View from the front porch
Fredrick Buechner 1926-2022
I’ve been thinking about Fredrick Beuchner who died this past week. Only slightly acquainted with his life and writings, reading tributes has made me aware of how limited my appreciation is for people outside of my echo chamber, and missed opportunities to enjoy the infinite wonder and beauty of humanity. I enjoyed this tribute particularly :
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/reflection/frederick-buechner-s-many-benedictions
Also:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/21/us/frederick-buechner-appreciation-blake-cec/index.html
Buechner never stopped searching his own life for clues to the presence of God. This quest became one of his overarching themes: “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.”
“Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.”
Fredrick Buechner “Beyond Words.”
“We are our secrets,” Buechner once wrote. “They are the essence of what makes us ourselves. They are the rich loam out of which, for better or worse, grow the selves by which the world knows us. If we are ever to be free and whole, we must be free from their darkness and have their spell over us broken.”
‘If there was no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.’
“If more pastor-theologians were as brutally honest about their broken lives, as Fred Buechner was,” he wrote, “…I dare say the church would be a healthier place.”
He once said that faith for him was not like undergoing some version of “Christian plastic surgery” where all doubts are removed, but more like waking up every morning asking himself, “Can I believe it all again today?”
The digital revolution has generated massive increases in information, more modest increases in knowledge, and a huge deficit in wisdom.
Jonah Goldberg
Laughter
The trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis recalls a revealing backstage moment. “It was me, Willie, B.B. King, Ray Charles and Eric Clapton,” he says, all shooting the breeze — “and Willie said: ‘Well, gentlemen, I think I’m the only one here who actually picked cotton.’” Everyone burst into laughter.
Morality
In the face of the moral complexity and difficulty of the true Christian moral call, we’ve created a hierarchy of values. It’s not that we absolutely reject kindness or humility or decency. It’s not that we’re going to condemn the fruit of the spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—it’s just that they’re “secondary values.” When push comes to shove, it’s our vision of justice that matters.
Christian young people are often taught that they should be countercultural. The youth group version of that admonition goes something like this: When the world is profane, your speech is clean. When the world is drunk, you are sober. When the world is promiscuous, you are chaste. How do you know we’re Christian? We don’t cuss, drink, or have premarital sex.
But the call to counterculture is much more comprehensive. When the world is greedy, you are generous. When the world is cruel, you are kind. When the world is fearful, you are faithful. When the world is proud, you are humble. How do you know we’re Christian, by our love.
David French
https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/christian-political-ethics-are-upside?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Faith
Faith, as we see in the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus’ usage of them, is much closer to our words “trust” or “confidence” than it is about believing doctrines to be true. Simply believing doctrines demands almost no ego-surrender or real change of the small self. Holding confidence that God is good, God can be trusted, and God is actively involved in my life is a much more powerful and effective practice. This is the practical power of biblical faith. Faith-filled people are, quite simply, usable for larger purposes because they live in and listen to a much Larger Self.
Richard Rohr
Transparency
Elijah is transparent and honest with God. His words are a livid accusation and agonizing lament. What I want us to appreciate is the quality of gut-level honesty. God can handle our honesty. In fact, I think it is one of the most fundamental things God wants and expects from us. He knows already. To the extent we are not fully disclosing ourselves to God we are withholding, and to that extent we are protecting God from our pain; which is another way of saying we are hiding from God. And when we protect God from our pain we will develop one of two broken responses: We will internalize it or exercise it on others. We can’t handle that. Neither can they. God can and will.
J D Walt
Contemplation
Father William McNamara’s definition of contemplation—“a long loving look at the real”—became transformative. The world, my own issues and hurts, all goals and desires gradually dissolved into proper perspective. God became obvious and everywhere.
Contemplation is a way to hear with the Spirit and not just with the head. Contemplation is the search for a wide-open space, a space broad enough for the head, the heart, the feelings, the gut, the subconscious, our memories, our intuitions, our whole body. We need a holistic place for discerning wisdom.
The effect of contemplation is authentic action; if contemplation doesn’t lead to genuine action, then it remains only navel-gazing and self-preoccupation.
Richard Rohr
Joy
One more observation about joy … To translate the beatitudes with the word “happy,” …short-changes the sense of the term makarios. Notice who is blessed and notice if we connect them to our senses of happiness: the poor, the persecuted, the mourners, the meek… etc.. No these are social groups without status and they are the ones upon whom Jesus says “God’s favor” rests, which is the theological theme at work in the term “blessed.” When we know God’s favor rests on us we can live in joy in spite of our circumstances (which does not mean we can’t work to change our circumstances). Joy is a term that pokes out of the ground when tension, persecution, and suffering are the topic of discussion.
Scot McKnight on https://amzn.to/3PN7ioB
One of the reasons people feel distant from God is because their doctrine tells them that the faith is mainly about personal salvation….once you’ve attained that, there is nothing left to do. The truth is that “getting saved” is just one step in a long process of transformation and fellowship with God is found in working out that salvation ….you need His help to love your enemy and be happy about it…
Phoenix Preacher
“The reward of the search is to go on searching. The soul’s desire is fulfilled by the very fact of its remaining unsatisfied; for really to see God is never to have had one’s fill of desiring Him” – Gregory of Nyassa
STILL ON THE JOURNEY