More Frederick Buechner Gems

"Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It's the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."

“With words as valueless as poker chips, we play games whose object it is to keep us from seeing each other’s cards. Chit-chat games in which ‘How are you?’ means ‘Don’t tell me who you are,’ and ‘I am alone & scared’ becomes ‘fine thanks.’ Games where the players create the illusion of being in the same room but where the reality of it is that each is alone inside a skin in that room.”