Editing Frederick Buechner (section)

=== Vermont and last years ===
In the summer of 1967, after nine years at Exeter and having established the Religion Department, Buechner moved with his family to their farmhouse in [[Vermont]] to live year round. Buechner describes their house in ''[[Now and Then (memoir)|Now and Then]]'':

{{blockquote|Our house is on the eastern slope of Rupert Mountain, just off a country road, still unpaved then, and five miles from the nearest town&nbsp;... Even at the most unpromising times of year&nbsp;– in mudtime, on bleak, snowless winter days&nbsp;– it is in so many unexpected ways beautiful that even after all this time I have never quite gotten used to it. I have seen other places equally beautiful in my time, but never, anywhere, have I seen one more so.<ref>Buechner, Frederick (1983). ''Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation''. HarperSanFrancisco. p. 77. {{ISBN|9780061974533}}</ref>}}

There Buechner dedicated himself full time to writing. However, in 1968, Buechner received a letter from [[Charles Price (chaplain)|Charles Price]], the chaplain at [[Harvard]], inviting him to give the [[Noble Lectures]] series in the winter of 1969. His predecessors in this role included [[Richard Niebuhr]] and George Buttrick, and Buechner was both flattered and daunted by the idea of joining so august a group. When he voiced his concerns, Price replied that he should write "something in the area of 'religion and letters.{{' "}}<ref>Smith, L.A. (2018). [https://lasmithwriter.com/2018/05/01/year-of-reading-buechner-the-alphabet-of-grace/ Year of Reading Buechner: The Alphabet of Grace] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181218010456/https://lasmithwriter.com/2018/05/01/year-of-reading-buechner-the-alphabet-of-grace/ |date=December 18, 2018 }}. ''The Blog of L.A. Smith''. Retrieved December 17, 2018.</ref> Thence came the idea to write about the everyday events of life, Buechner writes in ''Now and Then'': "as the alphabet through which God, of his grace, spells out his words, his meaning, to us. So ''[[The Alphabet of Grace]]'' was the title I hit upon, and what I set out to do was to try to describe a single representative day of my life in a way to suggest what there was of God to hear in it."<ref>Buechner, Frederick (1983). ''Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation''. HarperSanFrancisco p. 86. {{ISBN|9780061974533}}</ref>

Buechner continued to publish occasionally; his last book, ''A Crazy, Holy Grace: The Healing Power of Pain and Memory'', a collection of essays, was released in 2017.

Buechner died on August 15, 2022, at his home in [[Rupert, Vermont]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=McFadden |first1=Robert D. |title=Frederick Buechner, Novelist With a Religious Slant, Dies at 96 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/books/frederick-buechner-dead.html |website=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 15, 2022 |access-date=August 15, 2022 |archive-date=August 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815231133/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/books/frederick-buechner-dead.html |url-status=live }}</ref>