Well-worn and well-loved, I return to this book again and again. Copyright 2006, in many ways his messages are dated. Yet the jewels of insight still sparkle and I find treasures each time I open myself to his thoughts.

Because his thoughts prompt my thoughts. His writing puts into words ideas about the church, the faith journey, and making our way through life, without sounding preachy.

Christianity is an “incarnational religion,” meaning Christ lives in Christians––the hope of glory. As Paul wrote, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” 2 Corinthians 4:10.

Each Christian bears a testimony to the life of Jesus lived out in his own story.

And so, as Buechner urged readers, you and I preach to ourselves our own sermons.

A Chapter on Love

At the end of this chapter on love, I had written this account from my own life, dated 11/4/06.

Reading, this chapter, I kept picturing the woman in the antique store on 6th Street in Amarillo.

James said, “You really chatted that woman up. I’ve never known you to do that. She must have reminded you of someone. Your aunt, maybe?” He meant Auntie, [my mom’s sister].

“No,” I said. “Aunt Julia, perhaps.” [my grandfather’s second wife]

But it wasn’t that she reminded me of someone as much as she reminded me of something. Something important. Like a sign flashing, “Don’t forget!”

This woman had followed us from outside into her store where the sign on the door said, “Moving.”

When I asked her where, she didn’t know yet.

“The 85-year-old man who owns the store is selling. His wife is in poor health.”

The woman herself looked frail, waif-like even. Probably a smoker.

I wondered, How can she move all this stuff? The store crammed with stuff, floor to ceiling, defied my ability to actually see anything.

“Do you know what you’re looking for?” she asked.

Things. I looked around, surveying while I answered, trying to focus on any one thing––unable to do so. Too much. Too many choices. Just stuff, most things beyond usefulness, and nearly everything lacked intrinsic value––only value a collector could assign to something they had spent time looking for.

Like the sled in Citizen Kane. “Rosebud.”

“Wood, hay and stubble” [I could almost hear my mom say, as I lost track of how many times she had moved, her attitude toward “things” continually shifting].

In the end, no matter how much we value our stuff, it’s all just stuff.

Nothing like moving brings into sharp focus the transitory nature of things––in proximity to people, who by design are mortal.

Leaving, I picked up a copy of Wuthering Heights, stuck in a crate near the door, 6 or 7 books with it. Not marked, I asked, “How much?”

“Ten dollars,” which I gave her so she had at least sold me something.

That made one less thing for her to move.

Why does the memory of that meeting linger? Catching only a glimpse of that person’s life?

Is it because I have too much stuff?

Is it because growing up I was forced to move so many times? To start over?

Or is it because I wanted to remember how little it cost me to show consideration, possibly a kind of love, for a stranger?

L.A. Fires and Loss

I’m thinking of people immediately displaced. Immediately their value system shifts. Immediately they have to move.

I lived in the Los Angeles area two different times in my life, three different places––Beverly Hills, Canoga Park, and Simi Valley. My last visit to California in 2023, makes the images I see on TV almost 3-D.

Devastating.

Thousands of people displaced from their homes. Ruins. Reminders.

On the ground, I’m sure life looks a whole lot different than it does in news coverage, because each person and each family is now forced to live a different story.

When the fires are out, when the ash settles, when insurance claims are filed . . . some people will renegotiate their values and live different chapters of their story.

Your life and mine looks a whole lot different from what people may from a distance observe about us.

Which is why, as Buechner repeated throughout his writings, “Pay attention to your life.”