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In high school I was very much involved in poetry. You cannot read a poem quickly. There's too much going on there. There are rhythms and alliterations. You have to read poetry slow, slow, slow to absorb it all.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Eugene H. Peterson
Age: 85 †
Born: 1932
Born: November 6
Died: 2018
Died: October 22
Author
Bible Translator
Theologian
Translator
University Teacher
Stanwood
Washington
School
Slow
Going
Rhythm
Much
Quickly
Poetry
Involved
Alliteration
High
Rhythms
Read
Absorb
Cannot
Poem
More quotes by Eugene H. Peterson
The most important thing a pastor does is stand in a pulpit every Sunday and say, 'Let us worship God.' If that ceases to be the primary thing I do in terms of my energy, my imagination, and the way I structure my life, then I no longer function as a pastor.
Eugene H. Peterson
There is nothing terribly difficult in the Bible - at least in a technical way. The Bible is written in street language, common language. Most of it was oral and spoken to illiterate people. They were the first ones to receive it. So when we make everything academic, we lose something.
Eugene H. Peterson
I didn't write because I had anything to say, but in order to find out what there was to say.
Eugene H. Peterson
We cannot be too careful about the words we use we start out using them and they end up using us.
Eugene H. Peterson
Exile (being where we don't want to be with people we don't want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself?...'I will do my best with what is here.'
Eugene H. Peterson
Pastors need to know what's going on in the world and what has been going on for 4,000 years. We need a way to read Scripture which is imaginative, interpretive.
Eugene H. Peterson
When you are part of a megachurch you have no responsibility to anybody else.
Eugene H. Peterson
It's essential for us to develop an imagination that is participatory. Art is the primary way in which this happens. It's the primary way in which we become what we see or hear.
Eugene H. Peterson
The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless.
Eugene H. Peterson
I cannot fail to call the congregation to worship God, to listen to his Word, to offer themselves to God.
Eugene H. Peterson
Pity is one of the noblest emotions available to human beings self-pity is possibly the most ignoble . . . . [It] is an incapacity, a crippling emotional disease that severely distorts our perception of reality . . . a narcotic that leaves its addicts wasted and derelict.
Eugene H. Peterson
No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others.
Eugene H. Peterson
Pity can be nearsighted and condescending shared suffering can be dignifying and life-changing.
Eugene H. Peterson
God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.
Eugene H. Peterson
Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.
Eugene H. Peterson
People learn to shop for churches there is no loyalty to the church. They're consumers being attracted to one product or another. I think it's sacrilege, to tell you the truth, it really is.
Eugene H. Peterson
You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.
Eugene H. Peterson
I believe God takes the things in our lives - family, background, education - and uses them as part of his calling. It might not be to become a pastor. But I don't think God wastes anything.
Eugene H. Peterson
Spirituality is no different from what weve been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. Its just ordinary stuff.
Eugene H. Peterson
Prayer gets us in on what God is doing.
Eugene H. Peterson
