Hope on the Road of Despair
Frederick Buechner’s Bad News
A choice reflection from Frederick Buechner’s Quote of the Day (h/t KW):
The Gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that man is a sinner, to use the old word, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart, that when he looks in the mirror all in a lather what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy. But it is also the news that he is loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy. And yet, so what? So what if even in his sin the slob is loved and forgiven when the very mark and substance of his sin and of his slobbery is that he keeps turning down the love and forgiveness because he either doesn’t believe them or doesn’t want them or just doesn’t give a damn? In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen to him just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen. Henry Ward Beecher cheats on his wife, his God, himself, but manages to keep on bringing the Gospel to life for people anyway, maybe even for himself. Lear goes berserk on a heath but comes out of it for a few brief hours every inch a king. Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul sets out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ. It is impossible for anybody to leave behind the darkness of the world he carries on his back like a snail, but for God all things are possible. That is the fairy tale. All together they are the truth.
– Originally published in Telling the Truth
Dive Bars and the Nazarene
This one was written by Matt Magill. It is good to be inebriated on the cup of God’s salvation. – St. Ambrose I don’t drink much… Err…I don’t drink much in public. My wife and I enjoy lots of wine with friends and even a little too much sometimes, if she can keep me up […]
“A Broth of False and True”: Frederick Buechner’s Godric
My friend John and I are the sole members of an organization we call “The Nerd Book Club.” Once a month or so, we grab coffee and talk about books we’ve always wanted to read but lacked the self-discipline to finish on our own. Recently, we committed to read a novel that has been on […]
“Ken M” and the Wisdom of Trolls
It must have been Mockingbird that first introduced me to the “genius of Ken M.” Since then I’ve grown addicted to his commentary. Ken M (aka Kenneth McCarthy) is a 30something comedy writer masquerading as an opinionated 70something, dropping random comments on the internet. Flood Magazine called him “the world’s preeminent Internet troll,” only Ken […]
MLK, Bobby Kennedy, and the Monumental Grace of Sleep
This wonderful reflection was written by Benjamin Self. I. The great error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock…and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be […]
Why Won’t You Apologize?
“Okay,” [Charlotte] conceded. “Anything I did that was wrong, I apologize for. “But,” she added, addressing Alice’s receding form with increasing volume as Alice got farther down the stairs, “anything I did that was not wrong, I don’t apologize for!” There are at least four reasons why this little scene from The Last Days of […]
The Losing Economy of Forgiveness
Originally published in The Forgiveness Issue of The Mockingbird magazine. Somewhere in North Minneapolis in February of 1993, Mary Johnson received a visit from the police informing her that her only son, 20-year-old Laramiun Byrd, was dead. He had been shot and killed by a sixteen-year-old boy named Oshea Israel after a confrontation at a […]
The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
Our family of four was shopping the other day (and by shopping, I mean my husband was pushing a cart stuffed with two whining kids while I looked for an escape hatch) when we dead-ended into one of those homespun signs that make me cringe a little. I read the words, looked at my husband, and […]
The Crucial Eccentricity of the Christian Faith (According to Frederick Buechner)
Thanks to Key Life for bringing this wonderful, Mr. Rogers-esque clip to our attention. Great final line:
God in The Storm
Like you, I’ve currently been trying to move through season three of House of Cards as slowly as possible, and not watch the whole thing in one sitting. It’s hard to do, even though this season is a lot less binge-friendly than the first two. And it’s hard to do predominantly because the Underwood’s ‘house […]
Frederick Buechner on the Confusion of Faces
A great section from Frederick Buechner’s The Hungering Dark, a book of meditations on the light that can be found in the darkness of doubt. Reminiscent of a staircase invention we’ve heard of before… There is a silly little jingle that goes something like this: My face I don’t mind it For I am behind […]
