The Sacred Journey: a memoir of early days - Fredrick Buechner

Within the covers of this book is a clear example of Buechner’s ability to intentionally listen to the sounds around him—the seemingly insignificant noises of everyday life through which God’s voice can be heard. Buechner’s analogy of God’s voice being the “alphabet of grace” (4), comparing it to the Hebrew language which carries a certain mysterious and cryptic nature owed to its lack of vowels, is embodied within the retelling of his story. I have found this to be true, also, in my own life—not only the challenge of deciphering what exactly is the voice of God among others—but then attempting to discern what it is He is trying to tell me. Buechner challenged me to listen with intentionality and curiosity—for God’s voice may be found in a ticking clock, a crowing rooster, or singing swallows. I must admit, I long to be able to find meaning in the background noise (be it aural, visual, or otherwise) but it is not a strength of mine. However, Buechner (and even Lamott) inspire me to slow down, to listen, to look, and to pause in order that I may make room for the words—cryptic as they may be—that God is speaking.

Buechner speaks of the last encounter with his father alive as when “time started” (58), that is, the point of life when each of us comes to the realization that the clock is ticking against us all and that we are not frozen in a utopian existence; rather we are in a deeply broken and fallen world and will be subjected to its pain. I wondered, “When did time start for me?” Although I have yet not found an answer to this question, it continues to come to mind not only within the context of my own life, but now within my role as a father. On the one hand I constantly live with a desire to shelter my children and protect them from the brokenness of this world, yet on the other hand I long to raise them as people who are rooted and engaged with reality—and this will bring hurt. Maybe the truth can be found simply in the reality that we are people of the Kingdom—that we are in the tension of the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’—and through our pain we can live in great hope. Or, as Buechner puts it, “…in the long run, there can be no real joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all”(97)—that is, when we are beyond time.