Beneath [my] face I am a family plot. All the people I have ever been are buried there—the bouncing boy, his mother's pride; the pimply boy and secret sensualist; the reluctant infantryman; the beholder at dawn through hospital plate-glass of his first-born child...And buried in me too are all the people I have not been yet but might be someday—the Boston Strangler and St. John of the Cross, Heliogabulus and Dagwood Bumstead, Judas Iscariot and Robin Hood and Little Nell, all the lives I have not yet lived like promises not yet kept, dreams waiting for or dreading the possibility of being dreamed.
-Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace, 14-15.
1 comment:
I was talking with some friends about the already-and-not-yetness of discipleship, and was reminded of this quote. When I look at my face, I see a little girl, and a middle schooler, and a college student, and a young actuary. And I also see hints of the not-yet - a woman in her 40s or 50s or 60s. (How terribly strange to be 70!)
Post a Comment