Eugene Peterson died a few days ago. He’s well known for writing several books that are required reading for Christian ministry, and of course for writing the popular paraphrase of scripture, The Message. We pray a Psalm each morning with the kids before school, and when I start to read from my own favorite translation, the NRSV, they clamor for The Message instead 🙂 This morning we read Paint grace-graffiti on the fences; take in your frightened children who Are running from the neighborhood bullies straight to you. (Psalm 17:7) Brilliant. A few beautiful articles have been written in the last week on his tremendous legacy; they’re well worth the read. I’ve been a bit quiet inside and out since receiving the news of his passing…reflecting on his life and his profound influence on me. You see, Eugene is one of the reasons we live in Africa. Here are two of the ways he altered the course of my life, despite never having met personally. 1. Eugene helped me to recognize within myself a tendency to desire achievement and to “do great things”. He did this by helping me to see clearly; to understand that in God’s reality (that is, in the “real world”), what is of “value” is measured via very different scales than the ones I had been trained to use. In 2005, I stepped off the USS Maine after a three year Division Officer tour comprising five submarine deployments and 13 months underwater. Mardi and I went to dinner and a movie together, in the throes of the “getting to know each other again” dance that is familiar territory for military families, and we discussed what “life after submarines” might look like for me. I remember not having the excitement or anticipation one might expect a soon-to-be-retired service-member having–instead I felt a weight pressing down on my shoulders; heavy, frustrated, angst-y. Through his intentional imitation of Christ’s “downward mobility“, Eugene helped me to recognize that this weight came from the pressure to do something great, significant, important. If I moved into ministry? I needed to start something that was influential and successful. If I stayed in the military? Commanding Officer of my own attack submarine within 15 years. Academic life? I needed a PhD from the best university. Through his autobiography and his deep book The Contemplative Pastor (containing terrific insights for any vocation, not only pastors), Eugene helped me understand that this pressure to be successful, the drive to be great is supported nowhere in Scripture. In my own case, a root cause stemmed from what ancient Christians and Jews referred to as “idolatry”: worshipping something created rather than Creator. Eugene helped me take off the dirty and cracked glasses through which I saw my future and what was “important” and to see the world as it really is: God’s kingdom, breaking through in the small and insignificant, the poor and the broken, through a Saviour who didn’t teleport himself around to everyone everywhere when he ministered order to “maximise his impact”, but instead chose to walk from place to place in an unremarkable corner of the world with unremarkable people. …I don’t like being viewed as nice but insignificant. I bristle when a high-energy executive leaves the place of worship with the comment, “This was wonderful, Pastor, but now we have to get back to the real world, don’t we?” I had thought we were in the most-real world, the world revealed as God’s, a world believed to be invaded by God’s grace and turning on the pivot of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The executive’s comment brings me up short: he isn’t taking this seriously. Worshiping God is marginal to making money. Prayer...