{"id":4255,"date":"2015-04-27T09:58:02","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T15:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=4255"},"modified":"2015-04-27T10:01:49","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T16:01:49","slug":"monday-morning-confessional-frederick-buechner-and-listening-to-your-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/04\/monday-morning-confessional-frederick-buechner-and-listening-to-your-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Confessional: Frederick Buechner, and Listening to Your Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"fb\"<\/a>I confess that a friend of mine just picked up Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner<\/em><\/a>, and sent me a pic that\u00a0reminded me of this great little devotional book. I\u2019m grateful for the reminder.<\/p>\n

There were a couple of years in the late 90s, while I was traveling with Satellite Soul, that\u00a0this book was a part of my daily life that spilled over into sprawling, capacious conversations about Jesus and our own lives. I picked it up again just a few years ago, along with the Thomas Merton daily readings volume called A Year With Thomas Merton<\/em><\/a>, and have used them often to seed my imagination for writing & to give me some hope in the midst of days that are painful.<\/p>\n

I stumbled upon Buechner when I was in college. The<\/em>\u00a0Son of Laughter<\/em><\/a> was the first thing I read, and it forever changed the way I read the Old Testament. Buechner\u2019s vulnerability in writing, his honesty in telling his stories and the stories of those around him, and his courage in facing the darkness without and within have made his writing as meaningful to me as anything I\u2019ve read over the years. I rarely preach a sermon without referencing Secrets in the Dark<\/em><\/a> to see what he has said. My copy is so marked up and dog-eared that I sometimes wonder if I should start off with a fresh new edition.<\/p>\n

I confess that there is something about Frederick Buechner\u2019s\u00a0writing that draws me in when I am in pain. When I\u2019m experiencing some sort of tension from relationships or drama, I am drawn to Buechner\u2019s writings. I think perhaps it is because he\u2019s been such a good steward of his pain over the years, and allowed it to shape his life, and the lives of others through his books. I also think that there is a constant refrain in his work\u2013listen to your life\u2013that sets me up to encounter pain with the right posture.<\/p>\n

Pain is our greatest teacher. Christians are meant to encounter pain with the firm conviction that it will not destroy us, and if it will not destroy us, then it will help us to grow and change and become more like Jesus. One way or another my life must conform to the pattern of cross and resurrection. \u201cThe pains of hell can be no sharper than the pains we suffer here,\u201d he once wrote.<\/p>\n

When people are in pain, they hurt the people around them. The only way to avoid this is to somehow allow that pain to transform us. It\u2019s dying to the self, a willingness to face our stuff and change. The result is a small death & resurrection. It happens within the soul, the relationship, the present reality of the pain as it is experienced. Buechner helps me to soften to that process. I\u2019m going to keep this on my desk & spend more time in it over the next few months. I believe\u2026 help me in my unbelief.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I confess that a friend of mine just picked up Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner, and sent me a pic that\u00a0reminded me of this great little devotional book. I\u2019m grateful for the reminder. There were a couple of years in the late 90s, while I was traveling with Satellite Soul, that\u00a0this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":4257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,249],"class_list":["post-4255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-frederick-buechner","tag-pain"],"yoast_head":"\nMonday Morning Confessional: Frederick Buechner, and Listening to Your Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I confess that a friend of mine just picked up Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner, and sent me a pic that\u00a0reminded me of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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