For two years, between 1971 and 1973, I lived with a community of Franciscans in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Three were priests, two were lay brothers. I was thirty-five years old at the time, the adventure of my faith in full sail. The shore was a port city, the second and largest in the United States, after the one in New York. A few of us worked on the shrimp boats there whenever they needed help. It was short-term work, ten days at sea, trawling for shrimp, flounder, snapper. We were always careful when we went to sea. Always. One day we were on our way home from Beaumont when we caught the end of a Texas tailstorm. The water was calm at first. And our forty-five-foot-long boat bobbed lazily in the water like the boat on the cover of this book. But suddenly the clouds gathered and the temperature dropped. The sea began to churn, sweeping spray across the bow. Waves pummeled the sides of the boat. Our seasoned captain told us to get below. Below deck, we reached for metal handles and dear life. I was convinced we were going to die. Then the storm, the real storm, hit. Winds of 120 miles per hour. Sudden swells ten feet high. It was a fury unleashed. Someone once said, If a man would learn to pray, let him go to sea. My life has been a life lived in God's furious longing. And I have learned to pray.

Brennan Manning. 'The Furious Longing of God'