I'd like to introduce you to my friend Brennan

So, he's not really my friend, but I am reading one of his books right now. Brennan Manning, who actually used to be a Franciscan monk, it one of the guys I love to read. He just gets it, and I love being around folks that 'just get it.'

In his book, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, the first chapter is titled 'Healing our Image of God and Ourselves,' and he writes this:

"For a disciple of Jesus, the process of spiritual growth is a gradual repudiation of the unreal image of God, [rather it is] the increasing openness to the true and living God. In my life, obeying the First Commandment-'I am Yahweh, your God and you shall have no other gods before me' has meant repudiating the god of wrath and fear handed on to me by preachers, teachers, and other church authoritiesin my youth, repudiating the strange god who sees all heathens to hell, who has give any one denomination a bonded franchise for salvation, who rubs his hands together with malicious glee and sends a Catholic to hell becasue he ate a hot dog on Friday, April 27, 1949. It has meant repudiating the strange god who flinches at gracing other churches with his presence; who despises beleaguered couple who practice birth control; who forbids a divorcee the Eucharist; who ordains that some of his creatures (whether for race or creed or some other reason) shall be denied equal opportunity for employement or housing; who tells married Catholic priests that they are excommunicated and mature women that in America that they can be vice-president but in the church they must sit down, submit and shut up."

Rock on with your bad self Brennan...