Secrets in the Dark

I'm in the midst of reading a new book by Frederick Buechner called Secrets in the Dark, -A life in sermons. I discovered Buechner's writing while reading Soul Survivor by Phillip Yancey. Buechner is a living writer who writes in style about the little things in life but doesn't pull any punches. It is not theological writing for the timid. The book is a collection of his sermons. Each morning I read a couple of the sermons and they are always thought provoking and challenging personally.

This morning I read a sermon about being called. Buechner used the Isaiah 6: 1-9 (which was also the scripture assigned for the day I presented my sermon on the occasion of the graduating class from Education for Ministry.) Buechner makes the point that we have so many voices calling us to action that it is hard to decide sometimes what is the voice to listen to. When we are young we tend to be idealistic and we are called to a vocation to do the things in life that give us the most pleasure. We can be seduced by other voices which call us to success and to wealth. We can be seduced by many of the other things in life as well. He tells of playing a sad and dangerous little game when we reach a certain age. It is a form of solitaire. It really struck a chord with me because when I was on vacation, visiting my parents in my home town, I played a form of this game. I went to my high school class website and looked up many of my old classmates. I remembered them and myself in high school and thought about the great things that we wanted to accomplish. I thought of some of the people who I had known since the first grade. Many of them did not have a profile so I wondered how their lives turned out. I found profiles of some friends who seem to have lived a pretty good life- children, even grandchildren. Many of them were employed in regular occupations. There were a couple of my old classmates who seemed to so full of life and promise back then- I was certain they would be high power lawyers, or successful business people. I was somewhat shocked to read a couple bios listing their vocation as drinking. I hope they were joking but I couldn't tell. (Not that I'm against drinking. I love a cold beer or a good bottle of wine. It's just not my vocation.)I looked at the faces of those who had posted photos and tried to remember them as they were.

I couldn't help but think about all those plans we talked about when we ended that Senior year. They had such gifts when I remember them. Yet like Buechner, I couldn't help but think that some of them had spent their life in vocations that didn't call for many of those gifts. As I thought about my own life I felt that I had been given a gift. I've spent most of my life engaged in what I set out to do that final year in high school. To create theatre and to do the things that call on the talents that I treasured back then. It gave me great gladness to do what I loved to do. And yet the thing that has sustained me all these years is that for the most part I didn't do it for myself. I found out years ago that I was being called to bring that gift out of others. I didn't plan to be in community theatre. I planned a solo career. But the call to go where others needed me has allowed me to continue to use my talents and to increase them. I wasn't called to feed the hungry or to heal the sick. I was called to bring joy in peoples lives through story and art. For that I am grateful to God for the richness of my life.

Buechner finishes the sermon with a prayer:

Oh thou, who art the God no less of those who know thee not than of those who love thee well, be present with us at the times of choosing when time stands still and all that lies behind and all that lies ahead are caught up in the mystery of a moment. Be present especially with the young who must choose between many voices. Help them to know how much an old world needs their youth and gladness. Help them to know that there are words of truth and healing that will never be spoken unless they speak them, and deeds of compassion and courage that will never be done unless they do them. Help them never to mistake success for victory and failure for defeat. Grant that they may never be entirely content with whatever bounty the world may bestow upon them, but that they may know at last that they were created not for happiness but for joy, and that joy is to them alone who, sometimes with tears in their eyes, commit themselves in love to thee and to others. Lead them and all the world ever deeper into the knowledge that finally all people are one and that there can never really be joy for any until there is joy for all. In Christ's name we ask it and for his sake. Amen.