Tag: a room called remember

hope

Next to Last

By faith we understand, if we are to understand it at all, that the madness and lostness we see all around us and within us are not the last truth about the world but only the next to the last truth.
Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “Faith”

To have faith is to remember and wait, and to wait in hope is to have what we hope for already begin to come true in us through our hoping.
Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “A Room Called Remember”

May the last truth shine through to whatever truth you are experiencing now.

May the hope you are waiting for be true in your life now.

Grace and peace to you…

Tags a room called remember, faith, Frederick Buechner, hope, Secrets in the Dark, truth

Current Events Poetry Uncategorized

Up to its knees in the past

Post author By dw
Post date June 14, 2020
No Comments on Up to its knees in the past

Reflecting again on the nature of hope brings me back to a quote from Frederick Buechner I posted last year.

Click through to see where I think hope ends.

Then at last we see what hope is and where it comes from, hope as the driving power and outermost edge of faith. Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future…shall is the verb of hope.
Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “A Room Called Remember”
Up to its knees in the past – becoming flame

Grace and peace to you…

Tags a room called remember, choice, despair, Frederick Buechner, future, hope, past, Secrets in the Dark

hope Other Writings Poetry

Never really alone

lone person in totallyl white, snowy emptiness

So in the room called Remember it is possible to find peace – the peace that comes from looking back and remembering to remember that though most of the time we failed to see it, we were never really alone.

Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “A Room Called Remember”

The voice didn’t say
You are utterly alone:
I would have heard the lie for what it was.

No, it said
You will always feel this alone;
You will always be misunderstood;
You will never have what you are longing for.
All is dark and there is no remedy.

And so, I felt that alone,
that misunderstood;
I felt the aching longing,
the hopelessness.
I felt the desolation of that voice.
I felt it as long as I listened,
many years.

“Show us a sign,” the people said.
“What sign shall I give to a people who don’t listen?” he said,
“There are signs all around you.
Wake up, pay attention, and see.
I am at hand, right here with you.”

The children could see –
the mouths of babes proclaimed it,
and still do.

What woke me from the desolating dream?
Grace, I’m sure;
the nearness of children;
the weariness of being weary;
giving up on giving up;
becoming aware the voice was just a voice;

Reaching out to touch the hem of His garment –
if I just touch it, I will be healed.