Frederick Buechner

November 18, 2020

Toddler-Style Lament

I’m no expert in child development, but I have had a front-row seat to my share of toddler tantrums lately. Based on my unscientific analysis, I would venture to say there are two categories of tantrums: the clinging kind and the flinging kind. (Of course, in the middle of said tantrum, it feels like the categories are loud or louder; public or more public).

After the tsunami-force winds die down, I try to catch my breath and take stock of what just happened. It seems like my son goes one of two directions in the midst of his big feelings: he either launches himself away from me or glues himself to me. If it’s a flinging tantrum, he squirms out of my reach and throws himself onto the floor. If it’s a clinging tantrum, he wraps his little arms around my neck or leg—all the while sobbing as if to fill a small bathtub.

I’ve been reading the Psalms recently, and I’ve been struck anew by the chord of lament that runs through so many of them. I’ve had my own seasons of lament . . . times of waiting, times when God seemed silent, times when I had to reckon with a “no” to a deeply longed-for prayer.

In my seasons of lament, I confess that at times I’ve responded with a flinging tantrum. I have launched myself out of God’s arms. For reasons that defy logic, I choose a dirty floor over his loving arms. I refuse to bring him my tears, my confusion, my weariness.

I’m so grateful for the Psalms, because there are no verses that say “Thou shalt suck it up” or “Thou shalt get a grip.” Instead, these ancient songs encourage lament . . . when we do so in the context of holding on to our Father.

Faithful lament, I would maintain, is akin to a clinging tantrum. It’s beating our Father’s chest with our fists and letting our tears soak his shirt. It’s grabbing him and holding on for dear life.

The other day I was comforting Graham in the midst of a clinging tantrum. I can’t remember what sparked the meltdown—perhaps all the green bowls were dirty or I insisted he wear pants or I parked the car in his imaginary friend’s spot. At any rate, as I held him, I wiped a tear from his cheek. This resulted in a fresh waterfall. “Put my tear back!” he wailed. “I wanted it there!”

So we sat on the floor of the kitchen, the two of us, as the afternoon sun streamed through the window. At last he let out a ragged sigh and rested his head on my shoulder. I silently wondered what it would be like to do the same with my heavenly Father. No more throwing myself out of his reach. No more demanding that he take away the pain. Just allowing myself to be held by him.

If I’m going to pitch a fit, it might as well be the clinging kind. I want to hold on to him until my prayer is answered . . . or until my tantrum subsides.

Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.
Frederick Buechner

October 6, 2020

A Tiny Seed of Hope

They lie to you about hope. They whisper in your ear that if you don’t get your hopes up, it won’t hurt if that longed-for thing doesn’t come to pass. Keep your expectations low, they say, so the fall won’t be so steep. Don’t get too attached. Muffle your dreams under layers of bubble wrap. This is the only way to venture into the future and come out unscathed.

But according to a reliable source, hope is one of only three things that remain in the end, after everything else falls away. If I’m understanding that right, it means that hope lives on into eternity, even after the thing we’re hoping for has passed away. If that’s the case, maybe I shouldn’t be too quick to brush it off.

***

“It looks like you’re miscarrying,” the doctor told me, not unkindly. It was the height of the pandemic, and we were both wearing masks. I regretted putting on mascara, but it felt like a special occasion, seeing as it was the first time I’d left the house in approximately six weeks. The doctor awkwardly handed me a tissue, trying not to make contact.

“Come back in two weeks for another ultrasound to confirm.”

Back in the car, I regretted (even more than the mascara) the fact that Daniel couldn’t be there with me. We’d initially wanted him there so he could see the baby’s tiny profile on the screen and watch the pulsing heartbeat. But now I wished he could drive me home, because they haven’t yet invented windshield wipers for the human eye.

***

I didn’t enter this corridor of hope blithely. I’ve had my share of ultrasounds that resulted in smudged mascara: one with dire conjectures about our baby’s future and one that resulted in the dreaded silence of a no-longer-beating heart.

In those two agonizing weeks between ultrasounds, I wondered how to pray, how to put one foot in front of the other, how to breathe. I wasn’t sure it was possible to hope, and if so, whether it was wise. If I cracked open the door to hope, wouldn’t it just be an invitation for my heart to get steamrolled in two weeks?

I whispered these fears to Daniel after Graham was safely tucked in bed. I know he was just as scared as I was, but he offered words of bedrock wisdom, words I clung to every day of those two eternal weeks: “We will choose hope until God gives us a reason not to.”

***

Hope, I believe, is never wasted. Every time we hope, even if the hope is just a tiny quivering thing, we are building our hope muscle. Even if the thing we’re hoping for doesn’t become reality, the very act of hoping changes something at the core of who we are.

And if the foundation of our hope is ultimately in Someone rather than something, we will never be disappointed. Whether we get the thing we’re hoping for or not.

Faith is both the dreaming and the crying. Faith is the assurance that the best and holiest dream is true after all.
Frederick Buechner

***

At my appointment two weeks later, I walked into the same ultrasound room, with the same mask on, and was greeted by the same technician. I could hardly bear to look at the screen, knowing in a matter of moments it would announce either life or death, hope or grief. I didn’t want to know, and I had to know.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. My eyes flew open at the unmistakable sound of a tiny heart pumping at 160 beats per minute. “Is that what I think it is?” I whispered.

Sure enough, flickering on the screen was hope incarnate, hope pulsing inside my own body. I hadn’t worn mascara because I anticipated tears that day. I just hadn’t guessed that they would be tears of joy, tears of a hope fulfilled.

Now, by some undeserved miracle, Daniel, Graham, and I are waiting for our new arrival, due at the end of year. And the nickname we’ve given this little one?

Baby Hope.

I know that hope is the hardest love we carry.
Jane Hirschfield

July 31, 2019

In the Season of Raspberries

In my memory, it is forever summer at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. The desert sun is always beating down as we run through the sprinkler. The Columbia River is always cold and clear. The homemade ice cream tastes like spoonsful of heaven. And there are always raspberries in the garden, deep red and begging to be picked.

Every summer when we kids visited my grandparents, we looked forward to picking raspberries with Grandpa. We could have been out playing, but we followed him to the garden, Pied Piper style, even though we knew that meant we’d be put to work.

Green baskets in hand, we’d alternate between filling our baskets and popping the sun-ripened berries into our mouths. As we made our way down the meticulous rows, Grandpa plied us with riddles and puzzles to solve.

Railroad crossing; look out for cars. Can you spell that without any r’s?

Although Grandpa spent nearly his entire career as an analytical chemist, he was truly a teacher at heart. Before being recruited by a nuclear plant at the height of the Cold War, he spent several years as a high school chemistry teacher. But he never stopped teaching. The raspberry patch became his classroom, and we were his students.

When Grandpa finished picking his rows, he’d head over to help with mine. “I got them all,” I would say confidently. He’d just smile, and then, to my utter amazement, fill several baskets’ worth of berries from the bushes I was certain were bare.

***

I got the news that Grandpa’s heart beat for the last time on a hot June day. The raspberries in my own garden—a weak nod to Grandpa’s legacy—were just starting to ripen.

A decade and a half ago, dementia started pulling my grandfather away from us. It began as a slow trickle at first, until eventually the current picked up and swept him away, one memory at a time.

The last time I saw him, he said, “Am I supposed to know you?” When I told him I was his granddaughter, he cocked his head and squinted at me. “No, that’s not it,” he said, as if trying to solve a riddle. “But I do think I know you.”

He gave me a hug anyway.

How do you summarize a life of 90-plus years? If I had to pin Grandpa down to a single attribute, I suppose I would say he was a study in faithfulness. He was married to the same woman for 66 years. He was a member of the same church for 61 years. He worked at the same company for 37 years. He tended the same raspberry patch for four decades. And under his meticulous care, all manner of things flourished.

In the days before his death, the thin space between heaven and earth became increasingly gauzy. Near the end, he could hardly breathe, but when my mom and her sisters said the Lord’s Prayer over him, he opened his eyes and mouthed the words right along with them.

On earth as it is in heaven . . .

Now Grandpa’s mind has been returned to him. He has been reunited with his memories. And I like to think he’s sharing his riddles with a whole new audience beyond the pearly gates.

As I teach my son to fill up his own basket of raspberries, I’m struck by the rich bounty we’ve been given. The raspberry harvest is sweet. But not as sweet as the harvest from a life faithfully lived.

***

What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.
Frederick Buechner

Did you figure out the answer to the riddle? It’s that.

January 17, 2018

Don’t Do Belief Alone

There has been a small spiral-bound notebook sitting beside my comfy red chair for the past year. On the outside, it is as ordinary as any Target impulse buy. But inside? It contains all the tender hopes and beliefs of a small village.

Last year I chose the word believe as my anthem for the year. There was one thing I was specifically hoping for and believing God for in my own life, but I knew I wasn’t the only one out there with a God-sized dream. So I asked the people around me: What are you believing God for this year?

The responses cracked my heart open in all the best ways. My friends’ hopes were beautiful and vulnerable and achingly real. Some of these people had been rubbed raw from years of agonizing waiting; some were voicing their quiet hopes for the first time. But all of them were united in their bravery, in the guts it takes to bring big dreams into the light.

I didn’t take it lightly that people were entrusting me with something so precious. I wished I could wave my magic wand and give them what they longed for, but I couldn’t. So I did the only thing I could to honor those tender shoots of hope: I wrote their dreams for the year in my notebook, and in the mornings I sat in my red chair, coffee steaming my in hands, and asked God to intervene. I believed on their behalf.

I wish I could tell you that after a year of my crash course in believing, I have it all figured out. I don’t. In fact, the nature of belief may be more of a mystery to me than ever. Some of the things I believed God for were answered in miraculous ways, and other requests—just as valid, just as earnest—were met with silence.

I believed for a baby for four of my friends—women who were made to be moms. One had a baby before year’s end, and one is currently pregnant. But another friend miscarried, and one is still in the agony of waiting.
I believed on behalf of three beautiful friends who long to be married. One had a whirlwind romance and got married last fall, and one is dating a good man who treats her with the love and honor she deserves. But the third one, for reasons that are lost on me, is still waiting for her turn to come.
I believed on behalf of two talented writer-friends who are hoping for a home for their books. One has a book contract, while the other one continues to send out submission after submission, to no avail.

I saw miracles last year—some that unfolded slowly, like the gentle healing of a marriage, and some that happened all at once, like the long-awaited job offer. But there are other miracles that seem notably absent: the parents whose adopted children are stuck in layer upon layer of bureaucratic red tape, the daughter whose liver is failing, the loved one who continues to run from the Father-love of God.

To my surprise, it was much easier to believe for other people than for myself, and to have them believe for me. At first I felt guilty about this . . . why couldn’t I trust God with the things closest to my heart?

But as the year went on, I started to see that this is part of how God wired us. We’re not meant to do faith alone; we need each other. When we get weary, we need someone else’s hope to cover the gap for us. And when we see God at work in other people’s lives, it can give us renewed hope, a down payment of sorts to remind us of his power and goodness and love.

In the midst of the answers and non-answers from 2017, I realized that we all have a need greater than whatever it is we’re longing for. We need our God more than we need our miracle. And we need each other along the way—in the celebrations, when the answer is yes; in the heartbreaks, when the answer is no; and in the agonizing middle, when the answer is wait.

It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are. . . . It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own.
Frederick Buechner

April 19, 2016

What It’s Like to Be Married to an Author

book signing 1 On the day I brought home a real-live copy of my book to show Daniel, I exclaimed, “Look! We wrote a book!”

He was quick to point out my pronoun usage: “No, YOU wrote a book.”

But I hadn’t misspoken. This has been a Daniel-and-Stephanie Team project from the beginning.

***

I will never forget one woman’s response after Daniel and I got engaged. While everyone else in the room was squealing and asking things like “When is the wedding?” “What will your colors be?” “How did he propose?” she posed a different question altogether: “Do you make each other better people?”

I remember staring at her rather blankly. I stammered something I hoped was vaguely positive, but the truth was, I didn’t really know. I knew that Daniel was a good man and that I wanted to be on his team forever, but did he make me a better person? Did I make him a better person? I hoped so.

Four years and a book contract later, and I now know: He absolutely makes me a better person.

***

Not long after Daniel and I got married, I got this harebrained notion that God was stirring up words inside my brain and heart and that I needed to find some way to get them out. It was Daniel who encouraged me to start the blog, and it was Daniel who convinced me to press “Publish” on that very first entry when I got cold feet.

A couple of years later, it was Daniel who encouraged me to pay what seemed like an extravagant expense for a “real” website.

Then, when I discovered I had a book inside me, it was Daniel who assured me I could do it. When I took days off from work to write, he didn’t complain when he came home to find that not only was the house a mess and there were no thoughts of dinner being circulated, but I had very little actual writing to show for myself.

When the book was finally about to make its debut into the world and I panicked that people would actually be reading it, it was Daniel who prayed for me and reminded me that this was God’s book, not mine.

Yes, WE wrote a book.

So it only seems fitting, now that the book has made its way into the world, that Daniel joined me for one of my radio interviews.

Recently I was interviewed by Frankie Picasso on The Good Radio Network. The morning of the interview she contacted me with an inspiration: “What do you think about having Daniel call in at the end of the show?”

He was game (can we say “Husband of the Year”?), and it was absolutely my favorite interview I’ve done. I’ve been telling my side of the story all this time (all 293 pages of it), and I loved being able to hear his side of things.

Thank you, Daniel—you do make me a better person.

A marriage made in Heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the chances are either of them could ever have managed to become alone.
–Frederick Buechner

***

To listen to the interview, you can download it or listen online at FrankieSense and More.

January 6, 2016

What Nobody Tells You about Epiphany

Epiphany. I learned the word from Mr. Heagney, my English teacher, two decades ago, and I’ve been smitten with it ever since. Not only does it dance off the tongue nicely, but the meaning itself is magical: a sudden illuminating discovery or idea; a revelation; the moment the proverbial lightbulb goes on.

Epiphany is a remarkable day on the church calendar too: the holiday marking the revelation of God’s Son to the Magi. This was one of God’s brightest ideas ever: Heaven breaking through to earth. Darkness being trounced by starlight. Kings bowing down before the true King. Hope busting through in the most glorious way.

I long for epiphanies myself. I yearn for the lightbulb to go on, for my fuzzy thinking to clear. I’m desperate for that creative idea, or for the key that will unlock my confusion or doubt or fear. I want to see a star from the east and drop everything to follow. I want a sign.

I’ve had a few moments like that in my life. Micro-revelations, perhaps, but glimpses of the divine nevertheless. Yet those moments are rare. Most days there are no stars in the night sky, no signs, no epiphanies. Most days I’m just treading along a dark path, half-hoping, half-praying that I’m headed in the right direction.

What they don’t tell you about epiphanies is that the star doesn’t stay in the sky forever. After the Magi visited God Incarnate, they headed back to their own country, back to their ordinary lives. Maybe their hearts were irrevocably changed, but life went on.

So what does it look to live out Epiphany even when there’s no miracle at the moment, when the star has faded in the night sky?

That’s when it’s time to hold on, my friend. What you saw when you glimpsed the divine—it was real. What you felt in that moment when God touched your heart—it was valid. The words of hope you heard whispered in the middle of the night—they were true.

So keep believing in the epiphanies. Keep looking for them. They will come. But don’t depend on them. Because faith means holding on to the fact that heaven broke through earth, even after the star has dimmed and you have to go back to your ordinary life. Faith means remembering that miracles are true, even when it’s been some time since you witnessed one firsthand.

Faith means holding on to Epiphany even when there’s no sign. It’s choosing to light a candle when the starlight has faded.

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

Frederick Buechner

May 5, 2015

What It Feels Like to Turn in a Manuscript, Part 2

It’s a word with the power to send tremors down the spine of even the bravest of souls. Submission.

We like the idea of being in control, of determining our own destinies, of calling the shots ourselves. So the idea of intentionally laying down our rights and moving into the passenger seat can seem terror-inducing, whether the submittee (um, not a real word?) is an authority figure, a boss, a spouse, or God himself.

As I anticipated turning in my book to my publisher, it didn’t occur to me how appropriate it is that the relevant term is submitting. But late in the evening on the day my manuscript was due, as my mouse hovered over the “send” button and my sweet husband encouraged me to release my 60,000 words into cyberspace, I suddenly felt the submission monster breathing down my neck.

Once I let the manuscript go, it would mean it was no longer in my hands. I would be exposed and vulnerable—after all, real people would be reading my words! (I do realize this is the general point of writing a book.) On top of that, other people would now be making decisions about this manuscript—creating a cover, editing the content, positioning it, selling it.

But then a merciful thought snuck into my swirling mind: these aren’t just random people I’m entrusting my book to. They’re amazing, talented people who are passionate about what they do. And besides all that, they care about me and my book.

In short, I need them. And I trust them.

Suddenly the prospect of submitting to them was no longer so scary.

It occurs to me that submission is only terrifying when you’re submitting to someone you don’t trust. And that feels to me like a good picture of submission in all of life.

It’s not so scary to submit to a boss when you know that person is pulling for you, wanting the best for you. It’s not so scary to submit to a spouse when you know he loves you and respects you and is committed to being on your forever-team.

It’s not so scary to submit to God when you know he is trustworthy and faithful and good and right and true. Which he is—on all counts.

Is there something you know you need to hand over right now? If so, don’t wait a minute longer to submit. There is freedom in loosening your fingers and entrusting that thing to the God who can handle it—the God who loves you.

What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.
Frederick Buechner

(Note: You can read part 1 of my musings about turning in a manuscript here.)

February 28, 2014

Unearthing Your Buried Dream

Picture yourself when you were a kid—say, ten years old. Old enough to have discovered a bit about who you are, but young enough not to be jaded by things like pragmatism and budgets and the real world.

What did you dream about?
What did you hope for?
What visions did you have for the future?

When I was ten, I had aspirations of becoming an astronaut and an author. The intergalactic dream died a quick death when I realized I didn’t like any classes ending in “ology,” but the writing dream was harder to shake. I fantasized about putting words onto paper in a way that clicked with people and made them think and prompted them to say, “You too?”

And so, with some help from Mom and her cabinet full of craft supplies, I managed to put together my own book—a gripping tale about Molly the Mouse, who is deeply misunderstood, gets lost in the countryside, and eventually finds love and a home. (I think this title is actually the first in a two-part series about Molly Mouse, if I could only dig up the next book somewhere in my box-o-treasures.)

When I grew up, I shelved the writing dream, immersing myself with words and books but not believing I could write. That was for people who were smarter than me, more creative than me—people who had something important to say. But that little nugget of a dream never went away.

I think that’s how it is when God plants a desire or a passion or a dream in us. It may get buried for a while, but he never forgets about that dream-seed.

So what are the dreams planted inside of you?
What is buried in your heart under the layers of sediment and years?

It can be scary to dig down and excavate those places, because when we do, we expose tender, vulnerable pieces of ourselves to potential hurt. And we open ourselves up to potential disappointment and failure.

But you know what is worse than failing? Never finding out what God would do with those dream-seeds if we gave him a chance. Never tasting the joy that comes with doing what we were made to do. Never giving other people a chance to be fed by our gift.

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Frederick Buechner

Twenty-five years after writing that first book, I am a little stunned to see my name on the cover of a real book real book. (It’s in small letters, but look closely—it’s there!) This book wasn’t handwritten and photocopied, and it required none of Mom’s craft supplies. But the feeling inside is the same, a quarter of a century later.

Whatever passion is burning inside of you, whatever dream is hiding there under the surface, I encourage you to chase after it—to go after that place where deep gladness and deep hunger collide.

And if you do, I’d love to hear about so I can be there, cheering you on.

***

In honor of launch week for StephanieRische.com, I’m giving away a copy of the Everyday Matters Bible for Women. To be eligible, simply answer this question in the comment section:

What was one of your dreams as a kid? What did you want to do or be someday?

Submit your answer by Monday, March 3, to be eligible to win.