Since I just finished The Sacred Journey, Buechner's wonderful spiritual autobiography of his early years, I must share a few excerpts that I love. He was born in the same year as my dad, and much of what he tells about his life in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, made me see my dad's early life in a new way.
"God's coming is always unforeseen, I think, and the reason, if I had to guess, is that if he gave us anything much in the way of advance warning, more often than not we would have made ourselves scarce long before he got there."
"To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world's sake -- even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death -- that little by little we start to come alive."
I'm looking forward to reading the second volume that continues the story at the point where he, at the age of 27, enters Union Theological Seminary in NYC.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
My late friend David, who died at a very early age from NF2, used to LOVE Buechner's writing. I used to read it when I housesat his place when he was gone. Glad you're finding it.
ReplyDelete