Terrible Clarity

Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.

~Frederick Buechner (1926- )

Peace and Joy

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

—Frederick Buechner

The Existence of God

It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.

—The Rev. Frederick Buechner (1926- )

Compassion

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

—The Rev. Frederick Buechner (1926- )

Your Own Life

Pay mind to your own life, your own health, and wholeness. A bleeding heart is of no help to anyone if it bleeds to death.

—The Rev. Frederick Buechner (1926- )

The party wouldn't have been complete

The grace of God means something like:

Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.

—The Rev. Frederick Buechner (1926- )