Bits of Buechner and a Prayer to Begin The Week

I had no idea how to start posting today and them I came across a few extracts from Frederick Buechner and Fr Austin's Monday Morning Offering and voila !, they all  connected and the problem was solved !!




Becoming Human
Frederick Buechner

I don't think that it is always necessary to talk about the deepest and most private dimension of who we are, but I think we are called to talk to each other out of it, and just as importantly to listen to each other out of it, to live out of our depths as well as our shallows. 

We are all of us adolescents, painfully growing and groping our way toward something like true adulthood, and maybe the greatest value we have both to teach and to learn as we go is the capacity to be amazed...

which is a power to heal us and bless us and in the end maybe even to transform us into truly human beings at last.
Source: The Clown in the Belfry
 

From Faith and Fiction, Frederick Buechner:
The ways God appears in our lives are elusive and ambiguous always. There is always room for doubt in order, perhaps, that there will always be room to breathe. There is so much in life that hides God and denies the very possibility of God that there are times when it is hard not to deny God altogether.
Yet it is possible to have faith nonetheless. Faith is that Nonetheless.
Writing strikes me as intravenous.
As you sit there only a few inches from the printed page, the words you read go directly into the bloodstream and go into it at full strength. More than the painting you see or the music you hear, the words you read become in the very act of reading them part of who you are. . . .
If there is poison in the words, you are poisoned; if there is nourishment, you are nourished; if there is beauty, you are made a little more beautiful."

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. 

(Frederick Buechner)



From Now&Then
Because the word that God speaks to us is always an incarnate word–a word spelled out to us not alphabetically, in syllables, but enigmatically, in events, even in the books we read and the movies we see–the chances are we will never get it just right. 
We are so used to hearing what we want to hear and remaining deaf to what it would be well for us to hear that it is hard to break the habit. 
But if we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize, beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear him, he is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, his word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling.
In that sense autobiography becomes a way of praying, and a book like this, if it matters at all, matters mostly as a call to prayer.


Fr Austin's  Monday Morning Offering from A Concord Pastor Comments

 
Quite a week behind me, Lord,
but you know all about that
so details aren’t important here…

How easily I can be thrown off balance, Lord!

Sometimes,
just when things seem so steady and secure,
I’m knocked off my pins,
weaving between surety and doubt,
wondering if what I’m sure is true is true…

Do I trust what should be trusted?
Is my faithfulness real or imagined?
Are my judgments right or wrong?

An unsettling time it was, Lord,
with worry renting space
in my head and heart and gut…

But clouds give way to light, Lord,
and troubled waters calmed
as I turned to you for peace
when peace was hard to find…

For your grace over the past week,
I thank you, Lord…

For friends who listen and support,
who understand and counsel,
who coach and challenge,
I thank you, Lord…

For your breath upon my soul,
reminding me of your presence,
refreshing joyful memories
and opening me to new blessings,
I thank you, Lord…

For your love that roots me
in you and in my ministry,
I thank you, Lord…

For making steady my faltering steps,
for lifting me up when I fall,
for showing me the path to walk,
I thank you, Lord…

Shine the light of your truth
upon the whole of my life, Lord:
show me the weaknesses I hide from
and reveal the strength I’m slow to claim…

Strengthen me in my faith
and open me to all the ways
I need to grow and change…

I offer you the week past, Lord,
with the hope and prayer I’ve learned from it
and grown in the gifts of your Spirit…

Keep me mindful of those who cross my path
having their own difficult days and weeks
and if I might comfort or challenge them,
give me the words to speak and love to share…

Such is my prayer this morning, Lord:
keep me faithful to you through this day
and through the week ahead…

Amen.
Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments: