Buechner uses words with such transformative power that any comment on them is like the moon palely reflecting the sun.

The world for which you have been so carefully prepared is being taken away from you, by the grace of God.

Those who sign on and depart the system of anxious scarcity become the historymakers in the neighborhood.

God will recruit as necessary from the human cast in order to reorder human history.

People notice peacemakers because they dress funny. We know how the people who make war dress - in uniforms and medals, or in computers and clipboards, or in absoluteness, severity, greed, and cynicism. But the peacemaker is dressed in righteousness, justice, and faithfulness - dressed for the work that is to be done.

The church meets to imagine what our lives can be like if the gospel were true.

The Gospel is a very dangerous idea. We have to see how much of that dangerous idea we can perform in our own lives. There is nothing innocuous or safe about the Gospel. Jesus did not get crucified because he was a nice man.