Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner [Paperback]

Frederick Buechner (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 8, 1992

Daily meditations taken from the works of an acclaimed novelist, essayist, and preacher who has articulated what he sees with a freshness and clarity and energy that hails our stultified imaginations.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Daily meditations taken from the works of an acclaimed novelist, essayist, and preacher who "has articulated what he sees with a freshness and clarity and energy that hails our stultified imaginations."--The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Frederick Buechner, author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction, is an ordained Presbyterian minister. He has been a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His most recent work is Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1st edition (May 8, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060698640
• ISBN-13: 978-0060698645
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.9 x 7.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frederick Buechner is the popular author of such nonfiction titles as Telling the Truth, Wishful Thinking, and Peculiar Treasures. The New York Times Book Review described his recently published memoir, The Sacred Journey, as a "beautifully successful experiment." In addition to The Final Beast, which was originally published in 1965, Mr. Buechner is the author of ten other novels, including the bestselling A Long Day's Dying and, most recently, Godric. He makes his home in Rupert, Vermont.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 75 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A literary devotional for the skeptic and believer alike August 21, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Frederick Buechner is one of our greatest treasures--a wonderful prose writer, a great story-teller, an insightful theologian. His body of work is as diverse as any writer I've ever heard of--fiction, myth, sermons, lectures, memoirs, lexicons, humor, etc. This book provides a great overview of 30 years of his writing--all in brief daily doses. While some of the exerpts suffer from being pulled out of their contexts, they have been well and carefully chosen, and stand alone well. Buechner's recurring theme is that God exists and acts in our lives today--we just have to learn to listen for him and recognize those acts. Read as a devotional, this book provides many flashes of insight and understanding, and many gentle reminders of the Truth that undergirds our lives.

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent daily devotional December 31, 2003

By J. Remington

Format:Paperback

Most daily devotionals that I have worked with in the past have often been sentimental drivel.

Buechner's excellent, concise and often poetic writing boldly confronts the daily battles a person of faith encounters. Eschewing simple HALLMARK CARD sentimentality and post-modern sound bite obsession, Buechner lays out a series of daily meditations that comfort, challenge and re-enforce as well as affirm one's faith.

I particularly admire Buechner's constant celebration of the purity of silence- the need for listening and contemplation.

An excellent daily devotional written by one of our finest contemporary theologians.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely August 12, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I return to this book again and again. It doesn't ask that you believe anything in particular. It ranges over all kinds of topics. Buechner gives us his wisdom, wonder, doubt and love in equal and generous measure.

I have found his works to be deeply liberating because there is no dogma... mostly there is hope, poetry, some new visions of faith, room to doubt, room to soar...

Mostly, he shows us his deep deep humanity.

Thank you, Mr. Buechner.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Different Type of Devotional, And Very Thought-Provoking June 28, 2006

By Voice Guy

Format:Paperback

This is a devotional/meditational book I keep coming back to. It is deep, and stimulates long-lasting reflection upon my life and my God.

Sometimes his writings are too intellectual for me to grasp, but this is Buechner in an accessible form. Here I get bits of wisdom and perspective that I can grab onto. With this book I have found myself contemplating some really big thoughts about a really big God and His hand of providence.

"Listening To Your Life" rarely gathers dust on my bookshelf. I pull it out frequently and am a better person for doing so.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best daily devotional I've ever used March 23, 2009

By S. Horwatt VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I generally find daily devotionals fall into one of three categories: (1) entries that are nice and short but incredibly shallow, more like a "thought for the day" than a real devotional; (2) entries that have some depth but are hopelessly misaligned with my spiritual outlook, so they mostly irritate me rather than inspiring me; (3) entries that are far too long for me to use on a daily basis, whether they have value or not.

Fortunately, "Listening to Your Life" doesn't fall into any of these categories. The entries have spiritual depth and stunning emotional impact, as well as being very thought-provoking. But they are short enough to take in relatively quickly (while having enough content to continue ruminating on them over the course of the day).

The only reason I rate this four stars rather than five is because of the novel excerpts, which in many cases I found didn't really lend themselves that well to devotional use (whether because I just don't care for his novels or because the excerpts didn't work when taken out of context, I'm not sure).

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Fills the Life with Wonder, but Leaves Some of the Most Important Things Out August 2, 2010

By Fr. Charles Erlandson TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Frederick Buechner's writings have provided delight and stimulation to me and others for years: he has a way of making me see life in a new light. Buechner is the rare man who has both a pastoral and poetic sensibilities, and for that reason he's someone alive both to God and the world around him.

In "Listening to Your Life," excerpts from Buechner's writings have been edited by Buechner himself to provide a reading for each day of the year. Throughout, the book manages to sustain the keynote theme: Listen to Your Life. Here's what Buechner has to say about this theme: "Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, see, 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."

The book is filled with such excerpts that make us marvel at our lives and experience them more joyfully and profoundly. The sheer literary excellence of "Listening to Your Life," as well as Buechner's joy in living and keen insight into life, make this book and Buechner's other works worth reading.

My first criticism, however, is that the excerpts themselves are sometimes unsatisfactory as starting points for daily meditations. There many times when the selection obviously picks up in the middle of an anecdote or some other writing that is necessary to make good sense of the excerpt. This is especially true when the excerpts are from novels that we may not have read. For this reason, the excerpts are very uneven in their usefulness as fodder for daily meditations....

My other criticism is that while "Listening to Your Life" is good for general inspiration, it is not so good as a devotional book for building Christian faith. The book is not really designed for devotional use but only for more generally musing about life. It's more like an anthology of Buechner that leaves you wanting to read more Buechner but which may or may not lead you any closer to God.

Buechner rarely brings us directly to Christ but more often remains non-controversial. He seems to have tamed Christ and Christianity too much. Here's what Buechner says about being a Christian: "It is possible to be on Christ's way and with His mark upon you without ever having heard of Christ. . . . A Christian is one who is on the way." Contrast this Christ's own definition that a Christian is one who denies himself, takes up his cross daily, and chooses to follow Christ, and you'll see what I mean about Buechner trying to tame Jesus Christ.

In "Listening to Your Life" there is little notion of sin and what separates us from God, only the sense that God is already on your side and that you are already completely acceptable to Him. There is little call to discipleship, sacrifice, or repentance. For someone who listens not only to his own life but to what God Himself is saying, these are very important omissions.

I'm also disappointed about what Buechner has to say about the birth of Christ: "Who knows what the facts of Jesus' birth actually were? . . . . [T]he Gospel writers are not really interested primarily in the facts of the birth but the significance . . . ."

If this were a book merely about listening to your life I might give it 5 stars. But having been written by an ordained Christian minister who took a vow to lead people to Christ, I can only give it 3 stars.

If you're looking for a book that will make you think about your life more, whether you're a Christian or not, then this book is one of the better places for you to start. If you're looking for a book that will lead you closer to Jesus Christ and lead you to feed on Him with daily devotions, then there are other books that will accomplish this better (though, unfortunately, usually without Buechner's imagination and keenness of eye.) Read more ›