Customer Reviews

A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful collection of essays and sermons from a novelist and theologian who doesn't check his intellect or doubts when he steps into a pulpit. Which makes him credible to skeptics like me who are struggling back toward the faith of their childhood. In my other favorite Buechner - "Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale" - he begins with the point that any preacher who fails to address the experience of God's absence in much of our lives stands little chance of credibly carrying the message of joy and magic. His use of Shakespeare's Lear in that book is elegant.

As for "A Room Called Remember," I found myself moved over and over again by a central message of Hope that transcended all of the various chapters - hope for the possibility of things I long ago gave up as illusion. As a clinical psychologist approaching age 60, I can think of many psychoanalytic and existential explanations for my return to faith at this point in my life. But writers like Frederick Buechner help give me the courage to quit analyzing and simply to accept the gift. The doubts will remain - but that is a part of the gift as well. Without it, there is no challenge or experience of Faith. Or Grace.

I plan to buy copies of this book and give them to people in my life who I most care about.

There is an immediacy and intimacy about this collection of essays. I felt a connection with Buechner, wanting to thank him for sharing his wisdom, honesty and gentleness. The opening and closing essays, on the holiness of remembrance and aging, respectively, were my favorites, but he covers everything from gleaning from sermons to everyday examples of the sacred's presence. His writing speaks to the sophisticated and the broken with the same message of God's redeeming love for us. Read it on the bus or before bed and let it change your perspective.

When I first read something by Frederick Buechner, it was in a collection of many different writers. I was immediately drawn to his writing. I checked out several of his books from my library and found him consistently good. Perhaps it's because he frequently brings up questions and doubts that I have that makes me feel like he's speaking from his heart. I've bought this book both for myself and for others.