To be lifted up carefully and carried out of confinement

Posted byChaplainmikePosted inBuechner, Grace Alone, IM Recommended Reading, Parable, Metaphor and Illustration
Cricket. Photo by Mark Robinson

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When I woke up this morning, before I’d gotten out of bed, I was looking around to see what was going on in my room. Not much was going on, I’m happy to say. But there was a cricket on the glazed stone floor. He didn’t belong in the room. Crickets don’t belong in rooms. I looked at him and decided to give him a helping hand, so I picked him up as gently as I could so as not to either alarm him or hurt him, and I carried him out into the sunshine. And he hopped away to do whatever crickets do, where they belong. And I thought to myself, that’s what it’s all about: to be lifted up carefully and in a way not to frighten us, to be taken out of the confinement of the room where we’re locked away from where we belong, and to be carried out into the fresh air.

• Frederick Buechner
“The Gates of Pain”

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From A Crazy, Holy Grace: The Healing Power of Pain and Memory
By Frederick Buechner
Zondervan (2017)

Photo by Mark Robinson at Flickr. Creative Commons License

5 thoughts on “To be lifted up carefully and carried out of confinement”

  1. I agree. I like the song. I think they were criticized for sounding too much like Pearl Jam, but their best songs were quite distinctive, and moving.

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  2. “Please come now
    I think I’m falling
    I’m holding to all I think is safe
    It seems I found the road to nowhere
    And I’m trying to escape
    I yelled back when I heard thunder
    But I’m down to one last breath
    And with it let me say
    Let me say…
    Hold me now
    I’m six feet from the edge and I’m thinking
    That maybe six feet
    Ain’t so far down”

    Knock these guys all you want, but this is a great song…

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  3. Almost all the time I feel like I’m falling, not being lifted up; some days it feels like a bumpier ride than others.

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  4. My experience is that some days I definitely can tell that I have been picked up and carried outside into fresh air, and other days I feel as though I’m trapped and will never see daylight. Today is a mixed lot.

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