The Alphabet of Grace (1970)
Book Description
In his third sermon collection, Frederick Buechner encapsulates the universal questions of humankind through the re-narration of one ordinary day.
Drawing out the extraordinary from the quotidian, Buechner paints a grand picture of a life filled with grace, faith, doubt, sadness, happiness, and small mercies. Within the common occurrences of the day-to-day and the music of human encounters the author locates the voice and shaping hand of God, and the hidden wisdom of seeking out the divine in daily life.
The Alphabet of Grace was first conceived as a series of talks, delivered at the 1969 Harvard University William Belden Noble Lectures. In the three addresses, which form the basis for the three chapters of the book, Buechner forms the philosophical basis that proves central to his oeuvre, summed up in the following famous quote from the work:
[I]f I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitements and the gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
Reviews
"A book by an experienced writer, a novelist, a poet, a clergyman…The Alphabet of Grace is a small but beautiful whole, ordered by poetic structure."
— Madeleine L’Engle
"Frederick Buechner surprises and delights (and—very softly—teaches) us by giving some shape to apparently random experience by uttering it…he has articulated what he sees with a freshness and clarity and energy that hails our stultified imaginations."
— The New York Times Book Review
