In Memoriam
Frederick Buechner
1926-2022
Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,
Earlier this week, the world lost an icon of the faith — Frederick Buechner. Over the years, Buechner has been for me a faithful and wise companion and guide. Buechner touched the lives of countless believers and non-believers, seekers and sojourners. Buechner was gifted, by the Holy Spirit, to speak to our human condition in a way that very few can. He could read your mind and know your heart as if he actually resided within the innermost parts of your truth.
Buechner attended the Lawrenceville School, Princeton University, and Union Theological Seminary. He was a “Presbyterian minister who never held a church pastorate but found his calling writing a prodigious quantity of novels, memoirs and essays that explored the human condition from inspirational and often humorous religious perspectives … Likened by some critics to the works of Mark Twain, Henry James, Elizabeth Bowen and Truman Capote, Mr. Buechner’s novels were admired by loyal readers for their elegance, wit, depth and force. His more homiletic memoirs and essays reached much larger audiences of Christians and consumers of religious books, even though he did not hold orthodox religious views” (The New York Times).
On this day, I invite you to join me for a time of prayer in thanksgiving for the life of a faithful follower of Christ and a steadfast herald of God’s love and Good News.
When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on 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.
Rest in eternal grant to Frederick, O Lord;
And let light perpetual shine upon him.
May his soul, and the souls of all the departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace
In Christ,
The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
“Wherever people love each other and are true to each other and take risks for each other, God is with them and they are doing God’s will.”
“The world says, the more you take, the more you have. Christ says, the more you give, the more you are.”
“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me.”
“If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”
“Go where your best prayers take you.”
“If you want to be holy, be kind.””
“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.”