creation
"Give up trying to look like a saint," Brennan Manning's spiritual mentor once told him. "It'll be a lot better for everybody." If there is anything that ECHO hopes to contribute, it is this: we recognize that being a true follower of Jesus is not a matter of polishing ourselves up to make ourselves more presentable to God and others. But it is about being honest about how far we fall short of being the persons we know we should be and reaching out to accept the freely given, wild, crazy and untamed, scandalous grace of God. In an excerpt from The Ragamiffin Gospel, Brennan Manning says it best..."When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and I get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer. To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life's story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side, I learn who I am and what God's grace means. As Thomas Merton put it, "a saint is not someone who is good but is someone who experiences the goodness of God." 
