6. The Bad News and the Good News
R
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:13I
Nhis book Telling the Truth,Frederick Buechner related an incident
in which the well-known preacher Henry Ward Beecher traveled
to Yale University to deliver the first of the Beecher Lectures, a series
established in honor of his late father.
Beecher passed a troubling night because he had no idea what he
would say. The next morning as he shaved, suddenly it came to him.
Staring into his own eyes, he knew that his life had become a
farce. He thought of the furor that was brewing in his own parish,
the results of his own actions: gossip, tales of adultery, tearful con-
fessions. And he was at the center of it all. At that moment, Beecher’s
razor slipped, and he cut his face. He wrote notes for the sermon in
his own blood!