Frederick Buechner

LISTEN. David Brooks used to irritate me, now he more often entices me to discover authors and ideas I'd not previously reckoned with. I think it's mostly him who's changed, but maybe it's me too. Either way, his column on Frederick Buechner (dead this week at 96) adds another name to my list.

One of Buechner’s often cited observations is that you find your vocation at the spot where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need. Perhaps like many others, I struggle to experience my inner life in the quiet, patient, deep and old-fashioned way that Buechner experienced his. So much of the world covers over all that — constant media consumption, shallow communication, speed and productivity. Sometimes I think the national obsession with politics has become a way to evade ourselves.

I think that's probably right, but we're stuck with politics right now unless we're willing to cede it to the extremist wackos who lack all capacity for cultivating a sensitive inner life and all interest in ameliorating the world's deepest needs. Politics as encountered in social media, though, does indeed make people shallow, evasive, and mean. It's a problem.

Buechner’s vocation was to show a way to experience the fullness of life. Of death, he wrote, “What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.”

Right. I'm reminded of old Horace Mann's stern admonition: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” 

But experiencing the fullness of life isn't just about serving exterior humanity, it's also about inhabiting and delighting in one's own. I think I'll be pleased to make Buechner's acquaintance.