Our friend, Jeffrey Munroe, has recently published a book titled, Reading Buechner: exploring the work of a master memoirist, novelist, theologian, and preacher.
Here are some of Dr. Munroe’s thoughts on The Clown in the Belfry:
‘Buechner invents a new etymology that suggests adolescence means to grow toward pain. To be an adolescent on the way to becoming an adult is to experience pain in new and significant ways. Buechner describes the difference between childhood and adolescence: “By and large children do not seem to keep score. Adolescence, as I etymologize the term, starts when scorekeeping starts.” […] Burying pain is a way of surviving, but not a way to grow, Buechner notes. Being alive to pain and somehow becoming a steward of it calls us to a deeper, fuller, more honest life, out of the shadows and into the depths […].’ (p.3-4)
-Jeffrey Munroe on Buechner’s essay, ‘Adolescence and the Stewardship of Pain’, published in The Clown in the Belfry (1992).
Reading Buechner: exploring the work of a master memoirist, novelist, theologian, and preacher has been published by IVP, and is available to view here: https://www.ivpress.com/reading-buechner
