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Like A House In The Rain, Books Were Havens Of Permanence And Protection From Whatever It Was That As A Child I Needed Protection From.
-Frederick Buechner
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Like A House In

Frederick Buechner
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Like A House In The Rain, Books Were Havens Of Permanence And Protection From Whatever It Was That As A Child I Needed Protection From.

Understanding the Quote: "like a house in the rain, books were havens of permanence and..."

This quote by Frederick Buechner reflects deeply on the theme of children. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Children, Rain, Book, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Frederick Buechner interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner is celebrated for insightful thoughts on children and rain. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Children
Rain
Book
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The World Speaks Of Holy Things In The Only Language It Knows, Which Is Worldly Language.
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. . . [t]o Live Not With Hands Clenched To Grasp, To Strike, To Hold Tight To A Life That Is Always Slipping Away The More Tightly We Hold It, But . . . To Live With The Hands Stretched Out Both To Give And Receive With Gladness.
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When Friends Speak Overmuch Of Times Gone By, Often It's Because They Sense Their Present Time Is Turning Them From Friends To Strangers. Long Before The Moment Came To Say Goodbye, I Think, We Said Goodbye In Other Words And Ways And Silences. Then When The Moment Came For It At Last, We Didn't Say It As Should Be Said By Friends. So Now At Last, Dear Mouse, With Many, Many Years Between: Goodbye.
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Remember Me Not For The Ill I've Done But For The Good I've Dreamed.
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There Is A Fragrance In The Air, A Certain Passage Of A Song, An Old Photograph Falling Out From The Pages Of A Book, The Sound Of Somebody's Voice In The Hall That Makes Your Heart Leap And Fills Your Eyes With Tears. Who Can Say When Or How It Will Be That Something Easters Up Out Of The Dimness To Remind Us Of A Time Before We Were Born And After We Will Die?
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What's Prayer? It's Shooting Shafts Into The Dark. What Mark They Strike, If Any, Who's To Say? It's Reaching For A Hand You Cannot Touch. The Silence Is So Fathomless That Prayers Like Plummets Vanish Into The Sea. You Beg. You Whimper. You Load God Down With Empty Praise. You Tell Him Sins That He Already Knows Full Well. You Seek To Change His Changeless Will. Yet Godric Prays The Way He Breathes, For Else His Heart Would Wither In His Breast. Prayer Is The Wind That Fills His Sail. Else Drift With Witless Tides. And Sometimes, By God's Grace, A Prayer Is Heard.
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God Knows We Have Our Own Demons To Be Cast Out, Our Own Uncleanness To Be Cleansed. Neurotic Anxiety Happens To Be My Own Particular Demon, A Floating Sense Of Doom That Has Ruined Many Of What Could Have Been, Should Have Been, The Happiest Days Of My Life, And More Than A Few Times In My Life I Have Been Raised From Such Ruins, Which Is Another Way Of Saying That More Than A Few Times In My Life I Have Been Raised From Death - Death Of The Spirit Anyway, Death Of The Heart - By The Healing Power That Jesus Calls Us Both To Heal With And To Be Healed By.
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Heart
Whenever You Find Tears In Your Eyes, Especially Unexpected Tears, It Is Well To Pay The Closest Attention.
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Attention
The Kind Of Work God Usually Calls You To Is The Kind Of Work (a) That You Need Most To Do And (b) That The World Most Needs To Have Done....the Place God Calls You To Is The Place Where Your Deep Gladness And The World's Deep Hunger Meet
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Done
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Disguise
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Vocation Is The Place Where The World's Greatest Need And A Person's Greatest Joy Meet.
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Needs
World
The Grace Of God Means Something Like: Here Is Your Life. You Might Never Have Been, But You Are Because The Party Wouldn't Have Been Complete Without You. Here Is The World. Beautiful And Terrible Things Will Happen. Don't Be Afraid. I Am With You. Nothing Can Ever Separate Us. It's For You I Created The Universe. I Love You. There's Only One Catch. Like Any Other Gift, The Gift Of Grace Can Be Yours Only If You'll Reach Out And Take It. Maybe Being Able To Reach Out And Take It Is A Gift Too.
Life
Beautiful
Party
Lust Is The Craving For Salt Of A Man Who Is Dying Of Thirst.
Men
Lust
Dying
Part Of The Inner World Of Everyone Is This Sense Of Emptiness, Unease, Incompleteness, And I Believe That This In Itself Is A Word From God, That This Is The Sound That God’s Voice Makes In A World That Has Explained Him Away. In Such A World, I Suspect That Maybe God Speaks To Us Most Clearly Through His Silence, His Absence, So That We Know Him Best Through Our Missing Him.
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Missing Him
Voice
Despair Has Been Called The Unforgivable Sin-not Presumably Because God Refuses To Forgive It, But Because It Despairs Of The Possibility Of Being Forgiven.
Sadness
Sins Not
Unforgivable Sin
In The Christian Sense, Love Is Not Primarily An Emotion But An Act Of The Will. When Jesus Tells Us To Love Our Neighbors, He Is Not Telling Us To Love Them In The Sense Of Responding To Them With A Cozy Emotional Feeling. You Can As Well Produce A Cozy Emotional Feeling As You Can A Cough Or Sneeze. On The Contrary, He Is Telling Us To Love Our Neighbors In The Sense Of Being Willing To Work For Their Well-being Even If It Means Sacrificing Our Well-being To That End.
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Jesus
Mean
The Shield Was Another Of The Fear's Names. According To Laughter, It Means He Shields The Seed Of Abraham The Way A Man Starting A Fire Shields The Flame. When Sarah Was About To Die Childless, The Fear Gave Her A Son. When Abraham Was About To Slaughter The Son, The Fear Gave Him The Ram. He Is Always Shielding Us Like A Guttering Wick, Laughter Said, Because The Fire He Is Trying To Start With Us Is A Fire That The Whole World Will Live To Warm Its Hands At. It Is A Fire In The Dark That Will Light The Whole World Home.
Laughter
Home
Mean
Like A House In The Rain, Books Were Havens Of Permanence And Protection From Whatever It Was That As A Child I Needed Protection From.
Children
Rain
Book
The Fearsome Blessing Of That Hard Time Continues To Work Itself Out In My Life In The Same Way We're Told The Universe Is Still Hurtling Through Outer Space Under The Impact Of The Great Cosmic Explosion.... I Think Grace Sometimes Explodes Into Our Lives Like That-sending Our Pain, Terror, Astonishment Hurtling Through Inner Space Until By Grace They Become Orion, Cassiopeia, Polaris To Give Us Our Bearings, To Bring Us Into Something Like Full Being At Last.
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By And Large A Good Rule For Finding Out Is This: The Kind Of Work God Usually Calls You To Is The Kind Of Work A) That You Need Most To Do And B) The World Most Needs To Have Done. If You Really Get A Kick Out Of Your Work, You've Presumably Met Requirement A), But If Your Work Is Writing Tv Deodorant Commercials, The Chances Are You've Missed Requirement B).
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Needs
Done
It Was The Upward-reaching And Fathomlessly Hungering, Heart-breaking Love For The Beauty Of The World At Its Most Beautiful, And, Beyond That, For That Beauty East Of The Sun And West Of The Moon Which Is Past The Reach Of All But Our Most Desperate Desiring And Is Finally The Beauty Of Beauty Itself, Of Being Itself And What Lies At The Heart Of Being.
Beautiful
Lying
Heart
If You Don't Have Doubts You're Either Kidding Yourself Or Asleep. Doubts Are The Ants-in-the-pants Of Faith. They Keep It Alive And Moving.
Moving
Doubt
Alive
If It Seems A Childish Thing To Do, Do It In Remembrance That You Are A Child.
Children
Remembrance
Things To Do
...words Are Not Only Meaning But Music And Magic And Power.
Magic
Here And There Even In Our World, And Now And Then, Even In Ourselves, We Catch Glimpeses Of A New Creation, Which, Fleeting As Those Glipmses Are Apt To Be, Give Us Hope Both For This Life And For Whatever Life May Await Us Later On.
Our World
Giving
Here And There
Gail Godwin Has Written A Book About The Heaviest Matters Of Loss, Grief, And Loneliness With A Touch So Light That I Was As Often Deeply Amused By It As I Was Deeply Moved.
Loneliness
Grief
Book
The Jesus I Follow Is The Peacemaker, Is One Who Says Forgive Your Enemies, Who Worries About The Poor, Who Worries About The Poorest Of The Poor Instead Of The Richest Of The Rich.
Jesus
Worry
Enemy
The Other Day, The Way People [do] Who Are Approaching Their 80th Birthday, I Was Thinking About All The Last Business - Funerals And Where Do You Want To Be Buried - And I Thought If Anything Were To Be Inscribed On My Tombstone, I Said Let It Be That.
Tombstone
Thinking
People
The Life I Touch For Good Or Ill Will Touch Another Life, And In Turn Another, Until Who Knows Where The Trembling Stops Or In What Far Place My Touch Will Be Felt.
Life
Happiness
Lonely
Grace Is Something You Can Never Get But Can Only Be Given. There's No Way To Earn It Or Deserve It Or Bring It About Anymore Than You Can Deserve The Taste Of Raspberries And Cream Or Earn Good Looks. A Good Night's Sleep Is Grace And So Are Good Dreams. Most Tears Are Grace. The Smell Of Rain Is Grace. Somebody Loving You Is Grace.
Good Night
Dream
Rain
Principles Are What People Have Instead Of God. To Be A Christian Means Among Other Things To Be Willing If Necessary To Sacrifice Even Your Highest Principles For God's Or Your Neighbour's Sake The Way A Christian Pacifist Must Be Willing To Pick Up A Baseball Bat If There's No Other Way To Stop A Man From Savagely Beating A Child. Jesus Didn't Forgive His Executioners On Principle But Because In Some Unimaginable Way He Was Able To Love Them. 'principle' Is An Even Duller Word Than 'religion'.
Christian
Baseball
Jesus
Many An Atheist Is A Believer Without Knowing It Juast As Many A Believer Is An Atheist Without Knowing It. You Can Sincerely Believe There Is No God And Live As Though There Is. You Can Sincerely Believe There Is A God And Live As Though There Isn't.
Atheist
Believe
Knowing
The Birth Of Jesus Made Possible Not Just A New Way Of Understanding Life But A New Way Of Living It.
Jesus
Understanding
Way
Pay Attention To The Things That Bring A Tear To Your Eye Or A Lump In Your Throat Because They Are Signs That The Holy Is Drawing Near.
Eye
Drawing
Grace
Your Life And My Life Flow Into Each Other As Wave Flows Into Wave, And Unless There Is Peace And Joy And Freedom For You, There Can Be No Real Peace Or Joy Or Freedom For Me. To See Reality-not As We Expect It To Be But As It Is-is To See That Unless We Live For Each Other And In And Through Each Other, We Do Not Really Live Very Satisfactorily; That There Can Really Be Life Only Where There Really Is, In Just This Sense, Love.
Love
Life
Romantic
One Life On This Earth Is All That We Get, Whether It Is Enough Or Not Enough, And The Obvious Conclusion Would Seem To Be That At The Very Least We Are Fools If We Do Not Live It As Fully And Bravely And Beautifully As We Can.
Earth
Fool
Enough
And There Are Other Dangers Potentially More Dangerous Than Even Nuclear War. There Is Aids. There Is Terrorism. There Are Drugs And More To The Point The Darkness Of Our Time That Makes People Seek Escape In Drugs. There Is The Slow Poisoning Of What We Call "the Environment" Of All Things As If With That Absurdly Antiseptic Phrase We Can Conceal From Ourselves That What We Are Really Poisoning Is Home, Is Here, Is Us.
War
Home
People
If The Truth Is Worth Telling, It Is Worth Making A Fool Of Yourself To Tell It.
Fool
Truth Is
Making A Fool Of Yourself
It Is Important To Tell Our Secrets Too Because ... It Makes It Easier For Other People To Tell Us A Secret Or Two Of Their Own, And Exchanges Like That Have A Lot To Do With What Being A Family Is All About And What Being Human Is All About.
Two
People
Secret
You Can Survive On Your Own; You Can Grow Strong On Your Own; You Can Prevail On Your Own; But You Cannot Become Human On Your Own.
Strong
Grows
Humans
I Am Such A Person Of Words. I've Spent So Much Of My Life Trying To Get It Right, Say It Right, Say It Eloquently, Say It Truthfully, Say It Honestly, That When I Hear It Said In Ways That None Of Those Adverbs Would Describe I Find Myself So Repelled That It Almost Shuts My Mind Off.
Mind
Trying
Way
That's Five Friends, One Each For Jesu's Wounds, And Godric Bears Their Mark Still On What's Left Of Him As In Their Time They All Bore His On Them. What's Friendship, When All's Done, But The Giving And Taking Of Wounds?
Giving
Done
Bears
The First Ministers Were The Twelve Disciples. There Is No Evidence That Jesus Chose Them Because They Are Brighter Or Nicer Than Other People. Their Sole Qualification Seems To Have Been Their Initial Willingness To Rise To Their Feet When Jesus Said, "follow Me."
Jesus
Feet
People
Almost Nothing That Makes Any Real Difference Can Be Proved.
Real
Differences
Go Where Your Best Prayers Take You.
Prayer
Best Prayer
Avarice, Greed, Concupiscence And So Forth Are All Based On The Mathematical Truism That The More You Get, The More You Have. The Remark Of That It Is More Blessed To Give Than To Receive Is Based On The Human Truth That The More You Give Away In Love, The More You Are. It Is Not Just For The Sake Of Other People That Tells Us To Give Rather Than Get, But For Our Own Sakes Too.
Blessed
People
Giving
We Must Be Careful With Our Lives, For Christ's Sake, Because It Would Seem That They Are The Only Lives We Are Going To Have In This Puzzling And Perilous World, And So They Are Very Precious And What We Do With Them Matters Enormously.
World
Matter
Sake
I Suspect That Jesus Spoke Many Of His Parables As A Kind Of Sad And Holy Joke And That That May Be Part Of Why He Seemed Reluctant To Explain Them Because If You Have To Explain A Joke, You Might As Well Save Your Breath.
Jesus
May
Might
The Worst Isn't The Last Thing About The World. It's The Next To The Last Thing. The Last Thing Is The Best. It's The Power From On High That Comes Down Into The World, That Wells Up From The Rock-bottom Worst Of The World Like A Hidden Spring. Can You Believe It? The Last, Best Thing Is The Laughing Deep In The Hearts Of The Saints, Sometimes Our Hearts Even. Yes. You Are Terribly Loved And Forgiven. Yes. You Are Healed. All Is Well.
Spring
Believe
Heart
To Believe In God Is To Give Your Heart To God.
Believe
Heart
Giving
The World Needs People Who Save Lives.
People
Needs
World
Your Calling Is Where Your Own Greatest Joy Intersects With The Needs Of The World.
Joy
Needs
Calling
Romantic Love Is Blind To Everything Except What Is Lovable And Lovely, But Christ's Love Sees Us With Terrible Clarity And Sees Us Whole. Christ's Love So Wishes Our Joy That It Is Ruthless Against Everything In Us That Diminishes Our Joy. The Worst Sentence Love Can Pass Is That We Behold The Suffering Which Love Has Endured For Our Sake, And That Is Also Our Acquittal. The Justice And Mercy Of The Judge Are Ultimately One.
Love
Justice
Judging
The Pride That Keeps Us From Forgiving Is The Same Pride Which Keeps Us From Accepting Forgiveness.
Pride
Forgiving
Accepting
Pray Anyway. Who Knows What God Can Do Through Your Prayer?
Prayer
Praying
Knows
If We Are To Love Our Neighbors, Before Doing Anything Else We Must See Our Neighbors. With Our Imagination As Well As Our Eyes, That Is To Say Like Artists, We Must See Not Just Their Faces But The Life Behind And Within Their Faces. Here It Is Love That Is The Frame We See Them In.
Eye
Artist
Imagination
Here Is The World. Beautiful And Terrible Things Will Happen. Don't Be Afraid.
Inspirational
Life
Beautiful
It Is The First Day Because It Has Never Been Before And The Last Day Because It Will Never Be Again. Be Alive, If You Can, All Through This Day - Today - Of Your Life. What's To Be Done? What's To Be Done? Follow Your Feet. Put On The Coffee. Start The Orange Juice, The Bacon, The Toast. Then Go Wake Up Your Children And Your Spouse. Think About The Work Of Your Hands. Live In The Needs Of The Day.
Children
Coffee
Thinking
Grace Is Something You Can Never Get But Only Be Given.
Faith
Grace
Given
The Preaching Is Part Of The Reason I Don't Go To Church. Plus, I Don't Know, It Was Never Part Of My Tradition.
Church
Tradition
Reason
I Not Only Have My Secrets, I Am My Secrets. And You Are Yours. Our Secrets Are Human Secrets, And Our Trusting Each Other Enough To Share Them With Each Other Has Much To Do With The Secret Of What It Means To Be Human.
Mean
Trusting Each Other
Secret
The Magic Of Words Is That They Have Power To Do More Than Convey Meaning; Not Only Do They Have The Power To Make Things Clear, They Make Things Happen.
Magic
Make Things Happen
Clear
My Story Is Important Not Because It Is Mine, God Knows, But Because If I Tell It Anything Like Right, The Chances Are You Will Recognize That In Many Ways It Is Also Yours.
Important
Stories
Way
Not To Love Is, Psychically, Spiritually, To Die. To Live For Yourself Alone, Hoarding Your Life For Your Own Sake, Is In Almost Every Sense That Matters To Reduce Your Life To A Life Hardly Worth The Living, And Thus To Lose It.
Love Is
Hoarding
Matter
Doubts Are The Ants In The Pants Of Faith. They Keep It Awake And Moving.
Religious
Moving
Doubt
I'm A Hopeless Prayer. I Think Somewhere In There I Spend A Great Deal Of Time At It.
Thinking
Hopeless
Praying
Being A Good Steward Of Your Pain. . . . It Involves Being Alive To Your Life. It Involves Taking The Risk Of Being Open, Of Reaching Out, Of Keeping In Touch With The Pain As Well As The Joy Of What Happens Because At No Time More Than At A Painful Time Do We Live Out Of The Depths Of Who We Are Instead Of Out Of The Shallows.
Pain
Joy
Risk
A Miracle Is When The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts. A Miracle Is When One Plus One Equals A Thousand.
Miracle
Plus
Thousand
I Don't Know That It Makes Any Difference Whether It's At This Time Or A Hundred Years Before Or A Hundred Years Later. I Think Always It's A Matter Of Simply Listen[ing] To What Is Going On Around You And In Your Own Experience. Try To Understand What's Happening, Or If Not To Understand It, At Least To Appreciate The Reality Of It.
Thinking
Reality
Differences
Faith In God Is Less Apt To Proceed From Miracles Than Miracles From Faith In God.
Miracle
Faith In God
Faith Is Better Understood As A Verb Than As A Noun, As A Process Than As A Possession. It Is An On-again-off-again Rather Than Once-and-for-all. Faith Is Not Being Sure Where You're Going But Going Anyway. A Journey Without Maps. Tillich Says That Doubt Isn't The Opposite Of Faith; It Is An Element Of Faith.
Faith
Journey
Opposites
Where Your Deep Gladness Meets With The Deep Hunger Of The World, There You Will Find A Further Calling.
Purpose
Calling
World
Wherever People Love Each Other And Are True To Each Other And Take Risks For Each Other, God Is With Them And For Them And They Are Doing God's Will.
People
Risk
Love Each Other
When [our Secrets] Are Sad And Hurtful Secrets, Like My Father's Death, We Can In A Way Honor The Hurt By Letting Ourselves Feel It As We Never Let Ourselves Feel It Before, And Then, Having Felt It, By Laying It Aside; We Can Start To Take Care Of Ourselves The Way We Take Care Of People We Love.
Hurt
Father
People
Maybe At The Heart Of All Our Traveling Is The Dream Of Someday, Somehow, Getting Home.
Dream
Home
Heart
She Was Right That Reality Can Be Harsh And That You Shut Your Eyes To It Only At Your Peril Because If You Do Not Face Up To The Enemy In All His Dark Power, Then The Enemy Will Come Up From Behind Some Dark Day And Destoy You While You Are Facing The Other Way.
Eye
Dark
Reality
To Remember The Past Is To See That We Are Here Today By Grace, That We Have Survived As A Gift.
Past
Grace
Today
The Place God Calls You To Is The Place Where Your Deep Gladness And The World’s Deep Hunger Meet.
Healing
Godly
Generosity
Becoming A Christian Was Terribly Helpful To Me. I Can't Imagine Finding My Way Without It. I Think It Can Be Very Crucially Important To Ally Yourself With Some Religion.
Christian
Thinking
Important
We Find By Losing. We Hold Fast By Letting Go. We Become Something New By Ceasing To Be Something Old.
Inspirational
Letting Go
Positivity
People Will Buy Snake Oil From Anybody Who Seems To Be Selling It In A Persuasive Way.
Snakes
Oil
People
We Cannot Make The Kingdom Of God Happen, But We Can Put Out Leaves As It Draws Near. We Can Be Kind To Each Other. We Can Be Kind To Ourselves. We Can Drive Back The Darkness A Little. We Can Make Green Places Within Ourselves And Among Ourselves Where God Can Make His Kingdom Happen.
God
Darkness
Green
If You Talk About Sin, You Don't Have To Use The First Person Singular, But Speak Out Of That Part Of Yourself Which Knows What It Means To Become Estranged From People You Love. Speak In Your Own Voice About Things That You In Your Own Life Have In One Way Or Another Experienced.
Mean
Speaks Out
Voice
At Least To Look Back Over Their Own Lives, As I Have Looked Back Over Mine, For Certain Themes And Patterns And Signals That Are So Easy To Miss When You're Caught Up In The Process Of Living Them. If God Speaks To Us At All Other Than Through Such Official Channels As The Bible And The Church, Then I Think He Speaks To Us Largely Through What Happens To Us, So Listen To What Has Happened To You-for The Sound, Above All Else, Of His Voice.
Thinking
Voice
Missing
Beneath The Worst The World Can Do, There Is Always The Glimmer Of The Best.
World
Worst
Can Do
Don't Look Down On Them For Looking Down On Us. Look At Them, Instead, As Friends We Don't Know Yet And Who Don't Yet Know What They Are Missing In Not Knowing Us.
Knowing
Missing
Looks
Maybe It's All Utterly Meaningless. Maybe It's All Unutterably Meaningful. If You Want To Know Which, Pay Attention To What It Means To Be Truly Human In A World That Half The Time We're In Love With And Half The Time Scares The Hell Out Of Us. Any Fiction That Helps Us Pay Attention To That Is Religious Fiction. The Unexpected Sound Of Your Name On Somebody's Lips. The Good Dream. The Strange Coincidence. The Moment That Brings Tears To Your Eyes. The Person Who Brings Life To Your Life. Even The Smallest Events Hold The Greatest Clues.
Meaningful
Dream
Religious
To Be Bored To Death Is A Form Of Suicide.
Suicide
Bored
Form
In His Holy Flirtation With The World, God Occasionally Drops A Handkerchief. These Handkerchiefs Are Called Saints.
Flirting
Saint
World
He [jesus] Speaks In Parables, And Though We Have Approached These Parables Reverentially All These Many Years And Have Heard Them Expounded As Grave And Reverent Vehicles Of Holy Truth, I Suspect That Many If Not All Of Them Were Originally Not Grave At All But Were Antic, Comic, Often More Than Just A Little Shocking.
Jesus
Years
Littles
You Can Never Be Sure Whether You Are Discovering The Truth Or Inventing It.
Discovering
Discovering The Truth
Inventing
I Don't Want To Give The Impression That I'm A Great Bible Reader. I Don't Sit Down Every Day And Read For An Hour Through The Bible. But I Really Do Read It With A Great Deal Of Pleasure... Which Is The Last Thing I Would Have Suspected. So I Read It Sometimes As A Devotional, But Really More, Not For Fun, But Because It's Fascinating.
Fun
Giving
Want
You Enter The Extraordinary By Way Of The Ordinary
Ordinary
Way
Extraordinary
All 'isms' Run Out In The End, And Good Riddance To Most Of Them. Patriotism For Example. [...] If In The Interest Of Making Sure We Don't Blow Ourselves Off The Map Once And For All, We End Up Relinquishing A Measure Of National Sovereignty To Some International Body, So Much The Worse For National Sovereignty. There Is Only One Sovereignty That Matters Ultimately, And It Is Of Another Sort Altogether.
Running
Blow
Example
To Forgive Somebody Is To Say One Way Or Another, "you Have Done Something Unspeakable, And By All Rights I Should Call It Quits Between Us. Both My Pride And My Principles Demand No Less. However, Although I Make No Guarantees That I Will Be Able To Forget What You've Done, And Though We May Both Carry The Scars For Life, I Refuse To Let It Stand Between Us. I Still Want You For My Friend.
Forgiveness
Pride
Rights
Your Vocation Lies In The Intersection Of The World's Deep Need And Your Deep Joy.
Lying
Joy
Needs
Justice Is The Grammar Of Things. Mercy Is The Poetry Of Things.
Justice
Mercy
Grammar
My Prayer Is Spasmodic, Occasional, Desperate. It Has A Great Deal To Do With My Children's Physical Well-being - That When They're Traveling In The Air The Plane Not Crash, Things Like That.
Prayer
Children
Air
I Loved Rain For Making Home Seem Home More Deeply, And I Suspect That Is Why, From As Far Back As I Can Remember, I Also Loved Those Books I Read And The People I Met In Them And The Worlds They Opened Up To Me. Like A House In The Rain, Books Were Havens Of Permanence And Protection From Whatever It Was That As A Child I Needed Protection From.
Children
Book
Rain
But It Has Been My Experience That The Risks Are Faroutweighed By The Rewards, Chief Of Which Is When You Speak To Strangers As Though They Are Friends, More Often Than Not, If Only For As Long As The Encounter Lasts, They Become Friends, And If In The Process They Also Think Of You As A Little Peculiar, Who Cares?
Thinking
Long
Risk
Remember Jesus Of Nazareth, Staggering On Broken Feet Out Of The Tomb Toward The Resurrection, Bearing On His Body The Proud Insignia Of The Defeat Which Is Victory, The Magnificent Defeat Of The Human Soul At The Hands Of God.
Jesus
Easter
Hands
Snobs Are People Who Look Down On Other People, But That Does Not Justify Our Looking Down On Them. Who Can Say What Dark Fears Of Being Inferior Lurk Behind Their Superior Airs Or What They Suffer In Private For The Slights They Dish Out In Public?
Dark
Air
People
To Believe Is Not Intellectual Assent: "yes, I Believe In Jesus. I Will Sign My Name To The Nicene Creed. I Believe It All" - Which You Could Do, [but] It Would Have No Effect On Who You Were Or What You Did. It Is, Rather, To Give Your Heart.
Jesus
Believe
Heart
Five Friends I Had And Two Of Them Snakes.
Snakes
Two
Five Friends
Theology, Like Fiction, Is Largely Autobiographical.
Fiction
Theology
Joy Is A Mystery Because It Can Happen Anywhere, Anytime, Even Under The Most Unpromising Circumstances, Even In The Midst Of Suffering, With Tears In Its Eyes.
Healing
Eye
Joy
The Trouble With Really Seeing And Really Hearing Is That Then We Really Have To Do Something About What We Have Seen And Heard.
Hearing
Trouble
Heard
Lord, I Believe; Help My Unbelief' Is The Best Any Of Us Can Do Really, But Thank God It Is Enough.
God
Faith
Religious
The Gospel Writers Are Not Really Interested Primarily In The Facts Of The Birth But In The Significance, The Meaning For Them Of That Birth Just As The People Who Love Us Are Not Really Interested Primarily In The Facts Of Our Births But In What It Meant To Them When We Were Born And How For Them The World Was Never The Same Again, How Their Whole Lives Were Changed With New Significance.
People
World
Facts
We Learn To Praise God Not By Paying Compliments But By Paying Attention.
Attention
Compliment
Praise
Turn Around And Believe That The Good News That We Are Loved Is Better Than We Ever Dared Hope, And That To Believe In That Good News, To Live Out Of It And Toward It, To Be In Love With That Good News, Is Of All Glad Things In This World The Gladdest Thing Of All. Amen, And Come Lord Jesus.
Jesus
Believe
News
. . Some Moment Happens In Your Life That You Say Yes Right Up To The Roots Of Your Hair, That Makes It Worth Having Been Born Just To Have Happen. Laughing With Somebody Till The Tears Run Down Your Cheeks. Waking Up To The First Snow. Being In Bed With Somebody You Love... Whether You Thank God For Such A Moment Or Thank Your Lucky Stars, It Is A Moment That Is Trying To Open Up Your Whole Life. If You Turn Your Back On Such A Moment And Hurry Along To Business As Usual, It May Lose You The Ball Game. If You Throw Your Arms Around Such A Moment And Hug It Like Crazy, It May Save Your Soul.
Running
Stars
Crazy
To Believe In Christ Is To Give Your Heart To Christ, Which Means Not To Affirm Things About Christ, But It's Like What You Mean When You Say, "i Believe In My Friend."
Believe
Mean
Heart
In Honesty You Have To Admit To A Wise Man That Prayer Is Not For The Wise, Not For The Prudent, Not For The Sophisticated. Instead It Is For Those Who Recognize That In Face Of Their Deepest Needs, All Their Wisdom Is Quite Helpless. It Is For Those Who Are Willing To Persist In Doing Something That Is Both Childish And Crucial.
Wise
Prayer
Honesty
Wether You Call On Him Or Don't Call On Him, God Will Be Present With You.
Gods Will
On Her Deathbed, Gertrude Stein Is Said To Have Asked, 'what Is The Answer?' Then, After A Long Silence, 'what Is The Question?' Don't Start Looking In The Bible For The Answers It Gives. Start By Listening For The Questions It Asks.
Long
Giving
Silence
Listen To Your Life. Listen To What Happens To You Because It Is Through What Happens To You That God Speaks...it's In Language That's Not Always Easy To Decipher, But It's There Powerfully, Memorably, Unforgettably.
Language
Speak
Easy
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