We lost a giant today. A true spiritual Elder.
I first encountered Eugene Peterson in 1998, in the little Christian bookstore that used to be in downtown Hillsdale, MI.
That was the beginning of my senior year of high school, and my faith was breaking free from the confines of the categories that were handed to me. I was beginning to have a real-life faith that made sense with my budding adolescence. I was beginning to grow up spiritually.
And Eugene was one of my first guides on this new and scary journey.
Eugene's magical translation/paraphrase of the Bible - called The Message - helped my adolescent imagination encounter the scriptures again, as if for the first time.
He wrote over 30 books during his lifetime, ON TOP of translating the entire scripture (Greek AND Hebrew) into a readable rendering that connects with ordinary life.
His book, The Pastor, is required reading if you belong to a church community.
Later on in college, and then in graduate school, Peterson's imagination around pastoral ministry, and specifically the role of the pastor in the life of parish ministry, began to shape me more than any other.
Eugene taught me that pastoral ministry is earthy, and on the ground. He taught me that the role of the pastor is that of being a disruptive presence, a conduit of God's Spirit, in the life of the parish, because God always comes at once to comfort us, while also being tremendously disruptive to our categories of belief, spirituality, truth, and faith.
Eugene pointed me toward Wendell Berry to learn how to be present to, and take care of, a place. Berry furthered my imagination in this work deeply, and I have Eugene to thank for that influence.
Jayber Crow, by Berry, is probably the most formative book I've ever read on faithful pastoral ministry in place.
I wept on my back porch this morning when I heard the news. Eugene's son, Leif, simply posted a photo of the family dock, with the lit lantern having gone out. Leif captioned this photo as appropriately as a Jesus Follower should: "Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done."
So, today, we say, "Well done, Eugene."
Thank you for living into the dark places, and the broken places of your life, and the lives of others. Thank you for stepping into the hard places, that many of us resist, and for telling your story, so that folks like me could grow in faith, in imagination, and in heart, for the work of the Church here on earth.
Thank you for taking the time to cultivate a life of prayer and intimacy with God, and then telling young pastors like me that doing this work is the most important use of my time as a pastor. I didn't believe you at first, because I could not yet imagine what an intimate prayer life could be or look like.
I believe you now. Thank you for telling the truth, and being patient with so many of us, as we took your word for it.
Thank you for living in place, and for teaching me how to live here too.
May you play and run and do all the things that you've been missing as your body has been failing you.
May you rejoice, knowing that all is well.
May you worship in the presence of the One who has sustained you all these years.
May we weep, for we know a bit of what we've lost today.
May we celebrate, thanking God for your life and presence with us.
May we laugh, knowing that life is full of pain, but full of goodness too.
We will miss you Eugene.
We will see you again.
May it be so.