The Truth of Our Stories

IN THE LONG RUN the stories all overlap and mingle like searchlights in the dark. The stories Jesus tells are part of the story Jesus is, and the other way round. And the story Jesus is is part of the story you and I are because Jesus has become so much a part of the world's story that it is impossible to imagine how any of our stories would have turned out without him, even the stories of people who don't believe in him or even know who he is or care about knowing. And my story and your story are all part of each other too if only because we have sung together and prayed together and seen each other's faces so that we are at least a footnote at the bottom of each other's stories. 

In other words all our stories are in the end one story, one vast story about being human, being together, being here. Does the story point beyond itself? Does it mean something? What is the truth of this interminable, sprawling story we all of us are? Or is it as absurd to ask about the truth of it as it is to ask about the truth of the wind howling through a crack under the door?  

-Originally published in The Clown in the Belfry

Forgiveness

WHEN SOMEBODY you've wronged forgives you, you're spared the dull and self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience. 

When you forgive somebody who has wronged you, you're spared the dismal corrosion of bitterness and wounded pride. 

For both parties, forgiveness means the freedom again to be at peace inside their own skins and to be glad in each other's presence.  

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking

Miracle

A CANCER INEXPLICABLY cured. A voice in a dream. A statue that weeps. A miracle is an event that strengthens faith. It is possible to look at most miracles and find a rational explanation in terms of natural cause and effect. It is possible to look at Rembrandt's Supper at Emmaus and find a rational explanation in terms of paint and canvas.  

Faith in God is less apt to proceed from miracles than miracles from faith in God.  

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking

Jeffrey Munroe on Secrets in the Dark

Our friend, Jeffrey Munroe, has recently published a book titled, Reading Buechner: exploring the work of a master memoirist, novelist, theologian, and preacher.

Here are some of Dr. Munroe’s thoughts on Secrets in the Dark:

‘Sometimes all a sermon needs to make it memorable is one phrase. In a sermon based on Isaiah’s prophecy about the Messiah, Buechner says “all heaven broke loose” on the night of Jesus’ birth. It’s a play on the phrase “all hell broke loose,” originally from Milton’s Paradise Lost. By switching “heaven” for “hell,” Buechner again engages our imaginations. Immediately we think of what heaven breaking loose might look like and see the shepherds, hear the angel choirs, imagine the wise men following the star, and think of the God of the universe as a child in the manger.’ (p.158-9)

        -Jeffrey Munroe on Buechner’s fifteenth non-fiction work, Secrets in the Dark (2006).

Reading Buechner: exploring the work of a master memoirist, novelist, theologian, and preacher has been published by IVP, and is available to view here: https://www.ivpress.com/reading-buechner

The Kingdom

IF WE ONLY HAD eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don't know its name or realize that it's what we're starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.  

-Originally published in The Clown in the Belfry