"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." ~Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner’s Beautiful and Terrible World

Posted on by Michele Morin

First impressions are usually lasting, and that was certainly the case with my introduction to Frederick Buechner, which came through a Luci Shaw poem. She quoted these nourishing words in a season of seeking intimacy with God:  “Beat a trail to God long enough, and he will come to you on the trail you have beaten, bringing you the gift of himself.” Buechner (pronounced “Beek-ner”) offered the gift of the right words at the right time for me, as he seemed to be describing the spiritual pacing that comprised the prayer life of a busy mum.

Later, Buechner’s was the voice I heard connecting the dots between my “deep gladness” and the “world’s deep hunger” as I learned the nature of calling–in between vacuuming floors and making stacks of peanut butter sandwiches.  When I discovered that Jeffrey Munroe had written a book featuring Buechner’s memoirs, novels, theological works, and his sermons, I knew it was time to dig in and become better acquainted with the author whose quotable words kept drawing me in.

The Long Shadow of Pain

In some ways, Buechner was formed by horror and pain:  he was ten years old when his father committed suicide. Later, his brother passed away, and his daughter suffered from an ongoing struggle with anorexia nervosa. Munroe (his biographer) has also traveled through some deep sorrow and, in Reading Buechner, he asserts that tragedy, rather than turning him away from God, invited him to ask, along with his literary mentor, “What is God saying here?”–a timely question for all of us in a season of pandemic.

Buechner’s multi-genre giftedness encourages a reader to follow a theme from his fiction into his more theological writing, and then to connect the dots to his life story, so generously poured out in seven works of memoir. All Buechner’s work challenges me. As a conservative evangelical, I wish he would color inside the theological lines on points like the sovereignty of God. And, having raised four rowdy boys, I should be immune to the stomach-turning preponderance of bodily fluids and functions and the coarse observations of the characters in Buechner’s fiction. After all, in Godric’s and Brendan’s Middle Ages, everyone was terminal and toothless by the age of forty (and illiterate to boot), so what else was there to talk about?

Whether you’ve been reading Buechner all your life, or, like me, you’ve been bumping into his quotable words and thinking it’s time to get better acquainted,  Reading Buechner is an enlightening and accessible celebration of the richness of Buechner’s work. When my sons were born, and now as we welcome grandchildren into our family and into the world, Frederick Buechner’s writing offers a framework to support my embrace of paradox–and I continue to harvest his words these days to express my heart as a believing grandmother who longs to protect and nurture, but has learned some things about the long shadow of pain:

Here is the world.
Beautiful and terrible things will happen.
Don’t be afraid.”

Many thanks to InterVarsity Press for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which, of course, is offered freely and with honesty.

Grace and peace to you,

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees. If you should decide to purchase Reading Buechner: Exploring the Work of a Master Memoirist, Novelist, Theologian, and Preacher, simply click on the title or the image, and you’ll be taken directly to Amazon. If you decide to buy, I’ll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

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Photo by Anastasia Lysiak on Unsplash

 

Published by Michele Morin

Michele Morin is a Bible teacher, writer, reader, and gardener committed to the truth that women can become confident Christ-followers and students of God's Word. She has been married to an unreasonably patient husband for thirty-plus years, and together they have four sons, four daughters-in-love, and six adorable grandchildren. Michele loves hot tea and well-crafted sentences, poems that stop her in her tracks, and days at the ocean with the whole family. She laments biblical illiteracy and advocates for the prudent use of “little minutes.” She blogs at Living Our Days, and you can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

40 thoughts on “Frederick Buechner’s Beautiful and Terrible World”

  4. I must put myself in the “been bumping into his quotable words and thinking it’s time to get better acquainted” camp. Beuchner has long looked like an interesting aruthor to me. He’s worth reading just for the beautiful quote you post here.

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  6. I love that quote Michele!
    “Here is the world.
    Beautiful and terrible things will happen.
    Don’t be afraid.”
    This is a new author to me, sounds quite interesting.
    Blessings,
    Jennifer

    Like

  10. I too have bumped into Buechner numerous times in my reading; sometimes I’ve recorded his gems for their wisdom or thought-provoking truth. For example: “If history lasts long enough for archaeologists some five hundred or a thousand years hence, say, to dig back into our age, I predict…{they will be] staggered to discover how obsessed we were with the very madness that destroyed us” (A Room Called Remember, 1984, p. 109). Seems very appropriate for these times we live in. P.S. Thank you for including the correct way to pronounce his name. I’ve been saying it wrong in my head for who knows how many years?!

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  12. That last quote, Michele … so powerful. I’ve seen Buechner quoted here and there but didn’t really know much else about him. I appreciate learning how his words have touched you in various seasons of life.

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  14. Michele,
    Yes, our pain will either send us fleeing from God or will draw us into Him. I have been asking, “What is God saying (to me) here?” What is he saying to our world in general? I do think that persevering through pain helps us to color in the fine shades of meaning in between the hard lines of theology.
    Blessings,
    Bev xx

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  19. ********************************************************
    Thank you for sharing at #OverTheMoon. Pinned and shared. Have a lovely week. I hope to see you at next week’s party too! Please stay safe and healthy. Come party with us at Over The Moon! Catapult your content Over The Moon! @marilyn_lesniak @EclecticRedBarn
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  21. Not an author that I am familiar with, but sorrow seems to have inspired wisdom based on your review. Thanks for linking up with #globalblogging

    Like

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