Reading books “written in blood”
“[T]he things your books make happen will be things worth happening,” Frederick Buechner vouched. “Things that make the people who read them a little more passionate themselves for their pains, by which I mean a little more alive, a little wiser, a little more beautiful, a little more open to understanding; in short, a little more human. I believe,” he added, “that those are the best things that books can make happen to people….”
It was 1990, and the late cleric, preacher, theologian, and writer, was addressing the authors assembled that year for the conferring of the annual Whiting Awards. Given each year to 10 emerging writers, the awards—of $50,000 each—are based on “early accomplishment, and the promise of great work to come.” America’s Whiting Foundation “provides targeted support for writers, scholars, and the stewards of humanity’s shared cultural heritage.”
Buechner [1926-2022], who authored 39 books of his own, told those assembled how writing “strikes me as intravenous: as you sit there only a few inches from the printed page, the words you read go directly into the bloodstream, and go into it at full strength. …the words you read become, in the very act of reading them, part of who you are…. If there is poison in the words, you are poisoned; if there is nourishment, you are nourished; if there is beauty, you are made a little more beautiful.” It’s as he remarked earlier in his address, “There is writing that creates, and writing that destroys.”
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Frederick Buechner: the most quoted of writers
Buechner [pronounced BEEK-ner], 96 years old when he died, was an ordained Presbyterian minister, but Jeffrey Munroe, in his Reading Buechner, labelled him “neither liberal nor conservative…nor evangelical, nor mainline”. At the time of his passing, Christianity Today republished a 1997 profile in which writer Philip Yancey affirmed, “I have a hunch…that Buechner has become the most quoted living writer among Christians of influence.” Indeed, he became “an oft-quoted source of pulpit anecdotes, devotional tidbits, and magazine fillers,” Dale Brown observed in The Book of Buechner. Critics compared him to such literary giants as Mark Twain and Henry James.
To learn more about him, his writings and legacy, go to frederickbuechner.com, and buechnercenter.com. The latter attests that he has been “an important source of inspiration and learning for many readers.” You should know that your SSUC Library has four of Buechner’s many books, there to be borrowed, plus a muster of his essays and sermons “choreographed” by bestselling author Anne Lamott.
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Buechner went on to introduce a Hebrew word, dabbar, which means “both word, and also deed. A word doesn’t merely say something, it does something. It brings something into being. It makes something happen.”
A couple of sentences later, he explained, “What I am getting around to, of course, is talking about the kind of books that seem to me to be worth all the trouble to write them, let alone read them, the kind of words suitable for injecting into the bloodstream of the world.” He sounded wistful when he added, here referring to students to whom he’d taught writing, “I wish I had told them to give some thought to what they wanted their books to make happen inside the people who read them.”
And here is where Buechner quoted—it’s a famous quotation—“Red” Smith [1905-1982], one of America’s most popular sportswriters, known for his literary craftsmanship: “‘Writing is easy. Just sit in front of a typewriter, open up a vein, and bleed it out drop by drop.’ From the writer’s vein into the reader’s vein….”
He continued: “I couldn’t agree more with ‘Red’ Smith. For my money, the only books worth reading are books written in blood…. Write about what you really care about is what he is saying. Write about what truly matters to you—not just the things to catch the eye of the world, but things to touch the quick of the world the way they have touched you to the quick, which is why you are writing about them. Write not just with wit and eloquence and style and relevance, but with passion.”
Such works, “all of them written in blood, bring about transfusions that can save souls…. They make good things happen…in the people who read them…. …[O]ne way or another, [they] make healing and human things happen in a world that is starving for precisely those things….”
Fellow author Carol Rottman took up Buechner’s hematological image in the 10th chapter, “Transfusion,” in her 2004 book, Writers in the Spirit: Inspiration for Christian Writers, to be found in the SSUC Library, and now a Featured Book: “If you have ever lost blood and needed a transfusion, Buechner’s analogy makes sense. Words on paper, even more than words spoken, are taken in straight, just the way the writer arranged them. …As the blood delivered right into the vein, words can fix a system gone awry. Words beget thought like plasma generates new blood cells.”
Rottman, who describes herself simply as a writer and teacher, goes on to report, “We select the words that deliver what we need—all are not the same. A summer read, a quick read, or a serious read, give us different kinds of pleasure or insight at different times. Our system rejects words we find dull, pompous, confusing, or offensive, like a transplanted organ that does not match….
“’No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader; no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader,’ said Robert Frost. The words we write”—remember, her book is aimed at writers, as was Buechner’s Whiting Awards address—”like the words we read, can make something happen in us, as well as in the reader. Part of the impetus for writing is to keep the blood coursing through the veins. …Writing may be essential to your life.”
Reading, too.
Ken Fredrick
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New experiences give new meaning to what we read
It was last May that The Christian Century published an eloquent and wise composition, heartfelt and persuasive, about our need to read books, and to re-read them—“Reading Again: books don’t change, but we do”. Penned by Yolanda Pierce, dean and professor at the Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, D.C., the essay is pointed up here, in a modestly abridged rendering.
“…There are some books I re-read almost every year. I’ve read the same copy so many times that the pages are worn or falling apart. I mark up the margins, and circle meaningful passages. I write comments or questions, adding my own words, punctuation marks, and pieces of myself to the text. […] I return to these worn copies for comfort….
“While the words in each of these books do not change upon re-reading them, I glean something different each time. Part of this can be attributed to the power of great writing: the revelation of truths so significant that people are compelled to read them again and again….
“And each time we return to a book, we can see how much we have grown, changed, or shifted since the last time. I come to the same book each time with a set of new experiences under my belt—older and sometimes wiser—which shapes how I read the words on the page. …[A]ge, maturity, loss, and grief give new meanings…. We return to the same book, even the same words, because we change, and our understanding with us.
“…[W]e need to return to the sacred scriptures again and again…. We can study scripture our entire lives, and still barely scratch the surface of the beauty and mystery of God. We can read the same chapter and verse year after year, and still discover some nuance we missed…. We might notice a word or phrase we missed during the last reading. Some new synaptic link forms in our brain, connecting one scriptural passage to another one we never thought was related. …I often marvel that we are re-reading and retelling a story that is as ancient as days, and yet is still speaking across time and culture.
“We cannot be afraid to be full participants in our reading of scared scripture. …Each exclamation point, question mark, or underlined why [that we append], is an engagement with both faith and doubt, our fears and our beliefs. We can ask questions on the pages of the text that some dare not ask out loud.
“Most importantly, each time we read scripture we approach it with a new set of experiences and challenges. …[O]ur failures and triumphs, our loves and losses, our disappointments and successes—all these influence our understanding of the texts we read.
“…We must hold the book in our hands, with highlighter and pen, unafraid to celebrate or question the passages contained therein. We have to read and read again, so that the words of the sacred text journey with us wherever we go.”
