[1] Upon returning to New York, Buechner recounts his time at Union, and his encounters with Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, James Muilenburg, Samuel Terrien, Wilhelm Pauck, Cyril Richardson, and Robert McAfee Brown.

"[3] When Buechner met Judith, the woman who was to be his wife, it was Muilenberg who officiated their wedding: "[his] hands trembled so as he read the service".

[4] Alongside his studies, Buechner also recalls the time he spent serving at a church-run "employment clinic" in East Harlem, and the stories of those whom he met while working there[5] – an experience that the author memorialised in his third novel, The Return of Ansel Gibbs.

Now and Then further recounts Buechner's experiences as a chaplain and Theology teacher at the Phillips Exeter Academy, and the completion of his fourth novel, The Final Beast.

In this third and final chapter, Buechner also remembers being invited to deliver the Noble Lectures at Harvard (out of which he would publish The Alphabet of Grace), and his conception of the character of Leo Bebb, who became the central focus of his next four books, a tetralogy titled The Book of Bebb: Lion Country (1971), Open Heart (1972), Love Feast (1974), and Treasure Hunt (1977).