EDITOR’S NOTE: For the first article in this two-part series see James K. A. Smith’s Buechner Review entry for August ’23, “The Stewardship of Pain (Part I): Knowing through Absence.”
The stewardship of pain is a thread that not only runs through Frederick Buechner’s many books, it is also a major theme of Buechner’s long life, since that day in November, 1936, when Buechner’s father started the family car in their garage, sat down on the running board, and ended his own life.
The unique pairing of “stewardship” and “pain” did not originate with Buechner. Howard Butt, director of the Laity Lodge, first spoke those words after listening to a scene from Buechner’s autobiographical novella, The Wizard’s Tide (1990). Buechner, who initially imagined himself a poet before turning to novels, heard, with his poet’s ear, something unexpected and brilliant in that word combination.
Poets often craft such unlikely combinations. Sylvia Plath wrote of “skinflint trees,” Emily Dickinson of “infirm Delight,” and Elizabeth Bishop of a “moral owl.” It’s been said unusual word combinations like these create something akin to a chemical reaction.
On the surface, stewardship and pain seem miles apart. “Pain” is what binds us all together as humans, while “stewardship” is one of those church words many of us steer clear of. Buechner explores this unusual paring in his essay “Adolescence and the Stewardship of Pain,” asking, ‘What do we do with these mixed lives we are given, these hands we are so unevenly dealt?’[1] He reframes the parable of the talents from Matthew 25 and suggests we consider pain as something entrusted to us, something we are to be stewards of. In Jesus’s parable, it is the third servant, the play-it-safe servant, the one who buried his talent, who receives the wrath of his master. Buechner flips traditional interpretations of the parable on their head: when the third servant buries his treasure (his pain), he therefore becomes, ‘the blood brother and soul mate of virtually all of us at one time or another.’[2] Buechner writes that when pain overwhelms, burying it can be a survival response—but it is never a long-term strategy.
I have first-hand experience with what Buechner was writing about.
One month before our wedding, my twenty-four-year-old fiancé, Gretchen, suffered a massive stroke. In the emergency room waiting area that night, when I allowed myself to feel the weight of what was happening, I began to cry. An older friend put his hand on my shoulder and, instead of offering words of comfort, suggested I “get ahold of myself.” I took his advice to heart. I shut down my emotions and went numb and didn’t just bury my feelings—I buried my questions and so much else. In the hospital that night, I wondered if Gretchen would live or die. If she died, I wondered if I would become someone other people whispered about: “Oh, you know him, he’s the one whose fiancé died.” If she lived, I had no idea if we would still get married. Everything was uncertain, and, like the third servant in Jesus’s parable, I was afraid. Yet instead of searching out friends or mentors (or a therapist) to talk with about my mixed feelings, I buried it all inside of myself.
The problem with burying emotions is they are alive and never stay buried.
Buechner’s family tried this. As he relates in Telling Secrets (1991), in the aftermath of his father’s suicide, not only the cause of his father’s death but his father’s very existence became a family secret. Buechner was unaware of his family’s powerful taboos until he wrote a fictionalized account of his father’s suicide in the novel, The Return of Ansel Gibbs (1958). Buechner’s mother’s reaction was “fury,” and instead of being able to respond to her like the adult he was, Buechner felt again like the ten-year-old boy he was when the suicide happened.
Yet he simply couldn’t help but write about his father’s death—still another account appears in his novel The Entrance to Porlock (1970). Veiled references occur in several other books, including The Alphabet of Grace (1970), a book some classify as Buechner’s first memoir. Finally, in his formal memoirs, he writes openly about his father’s death. From The Sacred Journey (1982) on, Buechner’s exploration of his pain becomes a major theme of his writing. He models over and over what it means to be a good steward of pain.
Instead of telling his story obtusely, Buechner tells it forthrightly. His words reverberate deeply with many readers. Although Buechner told an interviewer that he wished to be remembered for his fiction,[3] and no less a literary figure than Annie Dillard has reminded us that Buechner’s novels are his masterpieces,[4] there are legions of readers who value his memoirs and non-fiction because of how directly they echo their own life experiences. I am not trying to elevate one genre over the other—Buechner was a master of several genres—I am simply saying the combination of Buechner’s honesty and literary skill as he listens to his life in his memoirs is moving and satisfying.
‘My story is important,’ Buechner writes in Telling Secrets, ‘not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way.’[5]
It is no stretch to say Buechner’s words about the stewardship of pain and his honest recounting of his experiences changed my life. His words empowered me to shift from denial to something much healthier. Instead of burying my pain, I began a lifelong process of facing it, owning it, and trying to do something redemptive with it.
I’m happy to say that Gretchen survived, and almost four decades later we’re the parents of two adult children. The stroke created a different life than either of us anticipated, yet I can’t imagine our lives any other way.
The stewardship of pain so resonates with me that I collect stories of people who are good stewards of their pain, people who, whether or not they are even familiar with Buechner, make the shift to seeing their pain as something entrusted to them for the sake of others.
The Franciscan Father Richard Rohr wrote that if we do not transform our pain we will surely transmit it. We know what it looks like when people transmit their pain—we experience it all the time in our fragmented, polarized society. Becoming a steward of one’s pain is the key move in the process of transformation, and honestly telling one’s story is a first step. We owe a great debt to Frederick Buechner for showing us the way.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank you for reading The Buechner Review. If you would like to receive future articles in your email inbox you can sign up here.
Footnotes:
[1] Frederick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992), p.96.
[2] Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry, p.2
[3] Kenneth Gibble, “Ordained to Write,” A.D., March 1983, p.17.
[4] Dale Brown, The Book of Buechner: A Journey Through His Writings (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), p.372.
[5] Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), p.30.
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