How Godric became Deric and sailed the seas with Roger Mouse

We must all have in our lives a Roger Mouse. Godric says that Roger "...lived and game me lessons in the art." What would life be without a friend to tear us away from the mundane, the self-righteous, or even the thrilling of our own making?
"We loved each other, Mouse and I, and our love was born of need, for so it always is with mortal folk. God's love's all gift, for God has need of naught, but human folk love one another for the way they fill each other's emptiness," says Godric. The truth of that rests in the notion that we are empty in places. There is a sad hollowness that reigns in us all, at times, and too often at many a time. We are searching, restlessly, like Godric for the holy isle of Farne, for our own place of acceptance. And in the friendships we find, we hope to have a momentary place of rest in the midst of the vast sea that is our life.

How Godric met a boar and a leper and how people sought him in his cell

There is so much to hear from this chapter. Word is out that this hermit, Godric, has healing in his hands. He says, "To touch me and to feel my touch they come. To take at my hands whatever of Christ or comfort such hands have. Of my own, my hands have nothing more than any man's and less now at this tottering, lamewit age of mine when most of what I ever had is more than mostly spent. But it's as if my hands are gloves, and in them other hands than mine, and those the ones that folk appear with roods of straw to seek. It's holiness they hunger for, and if by some mad grace it's mine to give, if I've a holy hand inside my hand to touch them with, I'll touch them day and night."

What amazing grace it is, really, when we get right down to it. These earth worn hands, humbled by our own folly, given the chance to touch the hurting world. Who could have thought it up? Who could have dreamed it in their wildest imagination?

Godric wonders after his first encounter whether misery has "a savor too." He wonders if, though sick with sin, we cannot help but reach out to those in need.

A great professor of mine, and if it wasn't she who said it, it was she who first told it too me, calls it the "sheer lunacy of God." This business of wretched humanity reaching out from all of our own murkiness to touch the heart of someone who momentarily needs it much more than we.

Godric: How Godric Fared on the holy isle of Farne

In all of Godric's story, two places have become so real to me that I often wonder if I in fact have been to these places. The first is chilly Wear, the river that Godric finds wholeness in. The second is mysterious Farne, the island that Godric finds himself in.
On his first visit to holy Farne, Godric means to pay penance for his sins, but instead watches the birds. How often have I found myself in need of penance only to watch the birds instead. There is always something to distract us from what we need most.
While on that isle, Godric meets the ghost of Father Cuthbert who tells him, "...your shadow fell here long before your foot, and that's a kind of haunting too. Farne had long been calling you..."
Buechner has called life itself the sacred journey; and if it is a journey true, we must consider where we shall go next. What is next? Where am I going? And do those places know already that I am on my way?
Godric replies to Cuthbert, "I heard no call, Father...I came by chance." And in that, Godric shows his lack of vision. What in life is mere chance? Certainly not where we end up after a long day's journeying. Cuthbert's response has etched itself into my heart, mostly because I feel a sense of connection to those who leave home to journey far away from what is known and safe. "When a man leaves home, he leaves behind some scrap of his heart....It's the same with a place a man is going to....Only then he sends a scrap of his heart ahead."
Two things make me pause. The first is what part of my heart I left behind. I must believe it is true, what Cuthbert says. I left my childhood name at home. Andy. To those who knew me in my youth, Andy is someone far different than who I am today. He is only a scrap of me.
And somehow my talents for teaching, a career I had not yet considered when I left home, were waiting for me at Northwest University. It was there I became Andrew. Matured, I thought. And part of that maturity, of being Andrew, meant I would find that scrap of me, that piece that had always existed, but never materialized, only at college, where that scrap had been waiting.
We will know we are in the right place in our lives when arrive because it will simply feel right. Every other place we stop will seem uneasy, not quite right.

Godric: Of Peregrine Small and how Godric came to prosper in trade

"...nothing human's not a broth of false and true..." claims Godric as he relates a tale of misfortune for Peregrine Small. And doesn't that just about sum up our life. With moments of truth, we perhaps demonstrate to our friends and family the good that was intended for us all. God looks down from heaven with satisfaction and says, as he did at the very start, "It is good."
We happen across the haggard old man, his beard greyed and stringy, and our heart yearns to help. We haven't much in the way of money at the time, but in a place tucked away from the world, we pray for him. It is a moment of truth for us. No one is looking, all eyes are closed. It is a solitary moment when the truth of who we want to be shines at its best.
And that moment is added to the broth of our life.
Or, we happen across the haggard old man, his eyes greyed and tired, and our heart quicks to judge. Our pockets are filled with coins and cash at the time, but in a place tucked away from the world, we barely even pity him. It is a moment of falsehood for us. No one is looking, all eyes are closed. It is a solitary moment when the falseness of who we pretend to be shines at its worst. And that moment, also, is added to the broth of our life.
Both are mere moments. On the one hand, grace is given, the other mercy is needed. In the final analysis of our life, when the broth of truth and falsehood has simmered quite long enough, we must rest only in the knowlege of a loving and forgiving God, and hope that the two separate enough to show the truth of our hearts.

How Godric Left Home

The priest Tom Ball says to Godric, "This life of ours is like a street that passes many doors...nor think you all the doors I mean are wood. Every day's a door and every night." Every moment, Tom Ball is saying, is a choice we must make. And oh, the number of choices I have made.
I fell in love with Godric's story because I see so much of myself in him. Like Godric, I left home to make my own journey, a path that was mine alone. But if, as Godric says, "...I should trace it back, it's to my father's hand that it would lead." At the time, of course, it was my father's hand I wanted to leave; but "fool that I was, I thought that day it was only home I left."
When all is laid to rest, I wonder how the open doors behind me will speak of my journey. For surely if someone cared to look, those doors might tell a tale of absurdity and grace. And isn't that what the story of God really is. A tale of absurd happenings splattered blood red with countless moments of grace. Because for every time the door opened and a path of failure emereged, I hope that there are two doors that I opened to which grace was present.
If it is not the case, then why do we struggle so hard? If we cannot believe that in the midst of hopless failures, God continues to reach out to us, then why do we bother? And ultimately, when we leave home, if it is not for an entirely different kind of home we seek, for what then should we leave?

Godric: How Reginald asked and Godric answered and the Blessed Virgin's song.

"Know Godric's no true hermit but a gadabout within his mind, a lecher in his dreams. Self-seeking he is and peacock proud. A hypocrite. A ravener of alms and dainty too. A slothful, greedy bear. Not worthy to be called a servant of the Lord when he treats such servants as he has himslef like dung, like Reginald."
But who of us is worthy to be called a servant of the Lord? We all need validation at some point in our lives. It could be from a girl we fancy or a boss we respect. We seek validation from a God that rarely speaks to us, if he speaks to us at all anymore. It seems absurd to me, in certain moments, that in the back of our minds we know this to be true: ...not worthy to be called a servant.... And yet we continue to seek his pleasure. We doll ourselves up on Sunday morning to attend a ritual gathering together of the bretheren. We pause in our hunger to toss a prayer of thanks, making sure God knows we know who is to be thanked.
Now, I am not saying we shouldn't do those things, only, maybe those are the insignificant things. The things God himself might laugh at the way people in power laugh when the subordinates suck-up to them. "Hey Jesus, did you forget to tell them I just want them to do two things, 'Love their neighbor and love me. Sometimes, these guys really crack me up. See, look there. That guy walked past a bum on the corner and thought, 'Get a job,' then with everyone watching at lunch, stopped to pray.'"
Unworthy we all are, but few of us understand what that means.