Pay Attention To Being Alive, Pay Attention To Each Other, Pay Attention To God

THE REMARKABLE ORDINARY is a compilation of previously unpublished lectures. The book groups similar types of lectures together, to make for easier reading. You don’t need to read the lectures in any exact order—you can skip around if you wish.

The first part of the book, “Stop, Look, And Listen For God” is quite a bit different than the latter sections. In the first part Frederick Buechner addresses how one connects with God (e.g., theology). I found it best to read this portion slowly, and reflect on what the author says: “So, stop and see. Become more sensitive, more aware, more alive to our own humanness, to the humanness of each other.”

The author uses music as an illustration of how to appreciate living in the moment. One should slow down, be aware, and live in the moment: “Listen to time, pay attention to time, pay attention to the sounds and the silences of time. Experience the richness of time.”

I really liked this one thought, about how we humans are a special creation: “The deepest mystery of all, is that we are made not only of matter that comes from the earth and stars, but we are made in the image of God.”

The latter chapters are more autobiographical than the earlier sections, and discuss the author’s upbringing, early life, and his decision to enter seminary. It’s a funny account of how Buechner announced his decision to attend seminary, and how a helpful mentor drove him right to the school. Buechner explains: “Imagine some young idiot coming in and saying, ‘I think I’d like to go to seminary,’ and him saying, ‘All right I’ll take you up there.’”

I found the author’s story of spiritual rebirth especially poignant. It happened at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, where George Arthur Buttrick was preaching. He was listening to the sermon, but suddenly something grabbed him. The preacher said something that pierced his heart. It was this phrase: ‘Jesus is crowned again and again in the hearts of those who believe in him amidst confession and tears and great laughter.” It was that point about Jesus creating laughter that hit Buechner: “I remember I was just bowled over. I remember tears springing from my eyes. Laughter at the coronation of Christ.”

Some of the author’s recollections are painful to read. This includes the oft-told story of his father’s suicide, but also the story of his daughter’s anorexia. He recalls, “When my daughter was off on the West Coast, she became so skeletal. . . one day the phone rang and a doctor from a hospital in Seattle said that they needed parental permission to feed her against her will through her nose because otherwise she would die.”

So all in all, I found THE REMARKABLE ORDINARY to be anything other than “ordinary.” The writing reminds me of C.S. Lewis, and also a lovely book called A Severe Mercy. I’m pretty sure I don’t fully understand the author’s writings—they are sensitive and deep moments. I can understand enough, however, to be pretty sure he is one great man.

Advance Review Copy courtesy of the publisher.

Buechner's whimsical, personal stream-of-consciousness journeys feel like an afternoon with an old friend in a coffee shop. Perhaps it is because this material is taken largely from spoken lectures or perhaps because his writing style is just deeply personal, this book comes across as someone catching up after having been away for some time.
You are left with the feeling that there is nothing ordinary, that there are remarkable things waiting to be found all around us. Not only physical things that we can put in our pockets. The most valuable gifts of this book are invitations to learn the strange love of those with whom we share differences, the love of God found in common and unexpected people. A love which God finds reflected back at himself when he sees us, and a challenge to hold the relationships we are given in such a way that we cherish them rather than try to own them.
This book is a fantastic introduction to one of the most accessible, mystical writers of the last two generations. Not only because it gives you personal journey through the life of Buechner the man, but because he talks with great honesty about his career and some of his more personal works.

I write a decent amount of book reviews for my blog. Reviewing Buechner is different. How does one begin to review a master? Still, I was given an advanced digital copy of his forthcoming book The Remarkable Ordinary from Netgalley so I need to keep up my end of the bargain and write something.

I’m actually sitting on a plane right now somewhere between Houston and Salt Lake City. I just put down my Kindle (which I later realized I left on the plane) and I have to say that I had the same experience with this book that I’ve had with most of the books that I’ve read by Buechner. That is, I simultaneously smiled and had tears in my eyes. The other day I was listening to a conversation between Krista Tippett and the late John O’Donohue. It was a remarkable conversation. Towards the end of the conversation Tippett said something fascinating about Celtic music. She remarked that “it seems to express the greatest joy and also the deepest sorrow, almost indistinguishable from each other, and yet both with a kind of healing force.”[1] That’s a great description of Buechner’s writing! Great joy and great sorrow mingled together with healing in it.

Buechner has the great ability to cause you to listen to your life. This, of course, is one of his overarching themes and the title to one of his books. He does this by telling his story in such a way that you find your own story somewhere beneath the surface. In one chapter he talks about his relational connection with Maya Angelou. One time they both spoke at the same event and after Buechner finished his speech, the person introducing Maya said, “Ms. Angelou will now get up and tell you her story, and it will be a very different story from the one that you have just heard from Frederick Buechner.” Buechner writes that as the man said that Maya Angelou was shaking her head no. She got up and said, “I have exactly the same story to tell as Frederick Buechner.” Pondering this Buechner writes that “that’s the only reason I have, the only justification, to tell you my story. Who gives a hoot about my story? But you can give a hoot about it because it’s in many ways your story.” Mission accomplished. (For the record, I give a hoot about Beuchner’s story.)

If you’re familiar with Buechner’s work you’ve probably heard him tell some of these stories before. There are several times throughout the book where he’ll basically say, I’ve written about this before but…here we go anyway. There’s a freshness their telling, though. This is not like reading the same story twice (though I suppose there can in many ways be a freshness to that in a different way). He tells his story in a new way, like the man nearing the end of his life. There is a hopeful rawness to it all. Abraham Heschel once said, "In our own lives the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase."[2] You get the feeling in this book that Beuchner has found that phrase and is is spelling it out for us one beautiful letter at a time. He is also providing the hope that we, through our own journeys, will find our phrases too if we simply pay attention to the Remarkable Ordinary.

I can’t recommend this small book strongly enough.

[1] https://onbeing.org/programs/john-odonohue-the-inner-landscape-of-beauty-aug2017/
[2] Abraham Joshua Heschel, God In Search of Man, p. 174