In his book, WHISTLING IN THE DARK: A DOUBTER’S DICTIONARY, Frederick Buechner writes, “I think of faith as a kind of whistling in the dark because, in much the same way, it helps to give us courage to hold the shadows at bay.” He also writes that it is doubters to whom the book is “primarily directed…doubters both as those who are more or less outside the Church and also as those who are more or less inside but still wonder every once in a while if the whole religious enterprise has anything to do with reality.”
The text takes the reader on a wonderful romp through an A-Z of plain words, in everyday language, that entertain and offer profound reflections on matters of faith and the presence of the Holy. The author’s intent is to demonstrate the presence of the Divine all around us, in places we take for granted that are commonplace, too often overlooked, and escape our notice.
Buechner encourages the reader to find the Divine beyond “the great religious words…such as faith, grace [and] sin…that have grown musty and shopworn over the centuries, but the experiences to which they point are as basic to the human condition as they ever were.”
For those of us who doubt, as well as for those who don’t, the author claims that “…if God is present anywhere, God is present everywhere. Even in the most everyday places and at the most commonplace times. Even in the most casual words we use.” Though the author’s words may be chosen based on their randomness and everyday usage, in Buechner’s deft and witty style they form a lexicon in which the Holy comes alive.
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