Every once in a while a book comes along that just really meets you where you’re at. Back in February, in the lull of winter, I reached a seasonal time of questioning what my calling it. It’s a good thing, this reoccurring self examination that comes out of nowhere – a time of looking at the present moment and wondering, Is this the right place? It’s a good kind of wondering, the affirming kind that helps me not take things for granted.In the middle of this February, wintery season of wonder, came Eugene Peterson’s book, The Pastor. I’ve been a long time recipient of Peterson’s words and wisdom – a good friend got me hooked on his writing a few years back and I’ve since enjoyed a near streamlined path of savoring each book I come across that he’s written. As a minister, I consider myself blessed to have happened upon this guy’s work; aside from the Scriptures themselves, this guy’s work has been the most formational upon the way I’ve been seeing Scripture’s story come to active live expression within myself and world.
Book ending by book ending I would catch myself feeling fueled and energized, perhaps even understood or at the least finally taught a way of life that made sense and lined up with the Story in the Bible. The book closing moments would also bring along another question: What was this guys life like as he was molded in life – like I’m being molded right now? Who did he read? Who influenced his journey and helped him pay attention to God?
The Pastor: A Memoir is that story, that journey.
I devoured the book. It took me four days and I savored every moment of it – each moment I could slip away or stay up a little later than I first set out to. Each chapter was a signpost to my own life and history – people Eugene knew were people I knew, they just had different names. Experiences and doubts were the same way. Small memories that somehow seemed so influential were somehow also like my memories. There I was, paying attention to God with us, God with Eugene, God with me and my family.
One of my favorite small story notes was about the year Eugene’s mother decided not to follow the culture’s consumeristic plunge into the Holiday season. (A lady much ahead of her time, I imagined.) Eugene wrote about how he missed his old Christmas tree that year – a Douglas Fir.
“Douglas Firs are the best Christmas trees,” my dad always seemed to say. We’d go to the mountains of southern Idaho to find ours. …and again, like Peterson, like my own experiences.
The beauty in these similarities isn’t that I feel like I have all these things in common with Mr. Peterson – it’s that the small and ordinary events in life are the fingerprints of God. We all have experiences and questions and relationships that shape who we are and if we’re given the time and encouragement we’ll be able to see God’s work in the middle of such things – God calling, God saving, God restoring, God sending – and all of this in Jesus.
The Pastor: A Memoir is going to be one of those books, already profusely highlighted, that I read again and again to help me remember this calling I’ve received – a calling to walk with God, to pay attention and explore the Almighty in the most ordinary of life’s adventures, and to walk beside others and help them do the same.