Buechner, Lewis: Telling Secrets
“I have come to believe that by and large, the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition—that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.”—Frederick Buechner in Telling Secrets, Buechner Quote of the Day.
In Telling Secrets, Buechner reminds us that we are often like the dwarves in the stable in The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. We do not see the good or realize the beauty around us, but live trapped by our dark secrets. We are as sick as our secrets and can only get well by airing these secrets, if only in our own hearts. Like the dwarves, we live huddled together in what we think is a cramped, pitch-black, dark stable with little room to breathe. In reality, we are amidst an endless green meadow where the sun shines and the sky is blue. Aslan himself (God) stands there offering freedom, but the dwarves cannot see him and only see each other.
We are our secrets, and sharing them with a trusted spiritual friend has much to do with the mystery of staying connected to the God within us and honoring our humanness.
One year, our former rector, Danny Schieffler, sent me this quote from John Dutton of the television series “Yellowstone.” “Secrets are like callouses on the heart. If you have enough of them, pretty soon, you can’t feel anything.”
What secrets are we carrying into the new year that will keep us in the dark and prevent us from feeling our connection to God, our neighbor, and our true selves?
