Frederick Buechner – Live & Learn

Riding Metro North. Right Place. Right Time.

July 20, 2019 by Live & Learn 43 Comments

Tuesday morning. 5:33 a.m. Second morning train to Grand Central.

I pause in front of the empty aisle seat. The occupant, feigning sleep, awakens immediately after my “excuse me.” He looks up the train car wondering why I hadn’t found another seat. He slides over roughly signalling displeasure. Bullsh*t.

I set my bag down onto the floor, reach down to grab my iPad, and in doing so, I clip his arm which extends into my air space. Ladies, no worries. I size up opponents carefully before jostling them. He tucks his elbow in. I settle in, with territorial boundaries established, and all parties now in their rightful places.

I catch a whiff, it lingers for a minute, it’s foul, and then it disappears. I go back to reading.

The train makes its first stop at Stamford. Doors hiss, open, passengers pass by, and there it is again. B.O. Heavy, thick B.O. This time it hangs. It can’t be me. Has to be Him. It vaporizes. It can’t be Him, otherwise it would persist. I go back to reading.

Passenger passes by, and there it is again. I glance around to locate the source and then look up, and there resting (rotting?) on the overhead rack is a large, canvas backpack. Directly over top of Him. Cigarette smoke penetrates my suit jacket, does B.O.?

Train arrives at Grand Central. I get up quickly, woosy, with vertigo, looking up after 30 minutes with head in the morning papers. I exit into the underground tunnels. Head spinning, ears ringing from the roar of the train engines, the heat, the crowds spilling down the tunnels, all swallow me whole. I step to the side out of traffic, slow my pace, take a few deep breaths and inhale a trace of urine and rancid food from garbage cans marinating overnight.

I enter Grand Central terminal, look for the Lexington Avenue exit and punch my destination into the UBER app.

I step on Lexington and cross the street to catch my ride. We take FDR Drive South, and the morning sunrise pours through the window. 21 minutes to the office.

“Would you mind if I opened the window?”

“No Sir, not at all.”

I roll the window down. I can smell, and taste the East River. The water shimmers and sparkles. The Sun warms my face. The morning breeze is refreshing, and clears the head. The world is silent but for the wheels spinning on FDR Drive. Buechner’s passage from the day before comes to mind: “we hear a whisper from the wings…you’ve turned up in the right place at the right time.”

I will remember this.

Notes: Photo via poppins-me.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: commute, Frederick Buechner, Inspirational, Manhattan, New York City, Photography, smell, Train, Travel

T.G.I.F.: It’s been a long week

July 19, 2019 by Live & Learn 12 Comments

There is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know. Who can say what it is that’s going on? But I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: “You’ve turned up in the right place at the right time. You’re doing fine. Don’t ever think that you’ve been forgotten.”

– Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC

Notes:

Inspired by another quote from Whiskey River: “Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. ~ Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Painting “Swallow” (2011) by Nicky Loutit (via Your Eyes Blaze Out).
Quote via Whiskey River

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Art, Bird, Frederick Buechner, Friday, God, Inspirational, long week, Quotes, struggle, T.G.I.F., Tired, weekend, whisper, wings, Work

Lightly Child, Lightly.

December 28, 2017 by Live & Learn 21 Comments

You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there – the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.

– Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

Notes:

Quote: Thank you Whiskey River. Photo by werner neururer (Austria) with Walk in the woods
Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”