Eat This Book

We’re now somewhat settled in our 3-week home in a nearby city. (The internet connection is considerably slower so we’ll see how often I can post.) Jim is pretty busy but the girls and I have enjoyed re-connecting with several dear friends.

I brought a book along with me called Eat this Book. It’s the 2^nd in a 3 part series by Eugene Peterson, this one subtitled “a conversation in the art of spiritual reading”. Have you ever wondered why sometimes your Bible feels alive with fresh revelation, and other time seems as interesting as the Moscow phone book? Here is part of the intro Preface to wet your appetite, if you’re looking for a good summer read:

My wife picked up our 7 yr old grandson at noon on an October Saturday at Holy Nativity Church…They drove off, headed to a local museum that was featuring a special children’s exhibit on gemstones. On the way they stopped at a city park to eat their lunches. The 2 of them ate while sitting on a park bench, Hans chattering all the while—he had been chattering nonstop ever since leaving the church. Lunch complete—his was a lettuce and mayo sandwich that he had made himself (“I’m trying to eat more healthy, Grandma”) – Hans shifted away from his grandmother, faced out into the park, took from his bookbag a New Testament that he had just been given by his pastor, opened it, held it up before his eyes, and proceeded to read, moving his eyes back and forth across the page in a devout but uncharacteristic silence. After a long minute, he closed the Testament and returned it to his bookbag; “Okay, Grandma, I’m ready – let’s go to the museum.”

His grandmother was impressed. She was also amused because Hans cannot yet read. He wants to read. His sister can read. Some of his friends can read. But Hans can’t read. And he knows he can’t read, sometimes announcing to us, “I can’t read,” as if to reinforce our awareness of what he is missing. So what was he doing, “reading” his New Testament on the park bench that autumn Saturday?

When my wife later told me the story, I also was impressed and amused. But after a few days the story developed in my imagination into a parable. At the time I was immersed in writing this book, and extended conversation in the practice of spiritual reading; I was finding it hard to keep my hoped-for-readers in focus. They kept blurring into a faceless crowd of Bible-readers and Bible non-readers, Bible teachers and Bible preachers. Is there an impediment, a difficulty, that we all share in common when we pick up our Bibles and open them? I think there is. Hans gave me my focus.

I have been at this business of reading the Bible ever since I was not much older than Hans. Twenty years after I first started reading it I became a pastor and a professor; for over fifty years now I have been vocationally involved in getting the Christian scriptures into the minds and hearts, arms and legs, ears and mouths of men and women. And I haven’t found it easy. Why isn’t it easy? …

Want to read it with me this summer? Or what else is on your summer reading list?