Oh Eugene Peterson! I treated you bad (ly). I made judgments about your work without even reading it. Oh prejudice! Please forgive me for being a jerk.
Yesterday I read what you wrote in the introduction to your book, “Subversive Spirituality”:
The Christian life, in one of its main aspects, is a recovery of what we lost in the Fall. We happen upon, we notice, we reach out and touch things and ideas, people and events, and among these the Holy Scriptures themselves, that were there all along but that our ego-swollen souls or our sin-blurred eyes quite simply overlooked – sometimes for years and years and years.
And then we do notice: we sight life, we realize God and hear his word, we grab the sleeve of a friend and demand, “Look! Listen!” More often than not our friend has been looking and listening all along and treats our sudden enthusiasm with courteous condescension.
I’ve grabbed a few sleeves in my time too.
Keep it up.