April
12, 2024 ~ Friday in Eastertide, Week 2
Frederick
Buechner*
The time is ripe...not all the time, surely, but from time to time...to
enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the
present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to
turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room
is Remember — the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of
heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.
O Holy Comforter ~
The calendar highlights the dates that are burned deeply into my heart with a mix of sweetness and sadness, mixed with smiles and tears. And on each of those dates I open the door to my inner room of memories and sit with them as if in a familiar attic. I sift through the virtual folders and boxes that hold remnants of the most meaningful people and times of my life that are now past. And on each of those days I need Your presence to surround me while winnowing through the highs and the lows of all that has been. Most importantly, please be here while I caress the remembrances of the all-too-brief moments with those now gone who I have loved and who have loved me. Remind me that in this room, there are no feelings of guilt or shame as You are with me and have always been, through all of my life. What is past is past, what is now is now, and, only briefly.
The calendar highlights the dates that are burned deeply into my heart with a mix of sweetness and sadness, mixed with smiles and tears. And on each of those dates I open the door to my inner room of memories and sit with them as if in a familiar attic. I sift through the virtual folders and boxes that hold remnants of the most meaningful people and times of my life that are now past. And on each of those days I need Your presence to surround me while winnowing through the highs and the lows of all that has been. Most importantly, please be here while I caress the remembrances of the all-too-brief moments with those now gone who I have loved and who have loved me. Remind me that in this room, there are no feelings of guilt or shame as You are with me and have always been, through all of my life. What is past is past, what is now is now, and, only briefly.
Fill me with Your
peace from when I go from this room until it is time
again to remember. Strengthen my resolve to walk more fully
into today, loving and living into all that is now, and all that is
yet to be. amen.
*Carl Frederick Buechner [1926-2022] was an American theologian, Presbyterian pastor,
and author of more than 30 books in several genres such as fiction,
autobiography, and sermons, and is well-known among readers of Christian
meditation. He received the O. Henry Award and been a finalist for the Pulitzer
Prize and the National Book Award among many other honors.
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