"Many people think that what's written in the Bible has mostly to do with getting people into heaven-getting right with God, saving their eternal souls. It does have to do with that, of course, but not mostly. It is equally concerned with living on this earth-living well, living in robust sanity. In our Scriptures, heaven is not the primary concern, to which earth is a tag-along afterthought. "On earth as it is in heaven" is Jesus' prayer." Introduction to the book of Proverbs by Eugene Peterson
http://www.studiobeerhorst.com/blog/2012/12/8/robust-sanity.html
Prov 8:12 "I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street.
"... the truth will set you free... why I am suspicious of Christians is because they lack this sense of realism." Bono in conversation with Eugene Peterson
Bono & Eugene Peterson | THE PSALMS
I had never placed it before, but there is a similarity in the writing of Wendell Berry and Eugene Peterson. They are both pretty much utterly rational. It's almost too much bottom line, but they can be forgiven because their hearts are in the right place. Watching an interview with Bono and Peterson, I thought of Jess and I discussing my guy friends. They are pretty much all the play it safe kinda guys, whereas I look at myself as much more fanciful in spirit. Looking at Bono and Peterson, I see the same kind of dynamic. On the one hand you've got Bono, who I identify with, who seeks to embody the metaphors that he portrays, and on the other Peterson, who seeks to embody the message.
Bono is definitely far more given to self-indulgence; admittedly so. But isn't his part necessary? Doesn't Peterson need Bono to take the message and run with it?
What has thrust me into this investigation of Bono and Peterson is the point of sanity. Clearly sanity is not the same for all people. History speaks of people arriving at a variety of conclusions about the best ways of doing things by even the most fertile minded. Though one might think that all rational thinking would arrive at the same conclusion, yet it is not true. For many the goal is different. And even where the goal is the same, many would debate the path.
Sanity, therefore, is not about arriving at the right conclusion in general, but about arriving at the right conclusion for you. There is a self-indulgence hinted at in that proposal. Yet, the work of God in our lives is about broadening you. He seeks to widen our gaze to beyond ourselves, to be responsible for our brothers and sisters. And He makes this possible by opening our eyes as wide as they can go, by looking toward the biggest Entity in the universe, namely Jesus God!
"The end is where we start from..." T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
In Traveling Light, Peterson points to a weighing of proportions as a means to the attainment of robust sanity. God shows us Himself and points to the end straight off. He gives us the means to the attainment of robust sanity right away. Ah, but the path! How shall we get there. For every person that is different. With every life, God has a new path to Himself, and flowing from Himself. He is like a bi-directional tributary. Some tributaries are not yet formed, they have not connected. But when they do then there is continuity. And it certainly does seem that although He has created this flowing path from us to Himself, that to get us meat He must perform tricks as the Salmon, swimming against stream to get us nourishment.
Yet against the unceasing tide of myself God will come. I have to come to trust this about Him. Thinking fresh on Galatians as I read Peterson's Traveling Light, I consider Paul's words:
You crazy Galatians! Did someone give you a hallucinatory drug? Something crazy has happened, for it is obvious that you no longer have the crucified Christ in clear focus in your lives... Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's pleasure working in you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God.For sure, I battle crazy. I persist in trying to attain from my own strength, creativity, wit, and the like that the Ultimate. Yet, freely He gives Himself to me, and without all of the hullabaloo. Yes, there was great hullabaloo when Christ was crucified and raised from the dead. But there was something in the universe that was settled from that moment. It's as if God was saying, "let there be no mistaking henceforth, that I am for you, not against."
Heavenly Father, I think unclearly because I add so much to the soup of my thinking. I am ever pursuing, but so often in the wrong way. Truly, I identify with Peter. As I come into a new place in life stage: father, husband, brother, educator, fellow laborer, help me to also rely on You for my sense of coherence and sanity. Help me make good decisions, the kind that others can trust. Let my self-indulgence mean more for the benefit of others. And when those decisions cannot be trusted by others, let me know that I am making them for Your sake, for the sake of our Common Bond.
In Jesus Name,
Amen
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