There’s Only One True Port
“Some of the monks tried to drag them away but it was plain they’d never leave till Brendan spoke of his voyages to them. It was the shortest I ever heard him do it.
‘I’ll tell you about my voyages then,’ he said. ‘They never did anybody a bit of good least of all Christ.’ The wet was pelting his face.
‘There’s only one true port,’ he said. ‘That’s Heaven. God grant we never shipwreck on our voyage thither. God grant we never put our souls in danger of sin, for sin is the only death in the world worth fearing.’
The jaws of the herders hung agape. The king’s fur hat was sodden and his bullies dripping. They listened like he was telling them the secret truth of life itself.
‘Pray for yourselves and your kindred.’ he said. ‘If you’ve any breath left in you pray for me then for there’s no worse sinner in the land nor a greater fool.’”
[Frederick Buechner, Brendan, 206]
Sharper Eyes in His Head Than Ours
“Joseph, Mary, pray for Dismas. Thou knowest he was feckless and fat. He was foolish as well and a thief. Lazy he was, making gruff Gestas a handmaid to pick things up if he dropped them and help him over ice if there was ice. But Gestas found something dear in him, it seems. Maybe Gestas had sharper eyes in his head than ours.
Maybe the best Dismas ever did with all his years of monkery was win the heart of his friend. Maybe the best Gestas ever did was lose his heart to Dismas.
Forgive the one. Comfort and succor the other.
Gestas is nearer Hell now than ever he was at its very shores. He sits in the bilges with his brown bald head in his hands.
Have mercy on the pair of them. And on us all. Amen.”
[Frederick Buechner, Brendan, 122]
Christ Was the Wizard of All Wizards
“MacLennin wouldn’t let him off the couch without first hearing the manner of king this Christ was that made Brendan’s heart so good, and I doubt Brendan ever preached the Gospel in just such a pickle again.
The fuzzy naked bard with his gilly flowers over one eye took Brendan on one of his knees, his arms clasped about him, and t was there Brendan did it, perched like a bot fly on a bull’s hump. It’s a wonder he could keep a grave face. …
Christ was the king of all kings, Brendan said from Mac Lennin’s knee. He was the wizard of all wizards. He turned water to beer easy as breathing. When he commanded the foaming waves to lay flat, they laid flat. He straightened the bent legs of cripples out and peeled the blue milky scales off the eyes of the blind. When he called out of darkness the first light as ever was, the morning stars sang together at the sweet ring of it and all the sons of heaven shouted for joy.
‘Ah well, he was a bard then,’ MacLennin said. It was the part about Christ’s voice that struck him hardest.
‘MacLennin, he was so mighty a bard his songs have ravished the hearts of men from that day on,’ Brendan said. ‘He was a song himself you might say. King Christ is a song on the lips of the true God.’
It sent a new batch of tears flowing down MacLennin’s cheeks. ‘I’ll be Christ’s bard myself, then,’ he said.”
[Frederick Buechner, Brendan, 76, in a happily-common beautiful passage]
