Buechner Says It Better (..tonight in Warsaw, Indiana.. revisited)

March 13th, 2009 § 2

On the plane home from Indiana, I was reading one fo Frederick Buechner’s memoirs, entitled “Telling Secrets.” (Not to be confused with his collection of sermons, entitled “Secrets in the Dark” or the animated classic “The Secret of NIMH” which has no correlation with Buechner at all)

In the introduction of the book, Buechner writes:

“After forty years of writing books, I find I need to put things into words before I can believe that they are entirely real.”

This is a more concise way of getting at the heart of my reflection from Warsaw. He goes on to write…

“..what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we fear more than anything else.”

As my previous post attests to, I am learning that one of oddest things about being “fully human” is that it includes a sense of division within myself; not being fully who I think I am or want to be. The trick becomes not waiting until we are “whole” or “fixed,” but embracing our complexity and incompleteness as is. Like covering our nakedness with leaves, it seems unnaturally natural to hide behind competence and health (I actually sat staring at my screen for a bit before posting the Warsaw, IN blog because somewhere in my guts, I was afraid that I would lose standing with the millions of people who have grown up respecting me… then I realized I had confused myself with Michael Jackson, which happens all the time.) But in the long run, keeping up appearances not only keeps us from the opportunity to be loved as we are, but furthers the social game which traps others in a fear of their own humanity.

Fred (can I call you Fred?) later writes this:

“The God of biblical faith is the God who meets us at those moments in which, for better or worse, we are being most human, most ourselves…”

This has always been part of why I write (songs, blogs, etc… ).. to unearth myself in hopes that I can/will be loved and inspireothers to do the same. Buechner’s work does that for me, I’m just passing along the goodness.