Godric: Of a band of pilgrims and a parting in a wood

The ear takes comfort from the sounds of home, says Godric. There are moments, if you are like me, when I awake in the night to a familiar sound, a creaking or bed spring in need of oil. There are days when in the height of my excitement, I sound just like my father. At times the rain falls off the roof just like it did when I was young.
The sounds of home are comforting. For me, home will always be that cottage turned regular dwelling where Teddy barked at a slug sneazing, the steps that led upstairs clunking and clacking as I sprinted up them two at a time.
The hiss of old copper pipes. The pounding rhythm of West Side Story or Rent blaring from my sister's room. The walls creaking as she danced her way to escape. The shuttering of the shower as it awoke from a night's sleep to jolt me from my slumber. There is the distant clap of thunder over the western hills as late August storms dispell the thick humid afternoons. There is the buzz of outboard motors and splashing waves on the shore. There is the eerie splintering of solid ice, freezing us in our skates for fear of falling in. I cannot forget the crunching of iced over snow, nor the whir of a small electric heater. Aah, the thumping rattle of the old cast iron radiators. In my memories, my father will always snore and my sister always sing; the dog will always bark and the house will always moan.
No, those sounds will never leave me, Godric; they will always bring comfort to my home-sick heart.

Godric: Of Rome, a maiden, and a bear

In one of Buechner's other books he penned a prayer that reads: catch us off guard today. Surprise us with some moment of beauty or pain so that for at least a moment we may be startled into seeing that you are with us here in all your splendor, always and everywhere, barely hidded, beneath, beyond, within this life we breath.

The pastor who performed my wedding read this prayer at my request. It speaks to those moments when we are truly caught by surprise by laughter or tears--when we aren't quite sure why it is our heart sinks or flutters.
Godric recalls his visit to Rome, his viewing of where Christians were once slain. Why did we weep? I asked myself. We wept for all that grandeur gone. We wept for martyrs cruelly slain. We wept for Christ, who suffered death upon a tree and suffers still to see our suffering. But more than anything, I think, we wept for us, and so it ever is with tears. Whatever be their outward cause, within the chancel of the heart it's we ourselves for whom they finally fall.
Ultimately it is our own life that we are living. When we get right down to it, all of our compassion or missed opportunity is what defines us. And when we sadden at the story of families torn apart, or our eyes well with sorrow for the grief of those whose children die in war, we are hurting for ourselves because we know, I think, that somewhere in the lives of others, our life, our suffering, has intermingled with theirs.
Sure, it is our life, but Donne told us that no man is an island, and we'd be foolish to disagree. We Christians have much to learn from the Buhddists who teach compassion, who understand suffering as a universal connection. So when your eyes well up, or a lump grows in your throat, pay attention not only to the outward cause, but the inward chancel as well.

How the water rose, and Godric spoke of time, and the road to Rome.

Where did the time go?, I have muttered on more than one lazy afternoon. One moment we are waking from our dreams, the next we are dropping heavily onto our beds returning to our dreams.
Of the many abstractions of life, time baffles me the most. In my daydreams, I have stopped time for all but me. Pictures of men and women frozen in whatever position when I spoke the magic words. And off I'd go to do my business, roaming the streets to see what all the world is doing in that very moment that is mine to keep.
I have begged with God for just a few more hours in a day, and pleaded with him the next to simply speed up the hours. Time is the here and now as much as it is the past then or the future then. Time is troubled. Time is magical.
The Abbot Ailred speaks of time, saying, "Time is a storm. Times past and times to come, they heave and flow and leap their bounds like Wear. Hours are clouds that change their shapes before your eyes...But beyond time's storm and clouds there's timelessness. Godric, the Lord of Heaven changes not, and even when our view's most dark, he's there above us fair and golden as the sun....God's never gone....It's only men go blind."
True, isn't it? Just like we often wonder at the end of those lazy days where the time has gone, even as we watched it away, we sometimes wonder where God has gone, even as we watched him away.

How Godric journeyed home again and Aedwen's dream

"She [Burcewen] did not speak her plea, for like our prayers to God, the deepest prayers we humans ask of one another speak but silence for their tongue."
One of the sub-plots that weaves throughout the tale is one of family, of love and loss. Burcewen is the one whom Godric loves most; she is his sister. Family relationships tend to be difficult, convuluted if only because of the sheer amount of time we spend with each other. And yet it is often our family that knows us least because we almost expect them to hear the words we cannot say. "I love you," we think to ourselves, but the words don't quite make it off our lips. "I miss you," our hearts cry, but the words get choked by the lump in our throats.
It is no wonder, then, why our relationship with God also tends to be difficult, muddled because of the sheer amount of time we spend together--and I don't mean the time spent in church. If the scripture is true, then God surrounds us whether we make the trip to him or not. He is there, our ever present help in time of need and all of that. There he is in the stars. Walking the side of the road with a sign that reads "Homeless--anything helps." Crying at the funeral of an aunt, or a friend. There he is under the tree, crowds of children playing at his feet and bigger crowds still listening to him teach.
Buechner says, "Listen to your life, hear it for the unfathomable mystery it is." I say, pay attention to your life, see the commonplace for the moment of grace that it is. Recognize the thousands of prayers prayed in the glances of lonely strangers; see the heart of those around you in the smile of your friend. Every moment is a prayer, whether intentional or not, because we are all, at one time or another, pleading with the world to see us for who we really are; and that, in all of its simplicity, is the heart of prayer. A wanting to be known, to be heard.