The Sacred Journey - Hardcover

Buechner, Frederick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060611588 ISBN 13: 9780060611583

Publisher: Harpercollins, 1982

Synopsis

This spiritual memoir describes a personal journey of self-discovery and search for meaning and explores the myriad ways in which God's will is revealed in daily life

About this title

Review:

"A child takes life as it comes because he has no other way of taking it," Frederick Buechner writes in this first of his autobiographical books. With this statement he attempts to explore the event that is at the center of this book, and which forms the (missing) center around which so much of Buechner's fiction and essays take shape: the suicide of his father when he was 10 and his brother 8.

As with much of Buechner's work, there is a movement in this narrative from suffering to grace, a grace that comes in unexpected ways and places. Here it comes through the preacher George Buttrick on a Sunday sermon: Jesus refused Satan's crown, Buttrick said, but "he is crowned in the heart of the people who believe in him. And that inward coronation takes place ... 'among confession, and tears, and great laughter.'" It was when he heard this final statement, Buechner writes, that something turned over for him, and led him to speak to Buttrick and ultimately led him--driven literally by Buttrick--to Union Theological Seminary. Here in this beautiful book this soul-changing journey across Manhattan stands for "the sacred journey" of a life--and of all of our lives. Whether it ends in truth or dream we cannot know, but Buechner sides with King Rinkitink of Oz who says, "Never question the truth of what you fail to understand, for the world is filled with wonders." --Doug Thorpe

From the Publisher:

This memoir reflects on key moments of the author's early life, from childhood to his entering seminary, that reveal how God speaks to us in a variety of ways every moment of every day.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0060611588
• ISBN 13: 9780060611583
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112