FROM THE PASTOR
Listen
One of my favorite authors throughout the 40+ years of my ministry has been Frederick Buechner. Over the years his work has found its way into my writing and preaching. However, I am reminded again I am not alone in my admiration. A memorial article published in the October issue of The Christian Century observed “During the 1980s and 1990s, [Buechner] was quoted from American pulpits more often than anyone [else] alive at the time.”
Every year, and especially this year, the year of Buechner’s death, I find myself returning to his definition of Advent, offered in Whistling in the Dark – An ABC Theologized. There I experience the sense of hope, expectation, and mystery of the Advent season captured in a powerful and haunting fashion. And while I realize I shared with you an excerpt from Buechner’s Advent reflection in this space three years ago, I do so again here.
“In the silence of a midwinter dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen…
“For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart.
“The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.
“The Salvation Army Santa Claus clangs his bell. The sidewalks are so crowded you can hardly move. Exhaust fumes are the chief fragrance in the air, and everybody is as bundled up against any sense of what all the fuss is really about as they are bundled up against the windchill factor.
“But if you concentrate just for an instant, far off in the deeps of you somewhere you can feel the beating of your heart. For all its madness and lostness, not to mention your own, you can hear the world itself holding its breath.”
The “madness and lostness” has not diminished in three years since I last quoted Buechner here nor in the 34 years which have passed since he first wrote these words. Yet, each year we return in hope and wonder to mark the season of Advent, to hear the ancient words of the prophets, and to sing the minor key melodies of the Advent carols.
There is something in all of this for which we long without knowing how to express it fully in words. But we know we need to be together to watch and wait and wonder. We know we need to be with one another to sing and pray and share the meal. We gather, despite all that would distract us, to listen.
Pastor John Schumacher, BCC
