Frederick Buechner
Encyclopedia
Frederick Buechner is an American writer
and theologian
. Born July 11, 1926 in New York City
, he is an ordained Presbyterian
minister and the author of more than thirty published books thus far. His work encompasses different genres, including fiction, autobiography, essays and sermons, and his career has spanned six decades. Buechner’s books have been translated into many languages for publication around the world. He is best known for his works A Long Day’s Dying (his first work, published in 1950); The Book of Bebb, a tetralogy based on the character Leo Bebb published in 1977; Godric
, a first person narrative of the life of the medieval saint, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
in 1981; Brendan, a second novel narrating a saint’s life, published in 1987; Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner (1992); and his autobiographical works The Sacred Journey (1982), Now and Then (1983), Telling Secrets (1991), and The Eyes of the Heart: Memoirs of the Lost and Found (1999). He has been called "Major talent" and "…a very good writer indeed" by the New York Times
, and "one of our most original storytellers" by USA Today. Annie Dillard
(Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) says: "Frederick Buechner is one of our finest writers."
Buechner’s work has often been praised for its ability to inspire readers to see the grace
in their daily lives. As stated in the London Free Press
, "He is one of our great novelists because he is one of our finest religious writers." He has been a finalist for the National Book Award
Presented by the National Book Foundation and the Pulitzer Prize
, and has been awarded eight honorary degrees from such institutions as Yale University
and the Virginia Theological Seminary
. In addition, Buechner has been the recipient of the O. Henry Award
, the Rosenthal Award, the Christianity and Literature Belles Lettres Prize, and has been recognized by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He is continually listed among the most read authors by Christian audiences.
, where they remained until World War II
forced the evacuation of Americans from the island.
Buechner then attended the Lawrenceville School
in Lawrenceville, New Jersey
, graduating in 1943. While at Lawrenceville, he met the future Pulitzer Prize
winning poet James Merrill
; their friendship and rivalry inspired the literary ambitions of both. As Mel Gussow wrote in Merrill’s 1995 obituary: "their friendly competition was an impetus for each becoming a writer." Buechner then enrolled at Princeton University
. His college career was interrupted by military service in World War II (1944–46), but he returned to graduate with a degree in English
in 1948. Upon graduation, he returned to the Lawrenceville School
as a teacher of creative writing
.
During his senior year at Princeton
, Buechner received the Irene Glascock Prize for poetry, and he also began working on his first novel and one of his greatest critical successes: A Long Day’s Dying, published in 1950. Of this first book Buechner says,
The publication of A Long Day’s Dying catapulted Buechner into early and, in his own words, "undeserved" fame. Buechner’s dense, reflective style was compared to Henry James
and Marcel Proust
, and he was hailed as one of the rising stars of American literature. In a long and distinguished career, A Long Day’s Dying continues to be one of Buechner’s most successful works, both critically and commercially (it was reissued in 2003). However, his second novel, The Season’s Difference, published in 1952, in Buechner’s words, "fared as badly as the first one had fared well." The contrast between the success of his first novel and the commercial failure of the second was starkly visible, and it was on this note that Buechner left his teaching position at Lawrenceville to move to New York City and focus on his writing career.
In 1952, Buechner began lecturing at New York University, and once again received critical acclaim for his short story "The Tiger," published in The New Yorker
, which won the O. Henry Award
in 1955. Also during this time, he began attending the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, where George Buttrick was pastor. It was during one of Buttrick’s sermons that Buechner heard the words that inspired his ordination: Buttrick described the inward coronation of Christ as taking place in the hearts of those who believe in him "among confession, and tears, and great laughter." The impact of this phrase on Buechner was so great that he eventually entered the Union Theological Seminary
in 1954, on a Rockefeller Brothers Theological Fellowship.
While at Union, Buechner studied under such renowned theologians as Reinhold Niebuhr
, Paul Tillich
, and James Muilenberg, who helped Buechner in his search for understanding:
Buechner’s decision to enter the seminary had come as a great surprise to those who knew him. Even George Buttrick, whose words had so inspired Buechner, observed that, "It would be a shame to lose a good novelist for a mediocre preacher." Nevertheless, Buechner’s ministry and writing have ever since served to enhance each other’s message.
Following his first year at Union, Buechner decided to take the 1955-6 school year off to continue his writing. In the spring of 1955, shortly before he left Union for the year, Buechner met his wife Judith at a dance given by some family friends. They were married a year later by James Muilenberg in Montclair, N.J., and spent the next four months traveling in Europe. During this year, Buechner also completed his third novel, The Return of Ansel Gibbs.
After his sabbatical, Buechner returned to Union to complete the two further years necessary to receive a Bachelor of Divinity. He was ordained on June 1, 1958 at the same Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church where he had heard George Buttrick preach four years earlier. Buechner was ordained as an evangelist, or minister without pastoral charge. Shortly before graduation, as he considered his future role as minister of a parish, he had received a letter from Robert Russell Wicks, formerly the Dean of the Chapel at Princeton
, and now serving as school minister at Phillips Exeter Academy
; Wicks had offered him the job of instituting a new, full-time religion department at Exeter
. Buechner decided to take the opportunity to return to teaching, and to develop a program that taught religion in depth.
In September 1958, the Buechners moved to Exeter
. There, Buechner faced the challenge of creating a new department and academically rigorous curriculum that would challenge the often cynical views of his new students. "My job, as I saw it, was to defend the Christian faith against its "cultured despisers," to use Schleiermacher
’s phrase. To put it more positively, it was to present the faith as appealingly, honestly, relevantly, and skillfully as I could." During his tenure at Exeter, Buechner taught courses in both the Religion and English departments, and served as school chaplain and minister. Also during this time, the family grew to include three daughters. For the school year 1963-4, the Buechners took a sabbatical on their farm in Rupert, VT, during which time Buechner returned to his writing; his fourth book, The Final Beast, was published in 1965. As the first book he had written since being ordained, The Final Beast represented a new style for Buechner, one in which he combined his dual callings as minister and as author.
Buechner recalls of his accomplishments at Exeter
: "All told, we were there for nine years with one year’s leave of absence tucked in the middle, and by the time we left, the religion department had grown from only one full-time teacher, namely myself, and about twenty students, to four teachers and something in the neighborhood, as I remember, of three hundred students or more." Among these students was the future author John Irving
, who included a quotation from Buechner in the preface of his book A Prayer for Owen Meany
. One of Buechner's biographers, Marjorie Casebier McCoy, describes the effect of his time at Exeter as follows: "Buechner in his sermons had been attempting to reach out to the "cultured despisers of religion." The students and faculty at Phillips Exeter had been, for the most part, just that when he had arrived at the school, and it had been they who compelled him to hone his preaching and literary skills to their utmost in order to get a hearing for Christian faith."
After nine years at Exeter, and the successful establishment of the Religion Department, the Buechners felt that it was time for a change. In the summer of 1967, the whole family moved to their farmhouse in Rupert to live year-round. Buechner describes their house in Now and Then:
There Buechner realized the challenge of writing without the structure of school life around him. He describes the creation of his next novel, The Entrance to Porlock, as follows: "…the labor of writing which was so painful that I find it hard, even now, to see beyond the memory of the pain to whatever merit it may have." However, in 1968, Buechner received a letter from Charles Price, the chaplain at Harvard, inviting him to give the Noble Lectures series in the winter of 1969. His predecessors in this role were none other than Richard Niebuhr and George Buttrick, and Buechner was both flattered and daunted by the idea of joining so august a group. When he voiced his concerns, Price replied that he should write "something in the area of "religion and letters."" Thence came the idea to write about the everyday events of life "as the alphabet through which God, of his grace, spells out his words, his meaning, to us. So The Alphabet of Grace was the title I hit upon, and what I set out to do was to try to describe a single representative day of my life in a way to suggest what there was of God to hear in it." This process showed Buechner a way out of the frustration he had felt while writing The Entrance to Porlock: by drawing on his own experience, he found the means to convey his thoughts through his writing.
It was about this time, when Buechner was giving the Noble Lectures, that he came across the character that proved so significant in his later career:
The Book of Bebb tetralogy proved to be one of Buechner’s most well-known works. Published in the years from 1972–1977, it brought Buechner to a much wider audience, and gained him critical acclaim (Lion Country, the first book in the series, was a finalist for the National Book Award
in 1971). Of writing the series, Buechner says: "I had never known a man like Leo Bebb and was in most ways quite unlike him myself, but despite that, there was very little I had to do by way of consciously, purposefully inventing him. He came, unexpected and unbidden, from a part of myself no less mysterious and inaccessible than the part where dreams come from; and little by little there came with him a whole world of people and places that was as heretofore unknown to me as Bebb was himself." In this series, Buechner experimented for the first time with first-person narrative, and discovered that this, too, opened new doors. His next work, Godric
, published in 1980, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize
. Like Leo Bebb, Godric
, a 12th century English saint, tells his story in the first person, and Buechner took great care to recreate the sounds and rhythm of his speech.
The process of writing Godric once again indicated a new path for Buechner: the writing of his own autobiography. To date, this includes four volumes: The Sacred Journey (1982), Now and Then (1983), Telling Secrets (1991), Secrets in the Dark (2006). Buechner has thus far published over thirty works, and continues to write more; his latest book, Yellow Leaves, was released in 2008.
In 2007, Buechner was presented with the lifetime achievement award from the Conference on Christianity and Literature.
"To this day, you’ve remained one of my best angels, and not just mine, but all of ours who, week after week, trust that our nicked and ragged selves, however hard we try to press them, will somehow serve to bring God’s truth to life."
In the words of The Reverend Samuel Lloyd, dean of Washington National Cathedral
, Buechner’s words "have nurtured the lives of untold seekers and followers" through "his capacity to see into the heart of every day."
Buechner's readers are intrigued and inspired by the confluence of genres within his works:
Buechner's combination of literary style with approachable, universally applicable subject matter has, to many of his fans, revolutionized contemporary Christian literature: "In my view, Buechner is doing a distinctively new thing on the literary scene, writing novels that are theologically exciting without becoming propaganda, and doing theology with artistic style and imagination." Buechner's earliest works, written before his entrance into Union Theological Seminary, were hailed as profoundly literary works, notable for their dense, descriptive style. Of his first novel, A Long Day's Dying, David Daiches
wrote: "There is a quality of civilized perception here, a sensitive and plastic handling of English prose and an ability to penetrate to the evanescent core of a human situation, all proclaiming major talent." From this promising beginning, however, it has been the application of Buechner's literary talent to theological issues that has continued to fascinate his audience:
Of his more recent style, the pastor and author Brian D. McLaren says:
Throughout Buechner's work his hallmark as a theologian and autobiographer is his regard for the appearance of the divine in daily life. By examining the day-to-day workings of his own life, Buechner seeks to find God's hand at work, thus leading his audience by example to similar introspection. The Reverend Samuel Lloyd describes his "capacity to see into the heart of every day," an ability that reflects the significance of daily events onto the reader's life as well. In the words of the preacher Barbara Brown Taylor: "From [Buechner] I've learned that the only limit to the revelation going on all around me is my willingness to turn aside and look."
, the Buechner Institute is dedicated to the work and example of Frederick Buechner, exploring the intersections and collisions of faith and culture that define our times.
Dale Brown, the founding director of the Buechner Institute, is the author of numerous articles and the recent critical biography, The Book of Buechner: A Journey Through His Writings.
The Buechner Institute sponsors convocations on most Mondays at 10:30 a.m. in Memorial Chapel on the campus of King College that feature speakers from a variety of backgrounds who examine the ways in which faith informs art and public life and cultivate conversation about what faith has to do with books, politics, social discourse, music, visual arts, and more.
Additionally, the Buechner Institute sponsors the Annual Buechner Lecture. The following is the list of lecturers invited to speak thus far:
A summer symposium on the work of Frederick Buechner will be featured in 2010. Attendees from around the country will spend enjoy a week of reading and entertainment on the Virginia/Tennessee border.
The work of the Institute is guided by a local Governing Board and a National Advisory Board. National board members include Doris Betts
, Walter Brueggemann
, Scott Cairns
, Michael Card
, Elizabeth Dewberry, Tim Gautreaux
, Philip Gulley, Ron Hansen
, Roy Herron
, Silas House
, Richard Hughes, Thomas G. Long
, Tom Lynch, Brian McLaren
, Carrie Newcomer
, Kathleen Norris
, Katherine Paterson
, Eugene H. Peterson
, Charles Pollard, Barbara Brown Taylor
, Will Willimon, John Wilson, Philip Yancey
, and others.
summed up a host of positive reviews, saying “All on his own, Mr. Buechner has managed to reinvent projects of self-purification and of faith as piquant matter for contemporary fiction, producing in a single decade a quintet of books each of which is individual in concerns and knowledge, and notable for literary finish.” In 1982, author Reynolds Price
greeted Buechner’s The Sacred Journey as “a rich new vein for Buechner – a kind of detective autobiography” and “[t]he result is a short but fascinating and, in its own terms, beautifully successful experiment.”
Buechner has occasionally been accused of being too “preachy;” a 1984 review by Anna Shapiro in the New York Times notes “But for all the colloquialism, there is something, well, preachy and a little unctuous about making yourself an exemplar of faith. Insights that would do for a paragraph are dragged out with a doggedness that will presumably bring the idea home to even the most resistant and inattentive.” The sentiments expressed by Cecelia Holland’s 1987 Washington Post review of Buechner’s novel, Brendan, are far more common. She writes,“In our own time, when religion is debased, an electronic game show, an insult to the thirsty soul, Buechner's novel proves again the power of faith, to lift us up, to hold us straight, to send us on again.”
In 2008, the 50th anniversary of Buechner's ordination, Rich Barlowe wrote of Buechner in the Boston Globe, "Who knows? The words are Frederick Buechner's mantra. Over the course of an hourlong chat with the writer and Presbyterian minister in his kitchen, they recur any number of times in response to questions about his faith and theology. Dogmatic religious believers would dismiss the two words as the warning shot of doubt. But for Buechner, it is precisely our doubts and struggles that mark us as human. And that insight girds his theological twist on Socrates: The unexamined human life is a lost chance to behold the divine." In 2002, Richard Kauffman interviewed Buechner for The Christian Century upon the publication of Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought to Say). Buechner answered the question "Do you envision a particular audience when you write?" by saying "I always hope to reach people who don't want to touch religion with a ten-foot pole. The cultured despisers of religion, Sehleiermacher called them. Maybe some of my books reach them. But most of my readers, as far as I can tell, aren't that type. Many of them are ministers. They say, 'You've given us something back we lost and opened up doors we didn't think could be opened for people.'"
Buechner has also played literary critic himself. In 1980 Buechner reviewed Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth by J. R. R. Tolkien
, noting that the book was “in short, a production less of Tolkien himself than of the Tolkien industry.”
Buechner’s largest presence in the media, however, is through the hundreds of readers who quote his works on a daily basis in articles, blogs, and speeches. Writers include his quotes in pieces for The Flint Times in Michigan, The Kansas City Star, The West Australian News, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, The New Zealand Herald, and the Pembroke Observer in Ontario.
"'Wishful Thinking' is a new lexicon, a dictionary for the restless believer, for the doubter, for anyone who wants to redefine or define more concretely those words that have become an integral part of our daily language—words that we use about God, the universe and, last but never least, humankind. This is Buechner's debonair definition of "doubt": "Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving." With such wit and wisdom, imagination and innovation, we are led to a fuller awareness and greater understanding of the true relevance of familiar terms to each of our own lives." – Senior Pastor Steve Petty, St. Andrew's By-the-Sea United Methodist Church, San Clemente
"Like all of Buechner's stories, this one will make you laugh and cry. You will also contemplate with wonder that, even among modern fragmented families and sin, love and grace are never far away." – Rev John Congram on The Storm
"In the hands of a less skilled writer, the use of a resurrected conversation partner might seem contrived. Here it successfully combines an intimate conversation with a hint at a revelatory vision. Buechner is neither sentimental nor detached, gloomy nor unduly optimistic. He listens to his fears, anxieties and hopes and illuminates our own experience of the death of those close to us." – David M. May on The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found
"He's sort of earthy, he writes well... What can I say? He writes these little gems and he writes these big ambitious things... The characters are good and they have distinct voices. He's good with voice... Above all else he's a novelist. He's a literary man." – Annie Dillard, author of the best-selling Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
"Those familiar with Buechner will feel like they've run into an old friend in the grocery store. Readers new to the author will probably develop a love affair with his ability to draw you into a story (sometimes with only a line or two) and then, in a few words, give you something you'll never forget. For instance, under the heading "Buechner": "I can't imagine myself with any other name ... If my name were dif-ferent, I would be different. When I tell you my name, I have given you a hold over me that you didn't have before. If you call it out, I stop, look and listen whether I want to or not. 'In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses that his name is Yahweh, and God hasn't had a peaceful moment since.'" – Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Beyond Words, Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith
"Whether reading "Beyond Words" makes for a happier, easier or more fulfilled life, I couldn't say. This much I know—it does, at least, for the duration of time you're reading it." – Jeff Simon
"In The Sacred Journey, Buechner tells us that we must learn to hear in our lives the sound of the holy. 'It is the function of all great preaching,' he writes, 'and of all great art, to sharpen our hearing to precisely that end.' Son of Laughter will not only help one hearthat sound; it is that sound." – Brooke Horvath
"These literary passes at contemporaneity are out of keeping with the biblical tone Mr. Buechner sustains, and with his faithful adherence to the original narrative. Some of the descriptive passages of the biblical countryside are lush and beautifully written, but they seem superfluous – Technicolor glosses. Writers can try to put flesh on the bones of this story, but finally it resists meddling, modernization, rewriting. The mesmerizing, cryptic original is a hard act to follow." – Lore Dickstein on The Son of Laughter
"The word 'soul' – not always welcome these days in secular culture – is the right word for Buechner. Telling Secrets is unabashedly Christian; ultimately, it's a meditation on the connection between knowing and sharing secrets and discovering the reality of a loving and merciful God." – Frank Levering on Telling Secrets
"The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt." The Hungering Dark
"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery 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." Now and Then
"You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. ... You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next." Beyond Words
"All theology, like all fiction, is at its heart autobiography." The Sacred Journey
"It is impossible to conceive how different things would have turned out if that birth had not happened whenever, wherever, however it did ... for millions of people who have lived since, the birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it. It is a truth that, for twenty centuries, there have been untold numbers of men and women who, in untold numbers of ways, have been so grasped by the child who was born, so caught up in the message he taught and the life he lived, that they have found themselves profoundly changed by their relationship with him." Listening to Your Life
"Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past ... to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you." Wishful Thinking
"The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Wishful Thinking
"The world is full of dark shadows, to be sure both the world without and the world within ... But praise and trust him too for the knowledge that what's lost is nothing to what's found, and that all the dark there ever was, set next to light, would scarcely fill a cup." Commencement Address at Union Seminary, Richmond
"Grace is something you can never get but only be given. 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 reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.” Wishful Thinking
"The only patriots worth their salt are the ones who love their country enough to see that in a nuclear age it is not going to survive unless the world survives. True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anything like that but champions of the Human Race. It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost but the planet Earth as Home. If in the interests 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." Whistling in the Dark
"Our eyes are just our eyes and not all we have for seeing, maybe not even the best we have for seeing. Facts are all the eye can see, eyes cannot see truth. It's not with the eyes of the head that we see truths like that, but with the eyes of the heart. To see (Jesus) with the heart is to know, in the long run, that his life is the only life worth living." From "Faith by the Book: Author Preaches About Biblical Perspective" by Matt VandeBunte
"I pick the children up at the bottom of the mountain where the orange bus lets them off in the wind. They run for the car like leaves blowing. Not for keeps, to be sure, but at least for the time being, the world has given them back again, and whatever the world chooses to do later on, it can never so much as lay a hand on the having-beenness of this time. The past is inviolate. We are none of us safe, but everything that has happened is safe. In all the vast and empty reaches of the universe it can never be otherwise than that when the orange bus stopped with its red lights blinking, these two children were on it. Their noses were running. One of them dropped a sweater. I drove them home." Listening to Your Life
"[T]he 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 charged with new significance." The Hungering Dark
"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." The Sacred Journey
"Martin Luther said once, 'If I were God, I'd kick the world to pieces.' But Martin Luther wasn't God. God is God, and God has never kicked the world to pieces. He keeps re-entering the world. He keeps offering himself to the world by grace, keeps somehow blessing the world, making possible a kind of life which we all, in our deepest being, hunger for." From discussion with reporter Kim Lawton on Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly
"Many an atheist is a believer without knowing it just 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." Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith
"Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and free-dom 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." The Magnificent Defeat
"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." Lecture to a Book of the Month Club
"The child is born in the night – the mother's exhausted flesh, the father's face clenched like a fist – and nothing is ever the same again." The Hungering Dark
"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am in who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my
voice and speak to me in your heart.
"For as long as your remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.
If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well." Listening To Your Life
"The love for equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy—the love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The torture’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world." The Magnificent Defeat
"It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle."
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and theologian
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
. Born July 11, 1926 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, he is an ordained Presbyterian
Presbyterianism
Presbyterianism refers to a number of Christian churches adhering to the Calvinist theological tradition within Protestantism, which are organized according to a characteristic Presbyterian polity. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures,...
minister and the author of more than thirty published books thus far. His work encompasses different genres, including fiction, autobiography, essays and sermons, and his career has spanned six decades. Buechner’s books have been translated into many languages for publication around the world. He is best known for his works A Long Day’s Dying (his first work, published in 1950); The Book of Bebb, a tetralogy based on the character Leo Bebb published in 1977; Godric
Godric (novel)
Godric is a novel published in 1981, written by Frederick Buechner, that tells the semi-fictionalised life story of medieval Catholic saint Godric of Finchale. The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize....
, a first person narrative of the life of the medieval saint, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in 1981; Brendan, a second novel narrating a saint’s life, published in 1987; Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner (1992); and his autobiographical works The Sacred Journey (1982), Now and Then (1983), Telling Secrets (1991), and The Eyes of the Heart: Memoirs of the Lost and Found (1999). He has been called "Major talent" and "…a very good writer indeed" by the New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, and "one of our most original storytellers" by USA Today. Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for General...
(Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) says: "Frederick Buechner is one of our finest writers."
Buechner’s work has often been praised for its ability to inspire readers to see the grace
Divine grace
In Christian theology, grace is God’s gift of God’s self to humankind. It is understood by Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to man - "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" - that takes the form of divine favour, love and clemency. It is an attribute of God that is most...
in their daily lives. As stated in the London Free Press
London Free Press
The London Free Press is a daily newspaper based in London, Ontario, Canada.The London Free Press began as the Canadian Free Press, founded by William Sutherland in 1847. It first began printing as a weekly newspaper in 1849. In 1852, it was purchased for $500 by Josiah Blackburn, who renamed it...
, "He is one of our great novelists because he is one of our finest religious writers." He has been a finalist for the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
Presented by the National Book Foundation and the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
, and has been awarded eight honorary degrees from such institutions as Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and the Virginia Theological Seminary
Virginia Theological Seminary
Virginia Theological Seminary , formally called the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia, is the largest accredited Episcopal seminary in the United States. Founded in 1818, VTS is situated on an campus in Alexandria, Virginia, just a few miles from downtown Washington, DC. VTS...
. In addition, Buechner has been the recipient of the O. Henry Award
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
, the Rosenthal Award, the Christianity and Literature Belles Lettres Prize, and has been recognized by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He is continually listed among the most read authors by Christian audiences.
Biography
Frederick Buechner, the eldest son of Carl Frederick and Katherine (Kuhn) Buechner, was born on July 11, 1926 in New York City. During Buechner’s early childhood the family moved frequently, as Buechner’s father searched for work. In The Sacred Journey Buechner recalls: "Virtually every year of my life until I was fourteen, I lived in a different place, had different people to take care of me, went to a different school. The only house that remained constant was the one where my maternal grandparents lived in a suburb of Pittsburgh called East Liberty…Apart from that one house on Woodland Road, home was not a place to me when I was a child. It was people." This changed in 1936, when Buechner’s father committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, a result of his conviction that he had been a failure. Immediately afterwards, the family moved to BermudaBermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
, where they remained until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
forced the evacuation of Americans from the island.
Buechner then attended the Lawrenceville School
Lawrenceville School
The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational, independent preparatory boarding school for grades 9–12 located on in the historic community of Lawrenceville, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, U.S., five miles southwest of Princeton....
in Lawrenceville, New Jersey
Lawrenceville, New Jersey
Lawrenceville is a census-designated place and unincorporated area located within Lawrence Township in Mercer County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the CDP population was 3,887...
, graduating in 1943. While at Lawrenceville, he met the future Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning poet James Merrill
James Merrill
James Ingram Merrill was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Divine Comedies...
; their friendship and rivalry inspired the literary ambitions of both. As Mel Gussow wrote in Merrill’s 1995 obituary: "their friendly competition was an impetus for each becoming a writer." Buechner then enrolled at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. His college career was interrupted by military service in World War II (1944–46), but he returned to graduate with a degree in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in 1948. Upon graduation, he returned to the Lawrenceville School
Lawrenceville School
The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational, independent preparatory boarding school for grades 9–12 located on in the historic community of Lawrenceville, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, U.S., five miles southwest of Princeton....
as a teacher of creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
.
During his senior year at Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Buechner received the Irene Glascock Prize for poetry, and he also began working on his first novel and one of his greatest critical successes: A Long Day’s Dying, published in 1950. Of this first book Buechner says,
-
- "I took the title from a passage in Paradise LostParadise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
where Adam says to Eve that their expulsion from Paradise "will prove no sudden but a slow pac’d evil,/ A Long Day’s Dying to augment our pain," and with the exception of the old lady Maroo, what all the characters seem to be dying of is loneliness, emptiness, sterility, and such preoccupation with themselves and their own problems that they are unable to communicate with each other about anything that really matters to them very much. I am sure that I chose such a melancholy theme partly because it seemed effective and fashionable, but I have no doubt that, like dreams generally, it also reflected the way I felt about at least some dimension of my own life and the lives of those around me."
- "I took the title from a passage in Paradise Lost
The publication of A Long Day’s Dying catapulted Buechner into early and, in his own words, "undeserved" fame. Buechner’s dense, reflective style was compared to Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
and Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, and he was hailed as one of the rising stars of American literature. In a long and distinguished career, A Long Day’s Dying continues to be one of Buechner’s most successful works, both critically and commercially (it was reissued in 2003). However, his second novel, The Season’s Difference, published in 1952, in Buechner’s words, "fared as badly as the first one had fared well." The contrast between the success of his first novel and the commercial failure of the second was starkly visible, and it was on this note that Buechner left his teaching position at Lawrenceville to move to New York City and focus on his writing career.
In 1952, Buechner began lecturing at New York University, and once again received critical acclaim for his short story "The Tiger," published in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, which won the O. Henry Award
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
in 1955. Also during this time, he began attending the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, where George Buttrick was pastor. It was during one of Buttrick’s sermons that Buechner heard the words that inspired his ordination: Buttrick described the inward coronation of Christ as taking place in the hearts of those who believe in him "among confession, and tears, and great laughter." The impact of this phrase on Buechner was so great that he eventually entered the Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...
in 1954, on a Rockefeller Brothers Theological Fellowship.
While at Union, Buechner studied under such renowned theologians as Reinhold Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian and commentator on public affairs. Starting as a leftist minister in the 1920s indebted to theological liberalism, he shifted to the new Neo-Orthodox theology in the 1930s, explaining how the sin of pride created evil in the world...
, Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
, and James Muilenberg, who helped Buechner in his search for understanding:
-
- "I wanted to learn about Christ – about the Old Testament, which had been his Bible, and the New Testament, which was the Bible about him; about the history of the church, which had been founded on the faith that through him God had not only revealed his innermost nature and his purpose for the world, but had released into the world a fierce power to draw people into that nature and adapt them to that purpose….No intellectual pursuit had ever aroused in me such intense curiosity, and much more than my intellect was involved, much more than my curiosity aroused. In the unfamiliar setting of a Presbyterian church, of all places, I had been moved to astonished tears which came from so deep inside me that to this day I have never fathomed them, I wanted to learn more about the source of those tears and the object of that astonishment."
Buechner’s decision to enter the seminary had come as a great surprise to those who knew him. Even George Buttrick, whose words had so inspired Buechner, observed that, "It would be a shame to lose a good novelist for a mediocre preacher." Nevertheless, Buechner’s ministry and writing have ever since served to enhance each other’s message.
Following his first year at Union, Buechner decided to take the 1955-6 school year off to continue his writing. In the spring of 1955, shortly before he left Union for the year, Buechner met his wife Judith at a dance given by some family friends. They were married a year later by James Muilenberg in Montclair, N.J., and spent the next four months traveling in Europe. During this year, Buechner also completed his third novel, The Return of Ansel Gibbs.
After his sabbatical, Buechner returned to Union to complete the two further years necessary to receive a Bachelor of Divinity. He was ordained on June 1, 1958 at the same Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church where he had heard George Buttrick preach four years earlier. Buechner was ordained as an evangelist, or minister without pastoral charge. Shortly before graduation, as he considered his future role as minister of a parish, he had received a letter from Robert Russell Wicks, formerly the Dean of the Chapel at Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, and now serving as school minister at Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
; Wicks had offered him the job of instituting a new, full-time religion department at Exeter
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
. Buechner decided to take the opportunity to return to teaching, and to develop a program that taught religion in depth.
In September 1958, the Buechners moved to Exeter
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
. There, Buechner faced the challenge of creating a new department and academically rigorous curriculum that would challenge the often cynical views of his new students. "My job, as I saw it, was to defend the Christian faith against its "cultured despisers," to use Schleiermacher
Schleiermacher
Schleiermacher is the name of:* Friedrich Schleiermacher - German theologian and philosopher* Ruth Schleiermacher - speedskater* Steffen Schleiermacher - composer...
’s phrase. To put it more positively, it was to present the faith as appealingly, honestly, relevantly, and skillfully as I could." During his tenure at Exeter, Buechner taught courses in both the Religion and English departments, and served as school chaplain and minister. Also during this time, the family grew to include three daughters. For the school year 1963-4, the Buechners took a sabbatical on their farm in Rupert, VT, during which time Buechner returned to his writing; his fourth book, The Final Beast, was published in 1965. As the first book he had written since being ordained, The Final Beast represented a new style for Buechner, one in which he combined his dual callings as minister and as author.
Buechner recalls of his accomplishments at Exeter
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
: "All told, we were there for nine years with one year’s leave of absence tucked in the middle, and by the time we left, the religion department had grown from only one full-time teacher, namely myself, and about twenty students, to four teachers and something in the neighborhood, as I remember, of three hundred students or more." Among these students was the future author John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...
, who included a quotation from Buechner in the preface of his book A Prayer for Owen Meany
A Prayer for Owen Meany
A Prayer for Owen Meany was the seventh published novel by American writer John Irving when it appeared in 1989. It tells the story of John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany growing up together in a small New England town during the 1950-60s...
. One of Buechner's biographers, Marjorie Casebier McCoy, describes the effect of his time at Exeter as follows: "Buechner in his sermons had been attempting to reach out to the "cultured despisers of religion." The students and faculty at Phillips Exeter had been, for the most part, just that when he had arrived at the school, and it had been they who compelled him to hone his preaching and literary skills to their utmost in order to get a hearing for Christian faith."
After nine years at Exeter, and the successful establishment of the Religion Department, the Buechners felt that it was time for a change. In the summer of 1967, the whole family moved to their farmhouse in Rupert to live year-round. Buechner describes their house in Now and Then:
-
- "Our house is on the eastern slope of Rupert Mountain, just off a country road, still unpaved then, and five miles from the nearest town…Even at the most unpromising times of year – in mudtime, on bleak, snowless winter days – it is in so many unexpected ways beautiful that even after all this time I have never quite gotten used to it. I have seen other places equally beautiful in my time, but never, anywhere, have I seen one more so."
There Buechner realized the challenge of writing without the structure of school life around him. He describes the creation of his next novel, The Entrance to Porlock, as follows: "…the labor of writing which was so painful that I find it hard, even now, to see beyond the memory of the pain to whatever merit it may have." However, in 1968, Buechner received a letter from Charles Price, the chaplain at Harvard, inviting him to give the Noble Lectures series in the winter of 1969. His predecessors in this role were none other than Richard Niebuhr and George Buttrick, and Buechner was both flattered and daunted by the idea of joining so august a group. When he voiced his concerns, Price replied that he should write "something in the area of "religion and letters."" Thence came the idea to write about the everyday events of life "as the alphabet through which God, of his grace, spells out his words, his meaning, to us. So The Alphabet of Grace was the title I hit upon, and what I set out to do was to try to describe a single representative day of my life in a way to suggest what there was of God to hear in it." This process showed Buechner a way out of the frustration he had felt while writing The Entrance to Porlock: by drawing on his own experience, he found the means to convey his thoughts through his writing.
It was about this time, when Buechner was giving the Noble Lectures, that he came across the character that proved so significant in his later career:
-
- "I was reading a magazine as I waited my turn at a barber shop one day when, triggered by a particular article and the photographs that went with it, there floated up out of some hitherto unexplored subcellar of me a character who was to dominate my life as a writer for the next six years and more. He was a plump, bald, ebullient southerner who had once served five years in a prison on a charge of exposing himself before a group of children and was now the head of a religious diploma mill in Florida and of a seedy, flat-roofed stucco church called the Church of Holy Love, Incorporated. He wore a hat that looked too small for him. He had a trick eyelid that every once in a while fluttered shut on him. His name was Leo Bebb."
The Book of Bebb tetralogy proved to be one of Buechner’s most well-known works. Published in the years from 1972–1977, it brought Buechner to a much wider audience, and gained him critical acclaim (Lion Country, the first book in the series, was a finalist for the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in 1971). Of writing the series, Buechner says: "I had never known a man like Leo Bebb and was in most ways quite unlike him myself, but despite that, there was very little I had to do by way of consciously, purposefully inventing him. He came, unexpected and unbidden, from a part of myself no less mysterious and inaccessible than the part where dreams come from; and little by little there came with him a whole world of people and places that was as heretofore unknown to me as Bebb was himself." In this series, Buechner experimented for the first time with first-person narrative, and discovered that this, too, opened new doors. His next work, Godric
Godric (novel)
Godric is a novel published in 1981, written by Frederick Buechner, that tells the semi-fictionalised life story of medieval Catholic saint Godric of Finchale. The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize....
, published in 1980, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
. Like Leo Bebb, Godric
Godric (novel)
Godric is a novel published in 1981, written by Frederick Buechner, that tells the semi-fictionalised life story of medieval Catholic saint Godric of Finchale. The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize....
, a 12th century English saint, tells his story in the first person, and Buechner took great care to recreate the sounds and rhythm of his speech.
-
- " Godric came as mysteriously alive for me as Bebb had and, with him, all the people he knew and the whole medieval world he lived in. I had Godric narrate his own life, and despite the problem of developing a language that sounded authentic on his lips without becoming impenetrably archaic, and despite the difficulties of trying to recapture a time and place so unlike my own, the book, like Lion Country before it, came so quickly and with such comparative ease that there were times when I suspected that maybe the old saint himself was not entirely uninvolved in the process, as, were I a saint and were somebody writing a book about me, I would not be entirely uninvolved in the process either."
The process of writing Godric once again indicated a new path for Buechner: the writing of his own autobiography. To date, this includes four volumes: The Sacred Journey (1982), Now and Then (1983), Telling Secrets (1991), Secrets in the Dark (2006). Buechner has thus far published over thirty works, and continues to write more; his latest book, Yellow Leaves, was released in 2008.
In 2007, Buechner was presented with the lifetime achievement award from the Conference on Christianity and Literature.
Tributes and Legacy
Frederick Buechner is among the most widely read contemporary Christian authors. His popularity is attested by numerous awards and honorary degrees, and by the words of his many fans:"To this day, you’ve remained one of my best angels, and not just mine, but all of ours who, week after week, trust that our nicked and ragged selves, however hard we try to press them, will somehow serve to bring God’s truth to life."
In the words of The Reverend Samuel Lloyd, dean of Washington National Cathedral
Washington National Cathedral
The Washington National Cathedral, officially named the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. Of neogothic design, it is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world, the second-largest in...
, Buechner’s words "have nurtured the lives of untold seekers and followers" through "his capacity to see into the heart of every day."
Buechner's readers are intrigued and inspired by the confluence of genres within his works:
-
- "Buechner's theological efforts are never systematic treatises but instead short, highly literary productions in most of which he draws explicit links with fiction-writing generally and his own fiction in particular...Buechner's 1969 Noble Lectures at Harvard, published in 1970 as The Alphabet of Grace, comprise a slender volume which is one of his most important and revealing works. Here the intimate relationship Buechner sees among fiction, theology, and autobiography is first made clear and fully embodied; and the book itself is a thoroughly lyrical piece."
Buechner's combination of literary style with approachable, universally applicable subject matter has, to many of his fans, revolutionized contemporary Christian literature: "In my view, Buechner is doing a distinctively new thing on the literary scene, writing novels that are theologically exciting without becoming propaganda, and doing theology with artistic style and imagination." Buechner's earliest works, written before his entrance into Union Theological Seminary, were hailed as profoundly literary works, notable for their dense, descriptive style. Of his first novel, A Long Day's Dying, David Daiches
David Daiches
David Daiches was a Scottish literary historian and literary critic, scholar and writer. He wrote extensively on English literature, Scottish literature and Scottish culture.-Early life:...
wrote: "There is a quality of civilized perception here, a sensitive and plastic handling of English prose and an ability to penetrate to the evanescent core of a human situation, all proclaiming major talent." From this promising beginning, however, it has been the application of Buechner's literary talent to theological issues that has continued to fascinate his audience:
-
- "Ever since the publication of A Long Day's Dying...Frederick Buechner has one of our most interesting and least predictable writers. Others might have repeated their success or failures, but he has not. From the sophisticated urban world of that first book, through The Return of Ansel Gibbs with its world of politics and public affairs, to the private, half-haunted pastoral world of The Entrance to Porlock, he has created a series of novels of startlingly different moods and manners, people and places. The one constant has been the masterful use of great stylistic powers to organize and control his highly original and complex vision of life."
Of his more recent style, the pastor and author Brian D. McLaren says:
-
- "I have no desire to analyze what makes Buechner's writing and preaching so extraordinary. Neither do I want to account for Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's raspy mystique, the peculiar beauty of a rainbow trout in a riffle, or a thunderstorm's magnetic terror. I simply want to enjoy them. They all knock me out of analysis and smack me clear into pleasure and awe."
- "I have no desire to analyze what makes Buechner's writing and preaching so extraordinary. Neither do I want to account for Bob Dylan
Throughout Buechner's work his hallmark as a theologian and autobiographer is his regard for the appearance of the divine in daily life. By examining the day-to-day workings of his own life, Buechner seeks to find God's hand at work, thus leading his audience by example to similar introspection. The Reverend Samuel Lloyd describes his "capacity to see into the heart of every day," an ability that reflects the significance of daily events onto the reader's life as well. In the words of the preacher Barbara Brown Taylor: "From [Buechner] I've learned that the only limit to the revelation going on all around me is my willingness to turn aside and look."
The Buechner Institute at King College
Inaugurated in 2008 at King CollegeKing College
King College is a private, comprehensive college located in Bristol, Tennessee. Founded in 1867, King is independently governed with covenant affiliations to the Presbyterian Church and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church ....
, the Buechner Institute is dedicated to the work and example of Frederick Buechner, exploring the intersections and collisions of faith and culture that define our times.
Dale Brown, the founding director of the Buechner Institute, is the author of numerous articles and the recent critical biography, The Book of Buechner: A Journey Through His Writings.
The Buechner Institute sponsors convocations on most Mondays at 10:30 a.m. in Memorial Chapel on the campus of King College that feature speakers from a variety of backgrounds who examine the ways in which faith informs art and public life and cultivate conversation about what faith has to do with books, politics, social discourse, music, visual arts, and more.
Additionally, the Buechner Institute sponsors the Annual Buechner Lecture. The following is the list of lecturers invited to speak thus far:
- 2008: Frederick Buechner (inaugural lecture)
- 2009: Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor is an American Episcopal priest, professor, and theologian and is one of the United States' best known preachers....
- 2010: Ron HansenRon Hansen (novelist)Ron Hansen is an American novelist, essayist, and professor.-Biography:Hansen was born in Omaha, Nebraska, attended a Jesuit high school, Creighton Preparatory School and earned a Bachelor's degree in English from Creighton University in Omaha in 1970. Following military service, he earned an M.F.A...
- 2011: Katherine PatersonKatherine PatersonKatherine Paterson is an American author of children's novels. She wrote Bridge to Terabithia and has received several of the major international awards for children's literature.- Early life:...
- 2012: Marilynne RobinsonMarilynne Robinson-Biography:Robinson was born and grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho, and did her undergraduate work at Pembroke College, the former women's college at Brown University, receiving her B.A., magna cum laude in 1966, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her Ph.D...
A summer symposium on the work of Frederick Buechner will be featured in 2010. Attendees from around the country will spend enjoy a week of reading and entertainment on the Virginia/Tennessee border.
The work of the Institute is guided by a local Governing Board and a National Advisory Board. National board members include Doris Betts
Doris Betts
Doris June Betts is a short story writer, novelist, essayist and Alumni Distinguished Professor Emerita at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill....
, Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann is an American Protestant Old Testament scholar and theologian.-Life:The son of a minister of the German Evangelical Synod of North America, he was ordained in the United Church of Christ. Brueggemann received an A.B. from Elmhurst College , a B.D. from Eden Theological...
, Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns is an American poet, memoirist and essayist.-Life:He was educated at Western Washington University with a BA, Hollins College with an MA, Bowling Green State University with an MFA, and the University of Utah with a PhD.He taught at Kansas State University, Westminster College,...
, Michael Card
Michael Card
Michael Card is an American Christian singer-songwriter, musician, author, and radio host from Franklin, Tennessee. He is best known for his contributions in Contemporary Christian Music, which couple folk-style melodies and instrumentation with lyrics that stem from intensive study of the Bible...
, Elizabeth Dewberry, Tim Gautreaux
Tim Gautreaux
Timothy Martin Gautreaux is a novelist and short story writer who lives in Hammond, Louisiana, where he is Writer in Residence at Southeastern Louisiana University....
, Philip Gulley, Ron Hansen
Ron Hansen (novelist)
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, Roy Herron
Roy Herron
Roy Herron is the Tennessee State Senator for the 24th district. He was defeated as the 2010 Democratic nominee for U.S. Representative for November 2, 2010....
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Silas House
Silas Dwane House is an American writer best known for his novels. He is also a music journalist, environmental activist and columnist...
, Richard Hughes, Thomas G. Long
Thomas G. Long
Dr. Thomas Grier Long is the Bandy Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He received his BA degree from Erskine College in 1968, the Master of Divinity from Erskine Theological Seminary in 1971, and the Ph.D. from Princeton Theological...
, Tom Lynch, Brian McLaren
Brian McLaren
Brian D. McLaren is a prominent, controversial evangelical pastor. He was recognized as one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" in 2005, and is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland.-Biography:Born in 1956, Brian McLaren...
, Carrie Newcomer
Carrie Newcomer
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, Kathleen Norris
Kathleen Norris
Kathleen Thompson Norris was an American novelist and wife of fellow writer Charles Norris, whom she wed in 1909...
, Katherine Paterson
Katherine Paterson
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, Eugene H. Peterson
Eugene H. Peterson
Eugene H. Peterson , is a pastor, scholar, author, and poet. He has written over thirty books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language , a contemporary translation of the Bible.-Personal life:Peterson was born in East Stanwood, Washington and grew...
, Charles Pollard, Barbara Brown Taylor
Barbara Brown Taylor
Barbara Brown Taylor is an American Episcopal priest, professor, and theologian and is one of the United States' best known preachers....
, Will Willimon, John Wilson, Philip Yancey
Philip Yancey
Philip Yancey is an American Christian author. Fourteen million of his books have been sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling evangelical Christian authors. Two of his books have won the ECPA's Christian Book of the Year Award: The Jesus I Never Knew in 1996, What's So Amazing About...
, and others.
In the media
Buechner's work has been praised highly by many reviewers of books, with the distinct exception of his second novel, The Season’s Difference, which was universally panned by critics and remains his biggest commercial flop. His later novels, including the Book of Bebb series and Godric, received hearty praise; in his 1980 review of Godric, Benjamin DeMottBenjamin DeMott
Professor Benjamin Haile DeMott was an American writer, scholar, and cultural critic...
summed up a host of positive reviews, saying “All on his own, Mr. Buechner has managed to reinvent projects of self-purification and of faith as piquant matter for contemporary fiction, producing in a single decade a quintet of books each of which is individual in concerns and knowledge, and notable for literary finish.” In 1982, author Reynolds Price
Reynolds Price
Reynolds Price was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship...
greeted Buechner’s The Sacred Journey as “a rich new vein for Buechner – a kind of detective autobiography” and “[t]he result is a short but fascinating and, in its own terms, beautifully successful experiment.”
Buechner has occasionally been accused of being too “preachy;” a 1984 review by Anna Shapiro in the New York Times notes “But for all the colloquialism, there is something, well, preachy and a little unctuous about making yourself an exemplar of faith. Insights that would do for a paragraph are dragged out with a doggedness that will presumably bring the idea home to even the most resistant and inattentive.” The sentiments expressed by Cecelia Holland’s 1987 Washington Post review of Buechner’s novel, Brendan, are far more common. She writes,“In our own time, when religion is debased, an electronic game show, an insult to the thirsty soul, Buechner's novel proves again the power of faith, to lift us up, to hold us straight, to send us on again.”
In 2008, the 50th anniversary of Buechner's ordination, Rich Barlowe wrote of Buechner in the Boston Globe, "Who knows? The words are Frederick Buechner's mantra. Over the course of an hourlong chat with the writer and Presbyterian minister in his kitchen, they recur any number of times in response to questions about his faith and theology. Dogmatic religious believers would dismiss the two words as the warning shot of doubt. But for Buechner, it is precisely our doubts and struggles that mark us as human. And that insight girds his theological twist on Socrates: The unexamined human life is a lost chance to behold the divine." In 2002, Richard Kauffman interviewed Buechner for The Christian Century upon the publication of Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought to Say). Buechner answered the question "Do you envision a particular audience when you write?" by saying "I always hope to reach people who don't want to touch religion with a ten-foot pole. The cultured despisers of religion, Sehleiermacher called them. Maybe some of my books reach them. But most of my readers, as far as I can tell, aren't that type. Many of them are ministers. They say, 'You've given us something back we lost and opened up doors we didn't think could be opened for people.'"
Buechner has also played literary critic himself. In 1980 Buechner reviewed Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth by J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
, noting that the book was “in short, a production less of Tolkien himself than of the Tolkien industry.”
Buechner’s largest presence in the media, however, is through the hundreds of readers who quote his works on a daily basis in articles, blogs, and speeches. Writers include his quotes in pieces for The Flint Times in Michigan, The Kansas City Star, The West Australian News, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, The New Zealand Herald, and the Pembroke Observer in Ontario.
Reviews
"This work, filled with recollections of people close to him who have passed on to another life, features a dialogue with his grandmother. Naya, as he calls her, died in 1961 but comes into his study imaginatively for a dialogue about eternal life. When Fred asks her if she sees people she used to know, her answer proves provocative: "Words like see don't do very well on this side of things. But yes, they are here. They are part of what, ever so slowly, we move deeper and deeper toward, or into, or through—whatever the preposition is. They are part of what we begin little by little to un-derstand at last." Much else follows that will pique the inner life of readers willing to move beyond surfaces. Buechner finds in other deceased family members and friends, continuing presences that stir his imagination and induce him to revalue human experience transformed by a loving God." – Richard Griffin"'Wishful Thinking' is a new lexicon, a dictionary for the restless believer, for the doubter, for anyone who wants to redefine or define more concretely those words that have become an integral part of our daily language—words that we use about God, the universe and, last but never least, humankind. This is Buechner's debonair definition of "doubt": "Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving." With such wit and wisdom, imagination and innovation, we are led to a fuller awareness and greater understanding of the true relevance of familiar terms to each of our own lives." – Senior Pastor Steve Petty, St. Andrew's By-the-Sea United Methodist Church, San Clemente
"Like all of Buechner's stories, this one will make you laugh and cry. You will also contemplate with wonder that, even among modern fragmented families and sin, love and grace are never far away." – Rev John Congram on The Storm
"In the hands of a less skilled writer, the use of a resurrected conversation partner might seem contrived. Here it successfully combines an intimate conversation with a hint at a revelatory vision. Buechner is neither sentimental nor detached, gloomy nor unduly optimistic. He listens to his fears, anxieties and hopes and illuminates our own experience of the death of those close to us." – David M. May on The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found
"He's sort of earthy, he writes well... What can I say? He writes these little gems and he writes these big ambitious things... The characters are good and they have distinct voices. He's good with voice... Above all else he's a novelist. He's a literary man." – Annie Dillard, author of the best-selling Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
"Those familiar with Buechner will feel like they've run into an old friend in the grocery store. Readers new to the author will probably develop a love affair with his ability to draw you into a story (sometimes with only a line or two) and then, in a few words, give you something you'll never forget. For instance, under the heading "Buechner": "I can't imagine myself with any other name ... If my name were dif-ferent, I would be different. When I tell you my name, I have given you a hold over me that you didn't have before. If you call it out, I stop, look and listen whether I want to or not. 'In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses that his name is Yahweh, and God hasn't had a peaceful moment since.'" – Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Beyond Words, Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith
"Whether reading "Beyond Words" makes for a happier, easier or more fulfilled life, I couldn't say. This much I know—it does, at least, for the duration of time you're reading it." – Jeff Simon
"In The Sacred Journey, Buechner tells us that we must learn to hear in our lives the sound of the holy. 'It is the function of all great preaching,' he writes, 'and of all great art, to sharpen our hearing to precisely that end.' Son of Laughter will not only help one hearthat sound; it is that sound." – Brooke Horvath
"These literary passes at contemporaneity are out of keeping with the biblical tone Mr. Buechner sustains, and with his faithful adherence to the original narrative. Some of the descriptive passages of the biblical countryside are lush and beautifully written, but they seem superfluous – Technicolor glosses. Writers can try to put flesh on the bones of this story, but finally it resists meddling, modernization, rewriting. The mesmerizing, cryptic original is a hard act to follow." – Lore Dickstein on The Son of Laughter
"The word 'soul' – not always welcome these days in secular culture – is the right word for Buechner. Telling Secrets is unabashedly Christian; ultimately, it's a meditation on the connection between knowing and sharing secrets and discovering the reality of a loving and merciful God." – Frank Levering on Telling Secrets
Quotes
"There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth." Wishful Thinking"The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt." The Hungering Dark
"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery 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." Now and Then
"You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. ... You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next." Beyond Words
"All theology, like all fiction, is at its heart autobiography." The Sacred Journey
"It is impossible to conceive how different things would have turned out if that birth had not happened whenever, wherever, however it did ... for millions of people who have lived since, the birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it. It is a truth that, for twenty centuries, there have been untold numbers of men and women who, in untold numbers of ways, have been so grasped by the child who was born, so caught up in the message he taught and the life he lived, that they have found themselves profoundly changed by their relationship with him." Listening to Your Life
"Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past ... to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you." Wishful Thinking
"The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Wishful Thinking
"The world is full of dark shadows, to be sure both the world without and the world within ... But praise and trust him too for the knowledge that what's lost is nothing to what's found, and that all the dark there ever was, set next to light, would scarcely fill a cup." Commencement Address at Union Seminary, Richmond
"Grace is something you can never get but only be given. 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 reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.” Wishful Thinking
"The only patriots worth their salt are the ones who love their country enough to see that in a nuclear age it is not going to survive unless the world survives. True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anything like that but champions of the Human Race. It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost but the planet Earth as Home. If in the interests 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." Whistling in the Dark
"Our eyes are just our eyes and not all we have for seeing, maybe not even the best we have for seeing. Facts are all the eye can see, eyes cannot see truth. It's not with the eyes of the head that we see truths like that, but with the eyes of the heart. To see (Jesus) with the heart is to know, in the long run, that his life is the only life worth living." From "Faith by the Book: Author Preaches About Biblical Perspective" by Matt VandeBunte
"I pick the children up at the bottom of the mountain where the orange bus lets them off in the wind. They run for the car like leaves blowing. Not for keeps, to be sure, but at least for the time being, the world has given them back again, and whatever the world chooses to do later on, it can never so much as lay a hand on the having-beenness of this time. The past is inviolate. We are none of us safe, but everything that has happened is safe. In all the vast and empty reaches of the universe it can never be otherwise than that when the orange bus stopped with its red lights blinking, these two children were on it. Their noses were running. One of them dropped a sweater. I drove them home." Listening to Your Life
"[T]he 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 charged with new significance." The Hungering Dark
"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." The Sacred Journey
"Martin Luther said once, 'If I were God, I'd kick the world to pieces.' But Martin Luther wasn't God. God is God, and God has never kicked the world to pieces. He keeps re-entering the world. He keeps offering himself to the world by grace, keeps somehow blessing the world, making possible a kind of life which we all, in our deepest being, hunger for." From discussion with reporter Kim Lawton on Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly
"Many an atheist is a believer without knowing it just 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." Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith
"Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and free-dom 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." The Magnificent Defeat
"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." Lecture to a Book of the Month Club
"The child is born in the night – the mother's exhausted flesh, the father's face clenched like a fist – and nothing is ever the same again." The Hungering Dark
"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am in who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my
voice and speak to me in your heart.
"For as long as your remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.
If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well." Listening To Your Life
"The love for equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy—the love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The torture’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world." The Magnificent Defeat
"It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle."
Important dates
- July 11, 1926 born in NYC
- 1936 father commits suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning
- 1937 family moves to Bermuda until evacuation of Americans at beg. of WWII- 1943 graduates Lawrenceville School (NJ)
- 1944-6 serves in army
- 1943-8 attends Princeton University
- 1948 wins Irene Glascock Prize for Poetry; begins work on his first novel, A Long Day’s Dying
- 1948–53 teaches English at Lawrenceville
- 1950 A Long Day’s Dying published
- 1952 The Season’s Difference published
- 1953–55 lives in NYC; lecturer at New York University
- 1954 – 8 enrolled at Union Theological Seminary; also works at Harlem employment clinic
- 1955-6 year off from seminary to write; meets and marries Judith Buechner
- 1955 short story "The Tiger" wins O. Henry Prize
- 1958 publishes The Return of Ansel Gibbs; book receives the Rosenthal award
- June 1, 1958 ordination as an evangelist with B.D. from Union Theological Seminary
- 1958–1960 chaplain and chairman of Dept. of Religion at Phillips Exeter Academy
- 1960-7 school minister and teacher of religion at Phillips Exeter Academy; daughters are born
- 1963-4 sabbatical in VT
- 1965 The Final Beast published
- 1966 first theological work The Magnificent Defeat (collection of school sermons) published
- after 1967 moves with family to Rupert, VT to pursue writing full time
- 1969 second book of sermons, The Hungering Dark, published
- 1969 delivers William Belden Noble Lectures at Harvard
- 1970 Harvard lectures published as The Alphabet of Grace (theological autobiography on a day in his life)
- 1970 The Entrance to Porlock (retelling of The Wizard of Oz) published
- 1971 Lion Country published (first of tetralogy on Leo Bebb); nominated for National Book Award
- 1971 Russell Lecturer at Tufts University
- 1972 Open Heart (second of tetralogy on Leo Bebb) published
- 1974 Love Feast (third of tetralogy on Leo Bebb) published
- 1974 Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC
- 1974 The Faces of Jesus (book of pictures with text by CFB) published
- 1976 Lyman Beecher Lecturer at Yale; lectures published in same year as Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
- 1977 Treasure Hunt (fourth of tetralogy on Leo Bebb) published
- 1977 The Book of Bebb published
- 1977 Telling the Truth: The Gospel in Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale published
- 1979 Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who published, with illustrations by daughter Katherine
- 1980 GodricGodric (novel)Godric is a novel published in 1981, written by Frederick Buechner, that tells the semi-fictionalised life story of medieval Catholic saint Godric of Finchale. The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize....
published; Pulitzer Prize finalist - 1982 D.D. from Virginia Theological Seminary; archive established at Wheaton College
- 1982 The Sacred Journey (first volume of autobiography) published
- 1983 Now and Then published (second volume of autobiography)
- 1984 A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces published
- 1985 semester-long teaching position at Wheaton College; offers manuscripts to the college
- 1987 Christianity and Literature Belles Lettres Prize
- 1987 Brendan published
- 1988 Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized published
- 1990 The Wizard’s Tide published (later re-released as The Christmas Tide)
- 1991 Telling Secrets (third volume of autobiography) published
- 1992 Wiersma Lecturer at Calvin College
- 1992 The Clown in the Belfry: Writings on Faith and Fiction published
- 1992 Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner published
- 1993 The Son of Laughter published
- 1996 The Longing for Home published
- 1997 On the Road with the Archangel published
- 1998 The Storm published
- 1999 The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found (fourth volume of autobiography) published
- 2001 Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought to Say) published
- 2004 Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith published
- 2006 Secrets in the Dark published
- 2008 The Buechner Institute inaugurated at King CollegeKing CollegeKing College is a private, comprehensive college located in Bristol, Tennessee. Founded in 1867, King is independently governed with covenant affiliations to the Presbyterian Church and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church ....
- 2008 The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany published
Published works
- Bred In The Bone: An Anthology, 1945 (student poems commemorating the end of WWII / Princeton University / 325 printed)
- A Long Day's Dying, 1950
- The Seasons' Difference, 1952
- The Return of Ansel Gibbs, 1958
- The Final Beast, 1965
- The Magnificent Defeat, 1966
- The Hungering Dark, 1968
- The Entrance to Porlock, 1970
- The Alphabet of Grace, 1970
- Lion Country, 1971
- Open Heart, 1972
- Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, 1973
- Love Feast, 1974
- Faces of Jesus: A Life Story, 1974
- Treasure Hunt, 1977
- Telling the Truth: The Gospel As Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, 1977
- Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who, 1979
- The Book of Bebb, 1979
- GodricGodric (novel)Godric is a novel published in 1981, written by Frederick Buechner, that tells the semi-fictionalised life story of medieval Catholic saint Godric of Finchale. The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize....
, 1980 - The Sacred Journey, 1982
- Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation, 1983
- A Room Called Remember, 1984
- Brendan, 1987
- Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized, 1988
- The Wizard's Tide, 1990 (later re-released as The Christmas Tide: A Story, 2005)
- Telling Secrets, a Memoir, 1991
- The Clown in the Belfry: Writings on Faith and Fiction, 1992
- Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner, 1992
- The Son of Laughter, 1993
- The Longing for Home: Recollections and Reflections, 1996
- On the Road With the Archangel, 1997
- The Storm, 1998
- The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found, 1999
- Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought to Say): Reflections on Literature and Faith, 2004
- Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith, 2004
- The Christmas Tide: A Story, 2005 (previously released as The Wizard's Tide, 1990)
- Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, 2006 (ISBN 978-0-06-084248-2)
- The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany, 2008 (ISBN 978-0-664-23276-4)
Secondary Literature
- Marie-Helene Davies. Laughter in a German Town: The Works of Frederick Buechner 1970–1980. (1983)
- Marjorie Casebriar McCoy. Frederick Buechner: Novelist and Theologian of the Lost and Found. (1988)
- Victoria S. Allen. Listening to Life: Psychology and Spirituality in the Writings of Frederick Buechner. (2002)
- Dale Brown. The Book of Buechner: A Journey Through His Writings. (2006)
External links
- Buechner, part of a film made about Buechner in 2003
- A faith to live and die with | Sojourners | Find Articles at BNET, A faith to live and die with by Dale Brown
- Frederick Buechner Papers, 1926-2006 | Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections, The Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections
- http://www.buechnerinstitute.org/, The Buechner Institute at King College
- Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . PROFILE . Frederick Buechner . May 5, 2006 | PBS, Profile: Frederick Buechner
- Interview with Frederick Buechner on Dale Brown's "The Book of Buechner" by ReadTheSpirit.com
- Interview with Frederick Buechner on the gifts of aging and "Yellow Leaves" by ReadTheSpirit.com