Extended Interview with Eugene Peterson

Several months ago I ran a series of articles based on an interview with one of my favorite authors, Eugene Peterson. Most know him by his work on The Message, but my favorite of Peterson’s works is Under the Unpredictable Plant. Now he has a new one out, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

The title is borrowed from words by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

As Kingfishers Catch Fire
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying, What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is — Christ.
For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Recently I received a message from Dr. Reg Grant, my friend and mentor at Dallas Theological Seminary who’s on sabbatical over in Asia. Reg forwarded a link to a rich, more-than-an-hour-long Mars Hill interview with Eugene Peterson in which Dr. Peterson discusses some of the topics addressed in this new release.

In his interview with Ken Myers, Dr. Peterson discusses fiction, community, history, narrative, the way we view people, the dance of the Trinity, poetry—all sorts of fabulous stuff.

Mars Hill had the good sense to run it online, so you can listen to it, too, for free. Enjoy!

http://www.marshillaudio.org/resources/mp3/PetersonUncut.mp3

Links to my Peterson series, in case you missed it:

Eugene Peterson: On Men and Women
Eugene Peterson: On Story
Eugene Peterson: That "Good-for-Nothing" Sabbath