Author and theologian Frederick Buechner died on August 15, 2022, at age 96. His books have been beloved companions, for me as well as for so many colleagues in ministry. Buechner’s ability to see life, all of life, through the lens of faith lifted our spirits and strengthened – even saved – many a sermon!
His way with words…it was both gift and craft. In gratitude for Buechner’s voice and memory, I share his reflection on Life from Wishful Thinking:
The temptation is always to reduce it to size. A bowl of cherries. A rat race. Amino acids. Even to call it a mystery smacks of reductionism. It is the mystery.
As far as anybody seems to know, the vast majority of things in the universe do not have whatever life is. Sticks, stones, stars, space – they simply are. A few things are and are somehow aware of it. They have broken through into Something, or Something has broken through into them. Even a jellyfish, a butternut squash. They’re in it with us. We’re all in it together, or it in us. Life is it. Life is with.
After lecturing learnedly on miracles, a great theologian was asked to give a specific example of one. “There is only one miracle,” he answered. “It is life.”
Have you wept at anything during the past year?
Has your heart beat faster at the sight of young beauty?
Have you thought seriously about the fact that someday you are going to die?
More often than not do you really listen when people are speaking to you instead of just waiting for your turn to speak?
Is there anybody you know in whose place, if one of you had to suffer great pain, you would volunteer yourself?
If your answer to all or most of these questions is No, the chances are that you’re dead.
Life with Frederick Buechner was deep and abundant. His imagination and insight and his humor enriched our study of the Bible’s people – who are in reality ourselves – their God, and our knowledge of one another.
Today we give thanks to God for the life of Frederick Buechner.
Do you have a favorite Frederick Buechner quote?
-Written by Rev. Ann Palmerton
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I have so very many favorite Buechner quotes, including this one:
The grace of God means something like: “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”
“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you. There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”
Great minds think alike! I’m going to challenge myself to find another quote to put in here.
Beautiful, Ann. Many thanks.
I am not an expert on Buechner, but here is a quote I found that is SO apt for today:
“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”
Frederick Buechner helped me understand that you reach “the extraordinary through the ordinary.” (So, I try not to miss it when I’m doing chores.)
“What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are… because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier… for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own…”
No one’s quotes have been more helpful to me than Buechner’s. Back when I was doing spiritual direction, I often used this one, giving it to directees to reflect on before their next session: “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”