Another Book

If you pay any sort of attention to these things, you'll notice that I've added another book to the list of completed readings in my sidebar. "Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation" by Frederick Buechner. I really liked this one, but, for those of you who are keeping track, and know that I just added a book to that sidebar yesterday, let me be completely honest and admit that I borrowed this particular skinny little book from my brother late last fall, read over half of it then, and set it aside as I got involved in other books. I picked it up again yesterday afternoon, after finishing Pete Greig's book, and decided to finish it off.

It went much faster now that I've developed a strategy for reading borrowed books wherein I use little re-stickable flags to mark anything I want to take note of, and then go back and type it all into a reading notes file on my laptop for that particular book once I've finished. This is MUCH faster than my previous method of stopping every time I came across something noteworthy, and meticulously copying it by hand into my journal. It's also much easier to find the bit I want later on if I don't have to flip through weeks of journal entries!

And for those of you who are wondering what I liked about this particular book, here's a few little tastes:

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 excitement and 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. (pg. 87)

Part of what seems to happen in dreams – and what makes them prophetic – is that in them you lie out parts of yourself that have not yet entered your waking life either because you have never consciously recognized them or because for one reason or another you have chosen not to. Earthbound, you dream of flying. Inhibited, you dream of appearing in public stark naked. But it can be subtler than that, more profound and more telling, as dreams open out into the glimmering dusk of modes of being that you have not yet explored and may never explore but which are no less part of the mystery and the poetry of who you are. (pg. 99)

…If we really had our eyes open, we would see that all moments are key moments. That he who does not love remains in death. That Jesus is the Word made flesh who dwells among us full of grace and truth. (pg. 108)