Welcome to 40 Days of Buechner

I'm so glad you're here.

Mar 04, 2025

Hi friend, I’m so honoured that you’ve chosen to join me for a Lenten journey through Frederick Buechner’s The Remarkable Ordinary. I’ve loved choosing 40 passages to share with you and the first one will arrive in your inbox tomorrow. Before we begin, I thought I’d share a little about my own experience of reading the book and also explain my intentions and hopes for our time together. If you have any questions, thoughts or comments now or at any point in the next 40 days, please do get in touch. It would be a treat to hear from you! Jen x

Sometimes you don’t so much find book as a book finds you. A book arrives in your life at a perfect moment, offering you something you may not have even known you needed.

Almost from the moment I started reading Frederick Buechner’s The Remarkable Ordinary I knew this was one of those books.

It’s a slim volume but in it Buechner articulates so many of the things I have been saying (or trying to say) in my own writing and he does it in a way that’s both down to earth and profound. Every time I opened its pages, I felt I was returning to a conversation with a trusted friend. The sort of friend who you recognise as a kindred spirit, even from the first meeting. The sort of friend who helps you to know yourself better and feel more confident expressing that knowing.

When I read books, one of my habits is to turn down the corners of pages that I think I will want to revisit (it saves me underlining whole paragraphs). During my first read of The Remarkable Ordinary I found I was having to double fold page corners because there were things on both sides of the page that I wanted to remember. I loved his explanation of how art invites us to pay attention. I loved his stories of hearing God through the ordinary events of his life. I loved his understanding of being Christian as something we work at and struggle with rather than something we simply state that we are.

Even more than these themes, though, what I most treasured about my first reading of The Remarkable Ordinary was the resonance with my experience of receiving and offering spiritual direction. Although The Remarkable Ordinary isn’t a book about spiritual direction (he never once mentions spiritual direction by name), I would recommend it to anyone who is considering spiritual direction or already knows the space to be valuable. Through his themes and stories, Buechner makes it clear that he believes every person’s story is sacred and that a central spiritual task of our shared human path is to pay attention to our story. I doubt any spiritual director would disagree, so grounded is our work in seeking Love’s presence in the stories we hear and tell. Countless times during my reading, I noticed myself thinking “YES, this is why I love spiritual direction” or “YES and this is why I love being a spiritual director”. I read the final pages on a car journey back from visiting family and somewhere along the M1 I had the strongest inner sense that braided with my gratitude for the gift of discovering this book was Divine confirmation of my calling. There were no words but in the secret places of my soul I knew I was being told: keep going, this work matters, you are not alone. I was grateful it was dark because I couldn’t hold back the tears and I didn’t want to explain them. I let them flow and they prayed for me.

Such has been my experience of the book so far and I’m excited to discover what the text has for me as I read it again, slowly, this Lent. More than that, though, I’m excited for you to encounter the text and have your own thoughts and response. The passages that spoke to me and the reasons the book resonated with me may not be the same for you. And that’s ok. In fact it’s more than ok; it’s to be expected and encouraged.

Right now we are, each of us, carrying questions about who we are, what matters to us and what it is that is ours to do. There may be places of overlap between what we are carrying but what I am carrying is not exactly the same as what you are carrying and it would be unhelpful to pretend otherwise. Whatever it is that you are carrying, bring it to your reading and let the book speak to you where you are. As you ponder each passage, notice what Buechner’s words stir in you and what questions they raise for you. Ask yourself what resonates with you, challenges you, comforts you or gives you pause for thought. Notice how your body, mind and spirit respond to the themes and stories of the text and let those noticings open an inner dialogue with your soul and the Holy One who grounds and loves you.

In the first chapter, Buechner talks about how literature puts a frame around characters and events and makes you pay attention. He says that, through this framing, literature refers us back to our lives and encourages us to do the same. I’ve taken inspiration from this idea and every day during Lent I will be putting a frame around a passage in the book and inviting us to take some time to be with it. My hope is that you will find a pocket of time each day when you can engage with the passage and reflect on what it means for your life and all that you are carrying in your heart. I hope that this helps you to practise attentiveness - both to the words you read and also to your inner life.

At the end of each chapter’s set of excerpts (about once a week) I’ll offer an opportunity to share what’s particularly stood out to you and I would love it if you would share something in the comments section (I’ll make it clear how to do that). There’s no pressure to do this though. I think of this Lenten journey as a book club that guards your solitude - a read-a-long that keeps the focus on your own experience of the text. It would be lovely to hear from you but mostly I want you to listen for what’s being stirred in you. My hope is that this may offer a pathway into the secret places of your soul where you are able to hear the voice of Love speaking straight to the heart of your inner questions and struggles, desires and hurts.

Whatever you are carrying this Lent, I hope that there is something in these next 40 days of slow reading that lightens your load or reminds you that you are not alone in carrying it. May you be open to hear what the text has to offer you and may you trust yourself to listen and respond to the gift of any knowings or nudgings as and when they come.