Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation

Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation

by Frederick Buechner

Spiritual and autobiographical reflections on the author's seminary days, early ministry, and writing career.

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Paperback, 128 pages

Published October 11th 1991 by HarperOne (first published 1983)

tags: spirituality, biography memoir, faith, memoir, christianity, religion, biography, nonfiction, autobiography, christian

Book Quotes

“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.”

― Frederick Buechner

topics: Inspirational, Spiritual

“Listen to your life. All moments are key moments.”

― Frederick Buechner

“Whether you call on him or don't call on him, God will be present with you.”

― Frederick Buechner

“Here and there even in our world, and now and then, even in ourselves, we catch glimpeses of a New Creation, which, fleeting as those glipmses are apt to be, give us hope both for this life and for whatever life may await us later on.”

― Frederick Buechner

“The past is the place we view the present from as much as the other way around.”

― Frederick Buechner

topics: Past

“It is within the bonds of marriage that I, for one, found a greater freedom to be and to become and to share myself thatn I can imaine ever having found in any other kind of relationship.”

― Frederick Buechner

topics: Marriage

“It is more than just memory, I think, that binds us to the past. The past is the place we view the present from as much as the other way around...”

― Frederick Buechner

topics: Memory, Past, Perception

“If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

― Frederick Buechner

“This side of Nirvana, there is no such escape for any of us as far as I know.”

― Frederick Buechner

“I try not to stack the deck unduly but always let doubt and darkness have their say along with faith and hope, not just because it is good apologetics - woe to him who tries to make it look simple and easy - but because to do it any other way would be to be less true to the elements of doubt and darkness that exist in myself no less than in others.”

― Frederick Buechner

“There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly.”

― Frederick Buechner

“If love is a matter of holding fast to, and identifying with, and suffering for, the ones we love, it is a matter also of standing back from, of leaving space for, of letting go of. To become, through loving and needing them, as involved in the lives of others as I was involved in the lives of my children is in the long run to risk being both crippled and crippling. Because we love our children as helplessly as we do, they have the power to destroy us. We must not let them, for their own sakes no less than for our own. A distance must be kept - not just from our children but from everyone we love. ... We are to love one another as God has loved us. That is the truth of it. But to love one another more than God loved us - to love one another at the expense of our own freedom to be something like whole and at peace within ourselves, and at the expense of others' freedom, too - is the dark shadow that the truth casts.”

― Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner

Carl 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.

Frederick Buechner is among the most widely read contemporary Christian authors. His popularity is attested by numerous awards and honorary degrees. Buechner's work has often been praised for its ability to inspire readers to see the grace in their daily lives.
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