When my parents came to Arkansas for their first visit a couple of weeks ago, we stopped by Books-A-Million.  While there, I noticed the cover for Marlin Marnick’s book Charles Manson Now.  I do try to mix up what I’m reading, so I Kindled it later that evening at home and spent the next few days in alternating states of enthrallment, frustration, and fascination with this odd and troubling book.

Marnick’s book is about his own personal journey to try to understand Charles Manson and to meet him, which he finally does.  I was a bit troubled by Marnick’s seeming defense of Manson, though, in truth, he remains fairly objective throughout, letting Manson and the strange subculture of Mansonites speak in their own words.

The book also contains a large number of quotes and selections from Manson’s own letters to and conversations with Marnick.  One of these struck me as particularly sad (most simply struck me as veryodd).  In this selection, Manson speaks briefly about getting out of prison and encountering a preacher.  This is what he says:

“You get out and you find out they were lying all those years. I met the preacher in the parking lot, and I said could I get a ride to the bus stop. No, he was in a hurry, he had a committee meeting. I thought the preacher was real, I thought he was love and Jesus. I didn’t realize he was just another case worker doing a job, and playing preacher for a pay check. He wasn’t a man of God.”

It is a troubling picture: the notorious criminal and the too-busy preacher.  One wonders just what committee meeting the preacher was rushing to: the evangelism committee, perchance?

Even closer to home, I wonder how many times I’ve rushed past a Manson on the way to do “the Lord’s work.”

Just thinking out loud…