Stop, Look, and Listen (Quote by Frederick Buechner)

Stop, Look, and Listen (Quote by Frederick Buechner)
Stop, look, and listen quote Live in the Present (pastel) by Polly Castor

“From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention… pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.

“Literature, painting, music—the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.

“Is it too much to say that Stop, Look, and Listen is also the most basic lesson that the Judeo-Christian tradition teaches us? Listen to history is the cry of the ancient prophets of Israel. Listen to social injustice, says Amos; to head-in-the-sand religiosity, says Jeremiah; to international treacheries and power-plays, says Isaiah; because it is precisely through them that God speaks his word of judgment and command.

“And when Jesus comes along saying that the greatest command of all is to love God and to love our neighbor, he too is asking us to pay attention. If we are to love God, we must first stop, look, and listen for him in what is happening around us and inside us. If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.

“In a letter to a friend Emily Dickinson wrote that ‘Consider the lilies of the field’ was the only commandment she never broke. She could have done a lot worse. Consider the lilies. It is the sine qua non of art and religion both.”

 

by Frederick Buechner, from Whistling in the Dark

Discernment (oil) by Polly Castor

 

I work to amplify good wherever I find it. I love color, texture, beauty, great ideas, nature, metaphor, deliciousness, genuine spirituality, and exploring new territory. I encourage authenticity, nurture creativity, champion sustainability, promote peace, and hope to foster a new renaissance where we all are free to be our most fulfilled, multifaceted, and terrific selves. Read more here.

2 Comments

  1. “Live in the Present” and “Discernment” – love the way your titles and art in these two pieces complement one another! Thank you for bringing out the holy in everyday life through this post!

  2. Joseph D Herring 1 year ago

    Buechner reminds me of the joy I abandoned at age 10.I quit piano lessons and have been a mediocre ” by ear “player ever since!

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