To confess your sins to God is not to tell [God] anything [God] doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the bridge.
Frederick BuechnerRead
Lord, catch me off guard today. Surprise me with some moment of beauty or pain so that at least for the moment, I may be startled into seeing that you are here in all your splendor, always and everywhere, barely hidden, beneath, beyond, within this life I breathe.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a desire for mindfulness and awareness of beauty and pain in everyday life.
Frederick Buechner's quote emphasizes the importance of being open to the unexpected experiences of life, whether they are beautiful or painful. It suggests that through these moments, we can gain a deeper realization of the presence and splendor of life and the divine, inviting us to be more present and aware in our day-to-day existence.
Themes
MindfulnessBeautyPainPresenceAwareness
In practice
Example use cases
In a spiritual retreat, one might share this quote to encourage participants to embrace every moment.
More from Frederick Buechner
All quotes →By and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work a) that you need most to do and b) the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement b).
Frederick BuechnerRead
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.
Frederick BuechnerRead
We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old. This seems to be close to the heart of that mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the last letting-go of all, but now I know that I do not need to know, and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That is all that matters.
Frederick BuechnerRead
To be wise is to be eternally curious.
Frederick BuechnerRead
if you don't have doubts you're either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants-in-the-pants of faith. They keep it alive and moving.
Frederick BuechnerRead
Similar quotes
Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Very well, then, where do we arrive? Where do we arrive with our respect, our homage, our filial affection? At Adam! At Adam, every time. We can't build a monument to a germ, but we can build one to Adam, who is in the way to turn myth in in fifty years and be entirely forgotten in two hundred. We can build a monument and save his name to the world forever, and we'll do it!
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To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.
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But when I call for a hero, out comes my lazy old self; so I never know who I am, nor how many I am or will be. I'd love to be able to touch a bell and summon the real me, because if I really need myself, I mustn't disappear.
Pablo NerudaRead
The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.
Irvin D. YalomRead
What about the rest of your life?" She shrugged. "What about it?" "Aren't you worried about, like, forever?" "Forever is composed of nows," she says.
John GreenRead