our world the freak show

Frederick Buechner writes in Journey Toward Wholeness

As for the church of Christ, no one knows better than the church itself all the ways it, too, is broken, just as no one knows better than you and I know it the brokenness of our own individual lives, both within ourselves and in our relationships with each other. In other words, it is easy enough to see the world as a horror show... For all its horrors, the world is not ultimately a horror show because, as Jesus tell us, the world has the kingdom buried in it like a treasure buried in a field, like leaven working in dough, like a seed germinating in the earth, like whatever it was in the heart of the Prodigal Son that finally brought him home. The question is, How is it possible for us not just to glimpse that buried kingdom but to unbury and become it? How is it possible in a broken world to become whole? Is wholeness something that we reach by taking pains, taking thought? Is it something that is given to us by grace alone? Is wholeness a human possibility at all?

good question fred