*All quotes below are from The Storm by Frederick Buechner.
"'The trouble is I have always been able to imagine almost anything. It has been my downfall.'" It had also been his strongest suit and, before scandal drove him into exile, the way he had made his mark on the world. It was what had led him to become a writer or, as he preferred to put it sometimes, a 'delusionist,' which struck him as less pretentious. He thought of himself as a man who wrote because he couldn't think of anything else to do with his delusions."
I think I am quite delusional myself. I've learned to live in reality but it's a relief to escape from reality every now and then into the world of fantasy and imagination. It doesn't even have to be my own. I can enjoy another's delusions just as much as my own. I sometimes attempt to write down my delusions...just for myself. I must say that it is therapeutic.
"As he saw it, it wasn't that God so much as dreamed of asking such outrageous things of them, which would make him even more outrageous than they were, but that they did them for him because they couldn't find anything else that cost so dear and would thus seem so precious either in his sight or theirs. Watching them became for him like looking out the window at a swarm of zanies running around the street below in a frenzy of excitement over something that they were all pointing at in the sky but that, because of the overhang of the roof, he himself was unable to see. So what he eventually did, in effect, was to come down into the street to find out for himself what all the excitement was about. Or, as Willow put it years later, he went off the deep end."
Once in a blue moon I have an urge to give to God that which would cost me the most as an expression of my love for Him. It's when I'm struck with the realization of what an incredulous thing God has given me which cost Him the most - His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. I hope I too can help someone to go off the deep end one day.
"Saints were so beautiful, he told them, that even the ugliness of the people who did terrible things to them faded away around them, the way darkness fades away when you turn on the light."
This reminds me of all the martyrs who died for their faith, especially those who loved the Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.
"Nevertheless it had happened, and by calling it miraculous she sensed the working of some behind-the-scenes power that now and then made things happen in a way that was different from the way they would have happened otherwise."
Miracles are cool. I hope to experience much more of them in my life.
"Who could say in what ways they might be a comfort to each other or to what extent they perhaps needed each other more than either of them knew?"
It is never a waste to build relationships with people, no matter how insignificant it seems.
"But then the complete impossibility of the thing struck her. It would be impossible enough simply to get into the boat without making a fool of herself or breaking her neck or both, and all the more so to go sailing with a handsome young man while Dalton, with his briefcase on his knees, talked to her about death."
This quote made me laugh out loud, the ludicrousness of it.
"What was he doing indeed, he wondered, for God's sake or anyone else's? The words he had written, the whole interminable letter, suddenly struck him so utterly pointless that on impulse he pushed one of the forbidden keys at the bottom of the keyboard that he had never dared push before. There was a sound like a bowstring snapping, the picture of an exploding bomb appeared out of nowhere, and the screen went blank. .... In erasing it for good, maybe he had set it free to make its way somehow to Kia. For all he knew, maybe he had set Kia free too and himself along with her. Already it was as though a great weight had fallen from his shoulders, and he sat there for a while just enjoying it."
This whole book was about forgiveness. Kenzie Maxwell was finally able to forgive himself at the end. I was glad.
"'The trouble is I have always been able to imagine almost anything. It has been my downfall.'" It had also been his strongest suit and, before scandal drove him into exile, the way he had made his mark on the world. It was what had led him to become a writer or, as he preferred to put it sometimes, a 'delusionist,' which struck him as less pretentious. He thought of himself as a man who wrote because he couldn't think of anything else to do with his delusions."
I think I am quite delusional myself. I've learned to live in reality but it's a relief to escape from reality every now and then into the world of fantasy and imagination. It doesn't even have to be my own. I can enjoy another's delusions just as much as my own. I sometimes attempt to write down my delusions...just for myself. I must say that it is therapeutic.
"As he saw it, it wasn't that God so much as dreamed of asking such outrageous things of them, which would make him even more outrageous than they were, but that they did them for him because they couldn't find anything else that cost so dear and would thus seem so precious either in his sight or theirs. Watching them became for him like looking out the window at a swarm of zanies running around the street below in a frenzy of excitement over something that they were all pointing at in the sky but that, because of the overhang of the roof, he himself was unable to see. So what he eventually did, in effect, was to come down into the street to find out for himself what all the excitement was about. Or, as Willow put it years later, he went off the deep end."
Once in a blue moon I have an urge to give to God that which would cost me the most as an expression of my love for Him. It's when I'm struck with the realization of what an incredulous thing God has given me which cost Him the most - His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. I hope I too can help someone to go off the deep end one day.
"Saints were so beautiful, he told them, that even the ugliness of the people who did terrible things to them faded away around them, the way darkness fades away when you turn on the light."
This reminds me of all the martyrs who died for their faith, especially those who loved the Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.
"Nevertheless it had happened, and by calling it miraculous she sensed the working of some behind-the-scenes power that now and then made things happen in a way that was different from the way they would have happened otherwise."
Miracles are cool. I hope to experience much more of them in my life.
"Who could say in what ways they might be a comfort to each other or to what extent they perhaps needed each other more than either of them knew?"
It is never a waste to build relationships with people, no matter how insignificant it seems.
"But then the complete impossibility of the thing struck her. It would be impossible enough simply to get into the boat without making a fool of herself or breaking her neck or both, and all the more so to go sailing with a handsome young man while Dalton, with his briefcase on his knees, talked to her about death."
This quote made me laugh out loud, the ludicrousness of it.
"What was he doing indeed, he wondered, for God's sake or anyone else's? The words he had written, the whole interminable letter, suddenly struck him so utterly pointless that on impulse he pushed one of the forbidden keys at the bottom of the keyboard that he had never dared push before. There was a sound like a bowstring snapping, the picture of an exploding bomb appeared out of nowhere, and the screen went blank. .... In erasing it for good, maybe he had set it free to make its way somehow to Kia. For all he knew, maybe he had set Kia free too and himself along with her. Already it was as though a great weight had fallen from his shoulders, and he sat there for a while just enjoying it."
This whole book was about forgiveness. Kenzie Maxwell was finally able to forgive himself at the end. I was glad.
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