Fred Buechner has this to...
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Fred Buechner has this to say about this simple, timeworn story of Noah and his covenant with God:
And the turbulent waters of chaos and nightmare are always threatening to burst forth and flood the earth. We hardly need the tale of Noah to tell us that. The New York Times tells us just as well, and our own hearts tell us well, too, because chaos and nightmare have their little days there also. But the tale of Noah tells other truths as well.
It tells about the ark, for one, which somehow managed to ride out the storm.... The ark is wherever people come together because this is a stormy world where nothing stays put for long among the crazy waves and where at the end of every voyage there is a burial at sea. The ark is where, just because it is such a world, we really need each other and know very well that we do. The ark is wherever human beings come together because in their heart of hearts all of them ... dream the same dream, which is a dream of peace -- peace between the nations, between the races, between the brothers -- and thus ultimately a dream of love. Love, not as an excuse for the mushy and innocuous, but love as a summons to battle against all that is unlovely and unloving in the world. The ark, in other words, is where we have each other and where we have hope.
(from "A Sprig of Hope," in The Hungering Dark [Seabury, 1981], pp. 41-42)
And the turbulent waters of chaos and nightmare are always threatening to burst forth and flood the earth. We hardly need the tale of Noah to tell us that. The New York Times tells us just as well, and our own hearts tell us well, too, because chaos and nightmare have their little days there also. But the tale of Noah tells other truths as well.
It tells about the ark, for one, which somehow managed to ride out the storm.... The ark is wherever people come together because this is a stormy world where nothing stays put for long among the crazy waves and where at the end of every voyage there is a burial at sea. The ark is where, just because it is such a world, we really need each other and know very well that we do. The ark is wherever human beings come together because in their heart of hearts all of them ... dream the same dream, which is a dream of peace -- peace between the nations, between the races, between the brothers -- and thus ultimately a dream of love. Love, not as an excuse for the mushy and innocuous, but love as a summons to battle against all that is unlovely and unloving in the world. The ark, in other words, is where we have each other and where we have hope.
(from "A Sprig of Hope," in The Hungering Dark [Seabury, 1981], pp. 41-42)
