The Sacred Journey

As the Second World War rumbles on towards its climax, we join Buechner in his bivouac in a training camp near Anniston, Alabama, before following him back to Princeton where he finishes his degree and begins to write his first novel, A Long Day’s Dying.

Into the midst of these heady days of literary acclaim comes an unexpected presence, a nagging ache for truth and meaning and a quiet suspicion that somewhere they might exist, which leads the young author finally to the door of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, and to the fateful words of Rev George Buttrick:

“Jesus Christ refused the crown that Satan offered him in the wilderness, Buttrick said, but he is king nonetheless because again and again he is crowned in the heart of the people who believe in him. And that inward coronation takes place, Buttrick said, “among confession, and tears, and great laughter. It was the phrase great laughter that did it, did whatever it was that I believe must have been hiddenly in the doing all the years of my journey up till then. It was not so much that a door opened as that I suddenly found that a door had been open all along which I had only just then stumbled upon.”

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Frederick Buechner, author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction, is an ordained Presbyterian minister. He has been a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His most recent work is Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith.

This title has been compiled by the Rabbit Room Press. You can see the full collection we carry here.