FREDERICK BUECHNER
Frederick Buechner died this week at the age of 96. Beverly Ohler wrote about his death. Fred Ohler who was the minister at the Warren Wilson Church for forty years often mentioned Frederick Buechner in his sermons. Fred was an ordained minister who was also a poet and who loved poetry. His sermons were about what made him feel fully alive, a tear, a glass of water, not about how to be a good Christian, although Christ made Fred feel fully alive. And Christ did the same thing for Frederick Buechner. At some point, which I don‘t remember, Fred invited Frederick Buechner to Warren Wilson to preach and Beverly has kept in touch with him over the years.
After I got the note from Bev I ran across a tribute to Frederick Buechner by David Brooks, a New York Times columnist who also responds to the week’s news on the PBS Newshour on Friday nights who feels like a friend to me. And then there was another opinion piece in the Washington Post by Michael Gerson about Buechner. Both these men usually talk about partisan politics, not poetry.
All of these people made Buechner seem such a humble, thoughtful, skeptical, deep feeling person. All of them said that the center of his vision of God and the world we live in is that the place to listen to God is by listening to yourself. So I bought a book on line with excerpts by and about him, “Buechner 101: Essays, Excerpts, Sermons and Friends”. He certainly doesn’t preach, he listens and he invites and he feels his way through contradictory perspectives.
I haven’t read much of the book but what I have read quiets me and makes me listen. I’ve actually got no business commenting on him since so far he puzzles me more than he makes things clear. But the people who have read him deeply are very moved by him. My friend Fred was. So before I wander away to something else I thought I would mention him so that you can look for yourself.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 