In his book, The Wisdom of Tenderness, Brennan Manning, tells how he, with countless others, has been touched by the play The Man of La Mancha, based on Cervantes’ Don Quixote. The most touching part of the play is how the wanton woman, Aldonza, is ultimately transformed by Don Quixote’s re-awakening her dignity, worth and purpose, even imparting to her a new name: Dulcinea (Little Sweet One). And at the end of the play, it is Dulcinea who brings Don Quixote back from the shades of death by rekindling in his heart his dream of grace and glory and quest for honor. Brennan then shares a story of his own sufferings, and of the man he calls his Man of La Mancha.
In April 1975, Brennan almost died from alcoholism. On verge of convulsions, he was able to dial “0” and summon help, asking for A.A. and giving his name and address. In twenty minutes, a stranger “with the breath of the Father on his face” scooped him up, raced him to a detoxification center and treatment began.
“Again and again he told me of God the Father’s love, how when his children stumble and fall, he doesn’t scold them but scoops them up and comforts them. For five days and five nights, he breathed life into me physically and spiritually and asked nothing in return.”
Two years later, Brennan was in south Florida working on a book at a beach house loaned to him by friends. This area, he knew, was near the home of his benefactor. Trying to contact him, Brennan learned the sad truth; his friend was twenty-seven miles away on Tampa’s Skid Row. Burned out from helping others, his friend was drinking again. Brennan drove to that Skid Row and saw someone who looked like his friend, but when he walked nearer, it wasn’t. “Hey, man,” begged the stranger, “can you gimme a dollar? I gotta get some wine.” Brennan knelt down, took the man’s hands in his own, kissed them, looked into his eyes and ministered to the man the way his friend had ministered to him, then delivered the sufferer to a detox center.
Two weeks later, Brennan was hosting an A.A. meeting at his house-on-loan. Before long, the six attending discovered they were each Episcopalians or Catholics, so they decided to celebrate Eucharist. Midway through, his old friend came in, but motioned the six to continue. When his back was turned in prayer, Brennan heard the door quietly close again and his heart sank realizing his friend was gone. The next morning he found a letter from the friend, slipped under the front door. It read, in part: “You will never know what you did for me two weeks ago in Tampa. You didn’t see me, but I saw you. I was standing twenty yards away and hiding behind a lamppost. When I saw you kneel down and kiss that wino’s hands, you wiped away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. When I saw that you really cared, my heart began to grow wings. I had a pint of Gallo wine in my hand, and I tossed it in a trash bin. You breathed life into me, and I want you to know that. You released me from my shadow world of panic, fear, and self-hatred. If you should ever wonder who I am, remember that I am someone you know very well: I am every man you meet and every woman you meet. Wherever I go, sober by the grace of God one day at a time, I will thank God for you, Dulcinea.”
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