Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner's writings have provided delight and stimulation to me and others for years: he has a way of making me see life in a new light. Buechner is the rare man who has both a pastoral and poetic sensibilities, and for that reason he's someone alive both to God and the world around him.In "Listening to Your Life," excerpts from Buechner's writings have been edited by Buechner himself to provide a reading for each day of the year. Throughout, the book manages to sustain the keynote theme: Listen to Your Life. Here's what Buechner has to say about this theme: "Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, see, 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."The book is filled with such excerpts that make us marvel at our lives and experience them more joyfully and profoundly. The sheer literary excellence of "Listening to Your Life," as well as Buechner's joy in living and keen insight into life, make this book and Buechner's other works worth reading. My first criticism, however, is that the excerpts themselves are sometimes unsatisfactory as starting points for daily meditations. There many times when the selection obviously picks up in the middle of an anecdote or some other writing that is necessary to make good sense of the excerpt. This is especially true when the excerpts are from novels that we may not have read. For this reason, the excerpts are very uneven in their usefulness as fodder for daily meditations.My other criticism is that while "Listening to Your Life" is good for general inspiration, it is not so good as a devotional book for building Christian faith. The book is not really designed for devotional use but only for more generally musing about life. It's more like an anthology of Buechner that leaves you wanting to read more Buechner but which may or may not lead you any closer to God.Buechner rarely brings us directly to Christ but more often remains non-controversial. He seems to have tamed Christ and Christianity too much. Here's what Buechner says about being a Christian: "It is possible to be on Christ's way and with His mark upon you without ever having heard of Christ. . . . A Christian is one who is on the way." Contrast this Christ's own definition that a Christian is one who denies himself, takes up his cross daily, and chooses to follow Christ, and you'll see what I mean about Buechner trying to tame Jesus Christ.In "Listening to Your Life" there is little notion of sin and what separates us from God, only the sense that God is already on your side and that you are already completely acceptable to Him. There is little call to discipleship, sacrifice, or repentance. For someone who listens not only to his own life but to what God Himself is saying, these are very important omissions.I'm also disappointed about what Buechner has to say about the birth of Christ: "Who knows what the facts of Jesus' birth actually were? . . . . [T]he Gospel writers are not really interested primarily in the facts of the birth but the significance . . . ."If this were a book merely about listening to your life I might give it 5 stars. But having been written by an ordained Christian minister who took a vow to lead people to Christ, I can only give it 3 stars.If you're looking for a book that will make you think about your life more, whether you're a Christian or not, then this book is one of the better places for you to start. If you're looking for a book that will lead you closer to Jesus Christ and lead you to feed on Him with daily devotions, then there are other books that will accomplish this better (though, unfortunately, usually without Buechner's imagination and keenness of eye.)

I will admit, at first I didn't like this devotional. I started in the middle of the year, and the first several devotional entries I had read seemed unrelated to Christianity. They were well-written, and intelligently spoken, mind you, but it almost seemed like one of those intellectual devotionals. And I tend to be very picky about devotionals. Watered-down, Christian Lite devotionals either bore me to tears or are so disconnected from a real life that they become useless. So, after those initial devotional entries, I will confess, the devotional happened to fall under my bedside and I actually forgot about it. The other day, I was cleaning, discovered it beneath my bed, and read the daily entry, and loved it. Then a few days later, I got one of those "intellectually written but seemingly unrelated to Christianity" entries. I gave this a lot of thought and it can be viewed in at least two ways:1. The devotional entries, being taken from Buechner's writings, are sometimes taken out of a larger context that, placed as they are within the devotional, lose some of the depth of their meaning. This makes the devotional appear inconsistent and somewhat awkward. Sometimes you get a devotional about the Christian life, sometimes you hear about Buechner waiting to get his hair cut, reading a magazine article about such-and-such a person, and the event just ends without being connected to a larger principle or meaning.or2. This is a devotional about a human being, and his life, as a Christian. Do we always think about Christianity and Christian principles every waking hour of every day? Of course not, unless you're obsessive. This is about Buechner engaging his life with intent, and living the Christian intentional life with depth. Sometimes Buechner talks about Christianity, and sometimes about something else, but it's always well written and thoughtful. I get the vibe that I'm reading a really great blog. The other devotional I read alongside this one is Henri Nouwen's "Bread for the Journey," and then I feel like between these two, I get some really great food for thought with my morning coffee.And to be honest, I really struggled with giving it five stars or four stars. The entries that are about Christianity are five star entries, hands down. They are excellent and real, sometimes gritty and always honest. But there are just some entries that leave me scratching my head, because I just don't understand why they're in a devotional, and I feel that should be worth the subtraction of one star. The reason why I decided not to rate this four stars is because even those entries that leave me scratching my head have such wonderful prose, that I enjoy studying them for their literary value, even if I might not particularly get a life lesson from it. Either that, or I'm a softy and an optimist, and when in doubt, I assume the best about someone else. Either way, I recommend this devotional.

These daily devotionals are most different in content. They certainly make a person think out of the ordinary. I have enjoyed them. I would highly recommend this book.

To quote Maya Angelou, "This book is meant to possess, and at the same time liberate, the heart".I agree that it does exactly that. I was not familiar with Buechner's works until recently when I became the organist in a Presbyterian Church and the pastor frequently quoted him. I thought I'd start out small, with a book of daily meditations and then move on to his larger works if I enjoyed the smaller works.This is a compilation of quotes from many of Buechner's works, one for each day of the year. Unlike many daily meditations, Buechner's words do not tell you what to think or believe. They inspire you to think on your own, many times very differently from what you might expect. They challenge, encourage, and give you pause. Some are very brief, less than half a page; others cover almost two pages. Some are very funny, like the one about Zaccheus.I have started reading them to my husband every morning. It's a good way to 'jump start' the day. My husband actually picked the book up and read it straight through before I had a chance to get to it. I occasionally flip through the book and just read whatever I come to, usually in the middle of the day when I have a moment to myself. I am never disappointed, finding something each time that brings new awareness of God's immanence.I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to search his/her soul to new depths.

Not great.

Daily bread!

Don't know how many copies of this we've bought and given away. Great book.

Never tire of reading Frederick Buechner. These are perfect short daily vinyets of his ever so interesting view from a point.

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