| So I'm reading now.
I finished reading The Sacred Journey and Son of Laughter by Frederic Buechner. The first is an autobiography, the second a novel on the biblical account of Jacob.
His autobio reminded me a bit of C.S. Lewis because of his reflective writing style, but I found Lewis easier to read. "Son of Laughter" was pretty imaginative, and I liked his ideas about the characters. But his descriptions were over-graphic.
***
I like Buechner's thoughts on grace. He recalls the time after his father's suicide. His grandma tells his family to stay and "face reality" and become strong. Instead his family moves.
"To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do -- to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst -- is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own. Surely that is why, in Jesus' sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle's eye because with his credit card in his pocket, the rich man is so effective at getting for himself everything he needs that he does not see that what he needs more than anything else in the world can be had only as a gift. He does not see that the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even from le bon Dieu himself, a helping hand."
The Sacred Journey |
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| I need sleep!
A few more topics to review. A few more hours to go... |
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