Reply #382: Buechner is a great read -but DU doesn't have serious religious discussion

[papau]

Buechner's Lyman Beecher lectures at Yale made a great little book - about 100 pages - and I love the title "Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Comedy, Tragey and Fairy Tale" - folks forget Paul tells us to be fools for Christ's sake! :-)

Per Buechner the whole truth has to be told "as a tragedy of men and women suffering more than even their own folly and wickedness seem to merit; as comic both in the sense of a terrible funniness and of a happy end to all that is terrible … and as a kind of fairy tale where everybody is disguised as something he is not and only at the end are all disguises stripped away so that all are revealed for what they truly are … with the possibility of being turned into human beings."

I thought it one of the best reads on the spirituality of preaching - and I wish all preachers, as suggest by Buechner, would as they preach face into the realities of peoples' lives and tell only the truth, replacing the usual shallow reassurances with real grappling with how God's grace moves in the midst of those realities of life, speaking of God's compassion, self giving and victory. Bruechner says the preacher must address the inner part of each believer - the part of us all where dreams come from … where thoughts mean less than images, elucidation less than evocation … and be less concerned with matters of form and good taste and nore concerned with telling the truth - something non-believers may not understand as they try limit the definition of truth to that which passes the test for being good science. …

Some quotes:

"It is our hopelessness that brings us to church on Sunday. Then the strange sound is heard-like the creaking of a rusty hinge, or like the ice starting to crack in a March pond.

Laughter comes where tears come from-out of the darkness where God is of all persons the most missed-and the laughter is so unexpected and preposterous and glad that we laugh in astonishment … as Sarah did when her baby was born in a geriatric ward with Medicare picking up the tab.

The comedy of grace is known as what needn't happen and can't possibly happen, because the Kingdom of God is like winning the Irish Sweepstakes… as impossible to enter as for a Mercedes to get through a revolving door… or harder than for Nelson Rockefeller to get through the night deposit slot …

But truth is more than truths, words: it is life with the sound turned off, so that for a moment or two you can experience it not in terms of the words you make it bearable by but for the unutterable mystery that it is …

The joke of it is that often it is the preacher who as steward of the wildest mystery of them all is the one who hangs back, prudent, cautious, hopelessly mature and wise to the last, when no less than St. Paul tells us to be fools for Christ's sake …"

Buechner is even part of some film making courses! The idea is that the preacher, the artist, and the film maker all must "tell the truth - speak the fundamental realities of human life to humanity, telling the story of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are going.".

The course link below says that a variety of approaches could work well with film, but in the lecture at the link he uses Buechner, using the basic elements of tragedy, comedy and fairy tale.
http://clubs.calvin.edu/chimes/2004-02-13/AandE/AandE2.html

"Christian films, like all truly good films, must be tragedies. They must tell the truth about the messiness and brokenness and not-the-way-it’s-supposed-to-be-ness of the world and the people in it. Christian filmmakers cannot shy away from the dark side of life, nor from the harsh realities of death, war and injustice, nor from broken systems, broken families and broken hearts. Inevitably these films will delve into the messy issues of sex and violence, typically found on the brunt end of censorship, which means we may need a different sort of censorship altogether, or none at all. Christian films must throb with the ceaseless ache that arises from living in a world that is overflowing with rank, putrid tragedies. Yet they cannot, must not stop there.

Just as Christian films must be tragedies, so too they must be comedies. They must unflinchingly look evil in the eye, but not without a twinkle. Christian filmmakers must tell the joke of the universe – the majestically absurd cosmic comedy. Not a trick of the gods played on unsuspecting mortals nor a laugh that dismisses all meaning, this laughter remembers that evil does not have the first or the last word. The comedy that Christians must tell is one that recalls the beginning of the story and laughs at humanity’s amusing and pitiful attempts to make sense of things or make things right on its own. It is not a comedy of contempt, for it is often directed at oneself, but rather a joyful mirth that owns up to the darkness without forgetting who will have the last laugh.

Without an element of fairy tale, Christian tragicomedies would fall short of telling the truth. For, how can people stand to live in this world if there is not a hint of something else, some ultimate surprise to hope for? The fairy tale cannot be a fantastic escape from reality, but rather must harbor a sneaking suspicion that there is something else to life, a final ending where maybe, just maybe, the heroine gets the guy and it all ends happily ever after.

Christian film does not end under the overwhelming crush of evil, but neither does it too quickly resolve this dissonance into hope. Christian filmmakers must open their eyes like those of a child who sees things as they are and as they are becoming, filled with disarming indignation at the present and reckless anticipation of the future."