Ruthless Trust ... by Manning

Now, I just started a book....yes started...never finishing it seems, by Brennan Manning...an older title....one left abandoned at the store....so must have been for me..... :) and it explains who and what the ragamuffins are in his eyes...I enjoyed reading this....in the preface alone.... "The unsung assembly of saved sinners who are little in their own sight, conscious of their brokenness and powerlessness before God, and who cast themselves on His Mercy. Startled by the extravagant love of God, they do not require success, fame, wealth, or power to validate their worth. Their spirit transcends all distinctions between the powerful and the powerless, educated and illiterate, billionaires and bag ladies, high-tech geeks and low-tech nerds, males and females, the circus and the sanctuary." He continues and I will let it be with this.... :) It reminds me of a discussion I had not so long ago...the ragamuffin would "know that Jesus is comfortable with broken people who remember how to love. Alert to the manipulations and machinations of pharisaical self-righteousness, ragamuffins refuse to surrender control of their lives to rules and regulations. They see that the stale religiosity of legalists, trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, obscures the face of the God of Jesus. They will not barter their souls for the false security of fear-filled pieties that cripple the human spirit. The motto on the New Hampshire license plate, 'Live free or die,' is the ragamuffin motto." You have to love this man's way with words. It took me a few minutes to type out those words...but as I did ....there was gold and affirmation in them thar' words....for me anyway....