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A review by jonscott9
The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life by Frederick Buechner
3.0
"I did not see anything because I was so caught up in an inner dialogue. So, stop and see. Become more sensitive, more aware, more alive to our own humanness, to the humanness of each other."
Frederick Buechner always does me right. I turn to his writings again and again for comfort and joy, for textual healing. Others such as Glennon Doyle, who quotes him in Untamed (currently reading), feel much the same.
Now 95, Buechner migrated from his beloved Vermont to Florida, last I knew. We exchanged notes in the post about 15 years ago, as a friend had somehow obtained his address. I was thrilled at that, and treasured the card I received back from him. (Oh how I yearn to find it among some stored-away boxes.) A Presbyterian minister in part, a vocation he hardly expected when younger to fall into, Buechner reminds me of my favorite spiritual leaders over time—from a profanity-happy pastor during my college years to, well, my own father, who was a Protestant pastor until I was about 10 years old and whose vintage, pocket-size portrait circa 1979 I used as a bookmark while reading this tiny, tender book.
Among my favorite parts of this read are Buechner's memories of an unlikely though beautiful friendship with Maya Angelou. He thought they could not be more different. And yet, as Angelou shared with him, their stories are the same in remarkable ways. Pain, tragedy, grief, beauty, love, resilience—these are the shared human story. The passages with Angelou are alone worth your time, and for those who read faster than me, the book itself probably can be read in one sitting.
Buechner was a Pulitzer finalist for Godric, which is a masterpiece of fiction. The writing can be a bit repetitive and flowery at times when he does nonfiction and dips into autobiographical, sociological and theological territories. At the same time, such intra-book reminders can be a good thing. (Repetition of message, right?)
This is where I leave you with another morsel of goodness:
“So we are told to love. We are told to listen. We are told to look. But a lot of the time we don’t because we choose damn well not to, and because only a saint could do it all the time, I think. You have to choose who to listen to because if you listen to everybody and you look at everybody—seeing every face the way Rembrandt saw that woman’s face—how could you make it down half a city block? You couldn’t. If you listened to what everybody says to you, how could you survive a day? But we can do more than we do—more than we do, surely we could do that.”
Frederick Buechner always does me right. I turn to his writings again and again for comfort and joy, for textual healing. Others such as Glennon Doyle, who quotes him in Untamed (currently reading), feel much the same.
Now 95, Buechner migrated from his beloved Vermont to Florida, last I knew. We exchanged notes in the post about 15 years ago, as a friend had somehow obtained his address. I was thrilled at that, and treasured the card I received back from him. (Oh how I yearn to find it among some stored-away boxes.) A Presbyterian minister in part, a vocation he hardly expected when younger to fall into, Buechner reminds me of my favorite spiritual leaders over time—from a profanity-happy pastor during my college years to, well, my own father, who was a Protestant pastor until I was about 10 years old and whose vintage, pocket-size portrait circa 1979 I used as a bookmark while reading this tiny, tender book.
Among my favorite parts of this read are Buechner's memories of an unlikely though beautiful friendship with Maya Angelou. He thought they could not be more different. And yet, as Angelou shared with him, their stories are the same in remarkable ways. Pain, tragedy, grief, beauty, love, resilience—these are the shared human story. The passages with Angelou are alone worth your time, and for those who read faster than me, the book itself probably can be read in one sitting.
Buechner was a Pulitzer finalist for Godric, which is a masterpiece of fiction. The writing can be a bit repetitive and flowery at times when he does nonfiction and dips into autobiographical, sociological and theological territories. At the same time, such intra-book reminders can be a good thing. (Repetition of message, right?)
This is where I leave you with another morsel of goodness:
“So we are told to love. We are told to listen. We are told to look. But a lot of the time we don’t because we choose damn well not to, and because only a saint could do it all the time, I think. You have to choose who to listen to because if you listen to everybody and you look at everybody—seeing every face the way Rembrandt saw that woman’s face—how could you make it down half a city block? You couldn’t. If you listened to what everybody says to you, how could you survive a day? But we can do more than we do—more than we do, surely we could do that.”