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Monday, December 07, 2015
GO! Cimb into your leaky little tub of a boat, and keep going.
“I have a feeling we have talked enough — that we need silence. Not much — three minutes; to spend three minutes not saying a damn thing. Can we do that? Are we brave enough to do that?”
I seem to only publish about Buechner these days. Buechner or music. Music and Buechner.
Why?
To share I guess. It's as simple as that.
Perhaps not to feel alone with it all swirling inside me.
Definitely, in the hope, however stupid it may feel sometimes, that it might latch onto something as important in you, and through that, create something undeniably important in each of us that we can yell together at the trees. Yell at the sun. Shout into the teeth of the rain. To proclaim together, "I feel... [what is it?] something like... truth!"
Whatever the reason, I guess I'm caring less and less about why I put this here. All I know is it's a conduit for hope and meaning and love in my life. A conduit because I don't think they are ends in themselves, hope, love and meaning. They are the means to an end that I can't yet name, but that I long for like I long for home. And for whatever reason, I can't help but believe that something about that end lies in the silence Buechner encourages us to be brave enough to try in the quote cited above.
I believe it might have something to do with having the ability to sit in ourselves, and for three minutes not say a damned thing, as Buechner says, and nevertheless, despite that silence, and despite it being in many respects the most meaningless thing we could do, to sit in silence contemplating nothing in particular - in spite of all that! - to be at home within ourselves, if only for three minutes.
So...
I share with you this address by Buechner, given in 1997 at the 250th anniversary of Princeton University. The text is available here. I encourage you to read along, if for nothing else other than to fully understand the power of the written word when it is spoken by its author!
And just for good measure, some Phoenix:
I seem to only publish about Buechner these days. Buechner or music. Music and Buechner.
Why?
To share I guess. It's as simple as that.
Perhaps not to feel alone with it all swirling inside me.
Definitely, in the hope, however stupid it may feel sometimes, that it might latch onto something as important in you, and through that, create something undeniably important in each of us that we can yell together at the trees. Yell at the sun. Shout into the teeth of the rain. To proclaim together, "I feel... [what is it?] something like... truth!"
Whatever the reason, I guess I'm caring less and less about why I put this here. All I know is it's a conduit for hope and meaning and love in my life. A conduit because I don't think they are ends in themselves, hope, love and meaning. They are the means to an end that I can't yet name, but that I long for like I long for home. And for whatever reason, I can't help but believe that something about that end lies in the silence Buechner encourages us to be brave enough to try in the quote cited above.
I believe it might have something to do with having the ability to sit in ourselves, and for three minutes not say a damned thing, as Buechner says, and nevertheless, despite that silence, and despite it being in many respects the most meaningless thing we could do, to sit in silence contemplating nothing in particular - in spite of all that! - to be at home within ourselves, if only for three minutes.
So...
I share with you this address by Buechner, given in 1997 at the 250th anniversary of Princeton University. The text is available here. I encourage you to read along, if for nothing else other than to fully understand the power of the written word when it is spoken by its author!
And just for good measure, some Phoenix:
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