... in the long run, there can be no joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all Frederick Buechner More Quotes by Frederick Buechner More Quotes From Frederick Buechner But it has been my experience that the risks are faroutweighed by the rewards, chief of which is when you speak to strangers as though they are friends, more often than not, if only for as long as the encounter lasts, they become friends, and if in the process they also think of you as a little peculiar, who cares? Frederick Buechner risk long thinking Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage. Frederick Buechner mystery men way You enter the extraordinary by way of the ordinary Frederick Buechner extraordinary ordinary way Wether you call on him or don't call on him, God will be present with you. Frederick Buechner gods-will I could, of course, have done no more if no less than affiliated myself in one way or another with a particular church, could have simply read books about Christianity, talked to Christian people, set out to discover something about what a Christian life is supposed to involve and then tried as best I could to live one. But, on the one hand, that didn't seem enough to me, and on the other, it seemed to much. Frederick Buechner christian book hands The Jesus who is the one whom we search for even when we do not know that we are searching and hide from even when we do not know that we are hiding. Frederick Buechner hiding knows jesus To be bored is to turn a cold shoulder to engage all that God is and has for you in the moment. Frederick Buechner cold bored moments The Shield was another of the Fear's names. According to Laughter, it means he shields the seed of Abraham the way a man starting a fire shields the flame. When Sarah was about to die childless, the Fear gave her a son. When Abraham was about to slaughter the son, the Fear gave him the ram. He is always shielding us like a guttering wick, Laughter said, because the fire he is trying to start with us is a fire that the whole world will live to warm its hands at. It is a fire in the dark that will light the whole world home. Frederick Buechner laughter home mean She was right that reality can be harsh and that you shut your eyes to it only at your peril because if you do not face up to the enemy in all his dark power, then the enemy will come up from behind some dark day and destoy you while you are facing the other way. Frederick Buechner eye dark reality Your vocation lies in the intersection of the world's deep need and your deep joy. Frederick Buechner joy lying needs When friends speak overmuch of times gone by, often it's because they sense their present time is turning them from friends to strangers. Long before the moment came to say goodbye, I think, we said goodbye in other words and ways and silences. Then when the moment came for it at last, we didn't say it as should be said by friends. So now at last, dear Mouse, with many, many years between: goodbye. Frederick Buechner goodbye years thinking Principles are what people have instead of God. To be a Christian means among other things to be willing if necessary to sacrifice even your highest principles for God's or your neighbour's sake the way a Christian pacifist must be willing to pick up a baseball bat if there's no other way to stop a man from savagely beating a child. Jesus didn't forgive his executioners on principle but because in some unimaginable way he was able to love them. 'Principle' is an even duller word than 'Religion'. Frederick Buechner baseball christian jesus Many an atheist is a believer without knowing it juast as many a believer is an atheist without knowing it. You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't. Frederick Buechner atheist knowing believe Like Buddha under the Bo tree, Jesus, on his tree, has his eyes closed too. The difference is this. The pain and sadness of the world that Buddha's eyes close out is the pain and sadness of the world that the eyes of Jesus close in. Frederick Buechner sadness pain jesus Gail Godwin has written a book about the heaviest matters of loss, grief, and loneliness with a touch so light that I was as often deeply amused by it as I was deeply moved. Frederick Buechner grief loneliness book He [Jesus] speaks in parables, and though we have approached these parables reverentially all these many years and have heard them expounded as grave and reverent vehicles of holy truth, I suspect that many if not all of them were originally not grave at all but were antic, comic, often more than just a little shocking. Frederick Buechner littles years jesus And there are other dangers potentially more dangerous than even nuclear war. There is AIDS. There is terrorism. There are drugs and more to the point the darkness of our time that makes people seek escape in drugs. There is the slow poisoning of what we call "the environment" of all things as if with that absurdly antiseptic phrase we can conceal from ourselves that what we are really poisoning is home, is here, is us. Frederick Buechner home war people Envy is the consuming desire to have everybody else as unsuccessful as you are. Frederick Buechner envy unsuccessful desire ... the world can give you these glimpses as well as fairy tales can--the smell of rain, the dazzle of sun on white clapboard with the shadows of ferns and wash on the line, the wildness of a winter storm when in the house the flame of a candle doesn't even flicker. Frederick Buechner flames rain winter God in his unending greatness and glory and man in his unending littleness, prepared for the worst but rarely for the best, prepared for the possible but rarely for the impossible. Frederick Buechner greatness impossible men
