The Hungering Dark

When I grabbed this book from the shelf and added it to my beach pile, I noticed it was bookmarked where I had stopped reading it previously, and wondered why I didn't finish as I'm usually committed to doing so.

Today when I picked it up and glanced through my underlinings in the first half, I remembered why.  It had been too much for me to take in at once.  It would have been gluttonous to keep devouring Buechner's words when I was sated and couldn't actually absorb any more.  There was nothing to be gained from continuing.  

I had the appetite to finish it today.  Buechner puts words to thoughts I have felt, but have been unable to articulate.  The way he sees, processes, evaluates, and speaks into the world resonates deeply with me.  I commend his meditative writings to you.  (I specify his meditative writings because I have not yet read his novels, but hope to do so before too long.  Per my friend Serena's recommendation, I'll likely begin with The Return of Ansel Gibbs.)  

For your enjoyment, a brief passage from The Hungering Dark: Pontifex

"'No man is an island,' wrote Dr. Donne...'for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.'  ...any man's death reminds us of our common destiny...our lives are linked together.  But there is another truth...that every man IS an island.  We sit in silence with one another, each of us reluctant to speak, for fear that he may sound like a fool. And beneath that  there is of course the deeper fear...that maybe the truth of it is that indeed he is a fool.  So either we do not speak, or we speak not to reveal who we are, but to CONCEAL who we are.  Instead of showing ourselves as we truly are, we show ourselves as we believe others want us to be.  We wear masks, and with practice we do it better and better, and they serve us well--except that it gets very lonely inside the mask, because inside the mask there is a person who both longs to be known and fears to be known.  In this sense every man IS an island separated from every other man by fathoms of distrust and duplicity.  

"We need each other greatly, you and I, more than much of the time we dare to imagine, more than most of the time we dare to admit.  Island calls to island across the silence and once, in trust , the real words come, a bridge is built and love is done - not sentimental, emotional love, but love that is pontifex: bridge-builder.  The islands become an archipelago, a continent, a kingdom whose name is the Kingdom of God."