Weekend Inspiration from Princeton alum and author Frederick Buechner
I came across an article on the esteemed and prolific author Frederick Buechner in a Princeton Alumni Weekly last week and was so inspired by this man, I had to share-- especially on a Friday! In the article Buechner voiced so much of what I have been working on the last few months- being true to myself, speaking that truth even if it makes me or others uncomfortable, and also helping others to do the same. Sounds complicated and lofty and yet it is the most simple, stripped down, natural state of being, so why wouldn't we aspire to it?
At the end of the article, Buechner muses about his literary success that he almost seems surprised by. He quotes King Lear:
"Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
Some more insight from Buechner:
"The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt."
from The Hungering Dark
"The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.”
from Telling Secrets
And finally, if this doesn't light a fire under your ass to make the most of today....“Much as we wish, not one of us can bring back yesterday or shape tomorrow. Only today is ours, and it will not be ours for long, and once it is gone it will never in all time be ours again."
Thank you, Mr. Buechner!