Category: the real self

In whatever idiotic way

And if he is the truth and the life, we will find it out soon enough for ourselves, you can be sure of that. If we want to find it out, if we are willing to draw near in whatever idiotic way we can, all our reservations and doubts notwithstanding, because little by little we find out then that to be where he is, to go where he goes, to see through eyes and work with hands like his is to feel like ourselves at last, is to become fully ourselves at last and fully each other’s at last, and to become finally more even than that: to become fully his at last.

Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “The Sign by the Highway”

Tags Frederick Buechner, fully his, fully ourselves, idiotic, Secrets in the Dark, sermon, truth and life

the real self truth

The other side of a red line

Post author By dw
Post date September 22, 2018
1 Comment on The other side of a red line

What is the truth? It is not the answer to any question that we know how to ask. Can there be a truth that saves, can there be salvation, for those who have learned of life not to believe in salvation? Only on the other side of pain…the pained embarrassment at the words Jesus Saves, which at its heart is a pained embarrassment at our own nakedness and incompleteness…pain that brought tears to the eyes…of hope betrayed…the pain of the good thief, which is the pain of surrender, the pain of acknowledging finally our utter helplessness to save ourselves.”

Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “The Sign by the Highway”

Tags embarrassment, Frederick Buechner, Jesus saves, red line, salvation, Secrets in the Dark, sermon, truth

the real self

The empty place

Post author By dw
Post date July 3, 2018
1 Comment on The empty place

I think…there is…hope that, if not tomorrow or the next day, then some fine day, somehow, life will finally give us the present that, when we open it, will turn out to be the one we have waited for so long, the one that will fill the empty place, which is the peace that passeth all understanding, which is the truth, salvation, whatever we want to call it. But one by one, as we open the presents, no matter how rich and wondrous they are, we discover that not one of them by itself, nor even all of them taken together, is the one of our deepest desiring — that ultimately, although her face is beautiful and draws us to her, life by herself does not have that final present to give.

Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “The Sign by the Highway”

Tags emptiness, Frederick Buechner, life, peace, salvation, Secrets in the Dark, sermon, truth

the real self

The miracle we get

“It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God’s presence. That is the miracle that we are really after. And that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.”

Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “Message in the Stars”

Tags Frederick Buechner, God's existence, God's presence, miracle, Secrets in the Dark, sermon

hope the real self

More courage needed

To find “ourselves” then is to find not only our poor, limited, perplexed souls, but to find the power of God that raised Christ from the dead and “built us together in Him unto a habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22).

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island