Part of what it means to believe in God, at least part of what it means for me, is to believe in the possibility of miracle, and because of a variety of circumstances I had a very strong feeling at that moment that the time was ripe for miracle, my life was ripe for miracle, and the very strength of the feeling itself seemed a kind of vanguard of miracle. Something was going to happen—something extraordinary that I could perhaps even see and hear—and I was so nearly sure of it that in retrospect I am surprised that by the power of auto-suggestion I was unable to make it happen. But the sunshine was too bright, the air too clear, some residual skepticism in myself too sharp to make it possible to imagine ghosts among the apple trees or voices among the yellow jackets, and nothing like what I expected happened at all.
This might easily have been the end of something for me—my faith exposed as superstition which in part I suppose it is, my most extravagant hope exposed as childish which in part I suppose it is—but it was not the end. Because something other than what I expected did happen. Those apple branches knocked against each other, went clack-clack. No more. No less. "The dry clack-clack of the world's tongue at the approach of the approach of splendor." And just this is the substance of what I want to talk about: the clack-clack of my life. The occasional, obscure glimmering through of grace. The muffled presence of the holy. The images, always broken, partial, ambiguous, of Christ. If a vision of Christ, then a vision such as those two stragglers had at Emmaus at suppertime: just the cracking of crust as the loaf came apart in his hands ragged and white before in those most poignant words of all Scripture, "He vanished from their sight"—whoever he was, whoever they were. Whoever we are….
(Frederick Buechner: The Possibility of Miracle - in The Alphabet of Grace)
IMAGE: Do you still hear from time to time the clack-clack of two branches against one another, the sound of the earth’s mystery? Do you think of yourself as a mystic and, if so, what does that mean to you?
FB: Well, I don’t think of myself as a mystic. I think of myself as a listener. You never know whether providential events are only coincidences or not, but as I grow older, more and more little things happen that are either of no consequence at all or else they’re just rare glimpses into mystery itself. I even hesitate to mention them because they’re so small and laughable in some ways. In a book called Spiritual Quests, a volume edited by William Zinsser with lectures given by religious writers, I mention three such instances that happened to me—they’re just whispers from the wings as I think I call them, or else they’re not whispers from anywhere. Yes, to answer your question, I do hear the clack-clack.
IMAGE: Would you care to share any of those experiences now?
FB: One of them happened when I went into a bar at an airport at an unlikely hour. I went there because I hate flying and a drink makes it easier to get on the plane. There was nobody else in the place, and there were an awful lot of empty barstools on this long bar, and I sat down at one which had, like all the rest, a little menu in front of it with the drink of the day. On the top of the menu was an object—and the object turned out to be a tie clip and the tie clip had on it the initials C.F.B., which are my initials, and I was actually stunned by it. Just B. would have been sort of interesting; F.B. would have been fascinating; and C.F.B., in the right order—the chances of that being a chance I should think would be absolutely astronomical. What it meant to me, what I chose to believe it to mean was: You are in the right place, the right errand, the right road at that moment. How absurd and how small; but it’s too easy to say that.
And then another one was just a dream I had of a friend that recently died, a very undreamlike dream where he was simply standing in the room and I said: “How nice to see you, I’ve missed you.” And he said, “‘Yes I know that.” And I said: “Are you really there?” And he said: “You bet I’m really here.” And I said: “Can you prove it?” And he said: “Of course I can prove it,” and he threw me a little bit of blue string, which I caught. It was so real that I woke up. I recounted this dream at breakfast the next morning with my wife and the widow of the man in the dream and my wife said, “My God, I saw that on the rug this morning,” and I knew it wasn’t there last night, and I ran up and sure enough, there was a little squibble of blue thread. Well again, either that’s nothing—coincidence—or else it’s just a little glimpse of the fact that maybe when we talk about the resurrection of the body, there’s something to it!
And the third one was going to communion and having the priest who was serving say: “The bread of heaven, Freddy; the cup of salvation, Freddy.” I was enormously moved by that. I mean, there’s no mystery there, he knew my name, there’s no coincidence, but just in that small moment the realization that, my heavens, maybe this feast, this gift is not just in a sort of public gift to humankind, that it really is to you and to me and to her and to him and so on.
IMAGE: Do you tend to read your life in terms of providence? Do you think this or that event happened because God wants to tell me something—to direct my actions in a specific way?
FB: Yes, I do think that. I do not hinge that belief in such things as the tie clip incident, but it was exactly what that seemed to me to be confirming. I don’t know that I could even go on doing what I do if I didn’t have that feeling.
(From Image Issue 1: A Conversation with Frederick Buechner)
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Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.
MAY GOD’S BLESSING ABOUND ALL THE MORE – IN 2024!
May God Bless you and yours as we journey in this Pentecost Season…
May God’s Spirit empower us to
“expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God”… and
May God Continue to Bless Union Church!
-Pastor Mark
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