Beyond Time
The final section of Buechner's The Sacred Journey is titled "Beyond Time." Mostly, he considers the happenings of life, in their infinite reality, as they happen to us in our finite reality.
He says:
The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God's things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak--even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our own footsore and sacred journeys. (77)
I have often struggled to understand how God speaks to us today. There is the Bible, of course, in which we can read the sayings of Jesus and the stories of men. It certainly speaks to us, I believe, though not so much differently than the common everyday experiences we have.
In years past, I have relied heavily on the words of that great book to fortress myself against the sorrow of life or to chastise myself for the many errors in judgement I have made. But at sometime, and I certainly cannot recall when or why, the words of that great book became trite cliches tossed around without any concern for the magnitude of truth they spoke. Fascinating, isn't it, that even the great masterpieces of music and art, if played or viewed too often, lose something of their depth.
It wasn't until I read this memoir by Buechner that I began to look for those words incarnate. It wasn't until I read from his Holiness the Dalai Lama much of the same teachings of Jesus that I began to hear afresh the words of Jesus. Compassion. Humility. Service. And then to listen to my life, to catch myself by surprise at the many ways I did hear Jesus. No, not audibly as I had so long hoped for, and perhaps feared, but I heard him in the hello of a stranger; I saw him in the tears and laughter of a child.
And that, that is the greatest of all the moments of our journeys. That moment when for the first time we recognize God in us, in the world around us.
He says:
The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God's things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak--even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our own footsore and sacred journeys. (77)
I have often struggled to understand how God speaks to us today. There is the Bible, of course, in which we can read the sayings of Jesus and the stories of men. It certainly speaks to us, I believe, though not so much differently than the common everyday experiences we have.
In years past, I have relied heavily on the words of that great book to fortress myself against the sorrow of life or to chastise myself for the many errors in judgement I have made. But at sometime, and I certainly cannot recall when or why, the words of that great book became trite cliches tossed around without any concern for the magnitude of truth they spoke. Fascinating, isn't it, that even the great masterpieces of music and art, if played or viewed too often, lose something of their depth.
It wasn't until I read this memoir by Buechner that I began to look for those words incarnate. It wasn't until I read from his Holiness the Dalai Lama much of the same teachings of Jesus that I began to hear afresh the words of Jesus. Compassion. Humility. Service. And then to listen to my life, to catch myself by surprise at the many ways I did hear Jesus. No, not audibly as I had so long hoped for, and perhaps feared, but I heard him in the hello of a stranger; I saw him in the tears and laughter of a child.
And that, that is the greatest of all the moments of our journeys. That moment when for the first time we recognize God in us, in the world around us.
posted by Mr. McNamar at 9:24 PM
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