；在西班牙的沙漠洞穴住了六个月；回到美国帮助捕虾工人与他们的家庭。在纽奥尔良定居后，他为了结婚离开方济会，但十八年后黯然离异，这也是酗酒无法自拔的另一下场。
曼宁让我想起小说家葛林的杰作《权力与荣耀》（The Power and the Glory）裡的「威士忌神父」。我们固然永远不会知道他的名字，他自己也认为自己是个人生败将，是个「喜欢不该喜欢的东西」的笨蛋，但是小说结束之际，我们看见被他改变，甚至可以说被他的生命与见证转化的一群人。你若在Google上键入曼宁的英文名字Brennan Manning，能稍微体会哪些人曾受到他的春风化雨。其中包括波诺（Bono）、福音歌手理查．慕林思（Richard Mullins）、葛理翰的外孙查维进（Tully Tchvidjian）这些名人，以及平凡不起眼、「衣衫褴褛」的人。他们都从这位当代的威士忌神父，初次体验上帝的爱真确无比。
