Buechner, on decisions

"Most of the major decisions of my life I find very hard to remember, largely, I think, because they either more or less made themselves or were made by me at a level so subterranean that I can take neither blame nor credit for them, but I can still remeber anguishing my way through this one. I went to Dr. Muilenburg for advice. I consulted my friends. I knew that Christians were supposed to pray for guidance, and I tried my hand at that too, in the dark of night, in my bed at 929 Madison Avenue. The anguish was real enough, but I remember that, even at the time, the prayers seemed self-conscious and stagey. I was less a man praying than a man being a man praying, and no clear answer came, none that I could hear anyway, and maybe that in itself was the answer: that there was no clear right, no clear wrong, but that whichever way I chose, I would have to make it right, both for me and for the one I prayed to. It was for me to decide, and what I ended up deciding was, characteristically, to have my cake and eat it, too. I would take the year off and write a book. Then I would go back to Union and become a minister. Whatever becoming a minister was to mean." Now and Then