Our Shared Calling: bringing Frederick Buechner to a new generation of readers
Here at the Frederick Buechner Center, we—his friends, family, and fans—are committed to feeding the world’s deep hunger by preserving, cultivating, and extending the legacy of this remarkable man, theologian, thinker, and author.
The work to which Frederick was called, writing, was the place where his own deep gladness met with the world’s deep hunger. Generations of readers across the globe, individually and together in communities of faith, have recognized the extraordinary nature of his contribution. Together, we have read his books, subscribed to his emails, and followed his social media.
Our responsibility, as those who have benefited from the life and work of Frederick Buechner, is to ensure that his message of hope, faith in the face of doubt, and grace is passed on to new generations of readers, writers, believers, and doubters. To that end, we at the Frederick Buechner Center are committed to carrying on with the work he began, pressing on with his projects old and new. And today, we begin this new chapter by resuming the sharing of his words and works online.
We hope you will continue to walk with us, and that even more will join us in this next phase of our sacred journey together.
With thanks for your continued support, and wishing you happy reading!
David Altshuler
Son-in-law of Revd Frederick Buechner
Be Still
In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.
This Sunday we will celebrate the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. Here is this week's reading from the Psalms:
Psalm 46:10a
Be still, and know that I am God!
Here is an excerpt from the lecture "Faith and Fiction" first published in The Clown in the Belfry and later in Secrets in the Dark:
The word fiction comes from a Latin verb meaning "to shape, fashion, feign." That is what fiction does, and in many ways it is what faith does too. You fashion your story, as you fashion your faith, out of the great hodgepodge of your life — the things that have happened to you and the things you have dreamed of happening. They are the raw material of both. Then, if you're a writer like me, you try less to impose a shape on the hodgepodge than to see what shape emerges from it, is hidden in it. You try to sense what direction it is moving in. You listen to it. You avoid forcing your characters to march too steadily to the drumbeat of your artistic purpose, but leave them some measure of real freedom to be themselves. If minor characters show signs of becoming major characters, you at least give them a shot at it because in the world of fiction it may take many pages before you find out who the major characters really are just as in the real world it may take you many years to find out that the stranger you talked to for half an hour once in a railway station may have done more to point you to where your true homeland lies than your closest friend or your psychiatrist.
