Good afternoon, ” Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.” Frederick Buechner
David Brooks wrote about Frederick Buechner in the weekend edition of the New York Times. Last week I wrote in my blog about the influence that Buechner had on me as a person, and as a pastor. Brooks had a recent born again experience as an adult. He wrote about it in a book called ” The Second Mountain “. He was a person of faith, but after his divorce from his first wife, he met God in a different way.
Buechner also came to faith, in a new way, as an adult. He never fell into the evangelical box nor the liberal box. I guess he listened to God, and then spoke out of that experience. Brooks writes, ” By and large his ( Buechner ) books do not make arguments. They tell stories, let you experience another person’s experience , let you get involved with deep parts of one person’s life…” I like stories, and people tend to remember stories that lead them to be better people. I think that is Buechners’ legacy. I think that is Jesus’ legacy and teaching as well.
Buechner wrote many things, but maybe his most famous line is , ” You find your vocation at the spot where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”
Brooks is a political writer, but he says maybe the United States thinks too much about politics, in an attempt to evade their real selves. Thank you to David Brooks for writing in the New York Times about the importance of Buechner as a writer who wrote and preached from a Chrsitian perspective.
” I could not stop thanking God for you, and every time I prayed I would think of you and give thanks… ” Ephesians 1:6 from The Message.Grace and peace for all of us.
Fred Chaos in the winds Scattering my troubled thoughts to land on soft clouds Monika Pieper Landoni 2022