The following are quotes from the book by Jeffrey Munroe titled Reading Buechner. In the book Jeff gives an overview of the varied writings by Fredrick Buechner. I have placed below some of the words that grabbed my attention. I must say that I was blessed and enriched by the material in this book. I have not read much of Buechner's work only using a few of his theological ABC books in my sermonizing.In listening to Jeff review these works there are a number of Buechner books I should put on reading list. I hope you will read these quotes and ask how they might apply to your life and faith. This will be the first of a number of parts to my reporting on my read of this book.
Pain is universal and giving ourselves permission to feel and acknowledge pain is liberating!
To be a good steward is to ask oneself, What am I doing with what I've been given? With my pain, yes, but more than that, with my very life?
The path to healing, to wholeness, to salvation, is always through the difficult and painful things, not around them.
The story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all.
What matters most is the experience of God's presence, not the objective proof of God's existence.
Revelation is personal: if God speaks at all, he speaks into our personal lives, all systems of theology start first as personal experience.
Writing about his pain became a way to deal with it...conviction that God is paradoxically at work even through the worst that happens...
God speaks to us most clearly through His silence, his absence, so that we know Him best through our missing Him.
God is speaking and working even in the seemingly random and mundane parts of life. Most of the time we aren't paying attention and miss it. But God is still speaking...Our task is to pay attention, to stop, look and listen for what God is doing.
"Is it true?" is the question those in church most want the preacher to address.
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.
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