The Novelist Who Wandered into a Pew

In the autumn of 1953, Frederick Buechner was a twenty-seven-year-old novelist living in Manhattan. He had published two well-received books, moved in literary circles, and had no particular interest in church. But one morning, restless and without a clear reason, he walked into Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church and sat down.

George Buttrick was preaching. He spoke about the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and then turned to the crowning of Christ — not in some grand cathedral, but in the hearts of people "among confusion and tears and great laughter." When Buttrick reached those last two words, something broke open in Buechner. He felt tears on his own face. He did not understand what was happening.

It was not a thunderclap. It was not a vision. It was more like Samuel hearing a voice in the dark and assuming it was just old Eli shifting in his bed. Buechner did not walk out of that church and immediately enter seminary. It took months of wrestling, of circling back to what he had felt, of slowly recognizing the voice that had been speaking all along.

Eli told Samuel, "If He calls you again, say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'" Sometimes the call of God arrives not as certainty but as a stirring we cannot explain — and recognizing it requires the honesty to stop, turn back, and finally answer.