Honoring Frederick Buechner
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Frederick Buechner, one of my all-time favorite spiritual writers, passed away peacefully in his home Monday at the ripe age of 96. When I first received the text from a seminary friend, I heard myself groan. There is something profoundly unsettling about the death of your spiritual guides, and it has come more frequently in recent years . . . Bill Mallard (2014), Fred Craddock (2015), Thomas Keating, Eugene Peterson (2018), Macrina Wiedekehr (2020), Desmond Tutu (2021), and Thich Nhat Hanh (2022) to name a few. Even though I was not in regular contact with, or in some cases never personally met, these spiritual teachers, their embodied presence and continued living, teaching and writing gave me hope and solace.
Ever since I received the news of his death, I’ve been contemplating the profound effect Frederick Buechner’s writing has had on me. While it may sound dramatic, it is not an overstatement to say that Buechner's words changed the course of my whole life.
Looking for spiritual community as a freshman at Furman University, I tried out the various campus ministries. The night I attended the Baptist Student Union, the speaker quoted Frederick Buechner on the subject of vocation: "The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." I don’t remember if he quoted the whole excerpt from Wishful Thinking, (the first Buechner book I purchased in search of that quote in the days before internet), but that single quote seized upon my heart and imagination. I had never heard someone talk about work as vocation, and certainly never characterized it as something that should bring you deep gladness. In essence, Buechner was asking me a question it would take my whole lifetime to answer: Where do the world’s deep hunger and my deep gladness meet? I longed to discover that intersection.
In the years that followed, I realized the medical profession I was pursuing might meet a deep hunger and bring me great wealth and prestige, but I couldn’t say it would bring me joy. I knew others wanted it for me, but my own heart was not in it. But if not medicine, what was my calling? I was struggling and praying with the question, when Bill Daniel from my home church, Isle of Hope UMC, called to offer me the position as summer youth intern. Something in me resounded with a deep YES, and that was the summer, I didn’t just wonder what Buechner meant, but experienced it for myself.
I have been pursuing that sacred intersection ever since, continuing to ask if the work I am doing meets Buechner’s “qualifications” for calling (a) the work I most need to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. Finally, my math proclivities paid off; for me, a + b= deep meaning and joy.
It is stunning to think where I might be had I not gone to the Baptist Student Union, had not heard Frederick Buechner, had not received that call from Bill Daniel. And that reminds me of one of my other favorite Buechner truths:
Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.
In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it,
because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace.
Part of the answer to Buechner’s vocational question has been the invitation to listen to my life, and to help others listen to theirs. Buechner and others have convinced me that God shows up in our real daily lives, in our stories, but usually in mysterious, even hidden ways. We have to pay exquisite attention. We have to listen and look for the grace.
Buechner also opened up a whole world of spiritual literature that I never knew existed. Growing up with only a family Christian bookstore in Savannah, shaped primarily by the theology of our pastors and preachers, I had never heard of writers like Henri Nouwen, Parker Palmer or Barbara Brown Taylor, Howard Thurman, Anne Lamott or Thomas Merton. These spiritual writers, past and present, wrote with such humanity and inspiration, such eloquence and profundity, they completely opened up the spiritual journey for me, offered me new ways to think, believe and live that engaged my whole being and changed absolutely everything. I have been voraciously feasting on such spiritual wisdom ever since, and inviting others to come satisfy their own soul’s hunger.
So it with both great sadness and immense gratitude that I sit with the news of Frederick Buechner’s death. I’m grateful for the reminder that our words matter, that a single sentence can change a whole life, possibly thousands. I’m grateful for spiritual wisdom passed on from generation to generation that feeds our souls and illuminates our paths. I’m grateful for the reminder to listen, to share our stories, to tend the world’s hunger, and to seek deep joy.
I’m grateful I got to sit in the Wellsprings circle last night and hear what Buechner had meant to others, how his wisdom had shaped their own spiritual journeys, how we keep coming back to certain excerpts and books for the truth he could so beautifully articulate. As we contemplated his powerful legacy, the grace flowed over all the distances and histories between us, and was especially palpable when Sally read this quote:
What’s lost is nothing to what’s found,
and all the death that ever was, set next to life,
would scarcely fill a cup.
Thank you dear Frederick Buechner for your life, your stories, your incredible words. As we grieve our loss, may it be just a cup next to the immensity of life you’ve given us.
If you do not already know his work, I cannot commend it highly enough. Here's an article about his passing and legacy. Here are my personal favorite books:
Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC
Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations
Gratefully,
Kimberly