A Burning in My Bones - i

Reading through Winn Collier's A Burning in My Bones, the authorized biography of Eugene Peterson has been its own kind of revelation. I knew Eugene, and I knew his wife, Jan. Both of them died within a short time a few years ago, and we all miss him, and them, dearly.

Burning is like no other book I've ever read because it examines a man's life, a man I thought I knew well. I suppose, like most everyone else, what we choose to say about ourselves is only part of the whole story. I was surprised by some things Collier includes--I had no idea his mother was a celebrated Pentecostal preacher. I knew he grew up Pentecostal, but I had no idea that as a preacher he was following, to some extent, in her footsteps.

But mostly what I discovered in the biography was much more about a man I thought I knew pretty well--all blessed discoveries. Is it the best biography I've ever read?--don't know that I'd go that far. But it did something no other biography I've ever read accomplished--it made me respect him even more, a man I knew and thought I knew well.

I'd like to do a number of little meanderings about Eugene and Jan and A Burning. I hope you'll bear with my reminiscing.

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At the last meeting I attended of the Chrysostom Society, the Pres, Paula Huston, as if out of nowhere, asked--well, told--me to lead in prayer. Eugene and Jan were asserting, quietly, that this would be their last meeting. Throughout the weekend it was painfully apparent that Eugene was suffering, mentally, although he remained almost blissful. He bore the marks of Alzheimer's, attended Jan like a lap dog, a puppy. She was his means of staying a part of things.

I’ve never been big on public prayer, and I’m not particularly good at it. Burning makes very clear that for Eugene, prayer was a beautiful rite and privilege. I'm afraid I don’t measure up that way, so when Paula, out of nowhere, asked me to pray, I was startled and shocked. But I did—I couldn't say no--and I think I did a credible job. It’s difficult to avoid pretense in public prayers. I tend to side with the Savior myself, who wasn't thrilled with the performance aspect and suggested that praying in closet was preferable.

But I prayed at that moment—about the Petersons, about us, about all of our lives. I wish I had a recording of what I said because when I finally climbed to the Amen, I was telling myself that what I’d contributed as the moment was neither simple nor tedious, and may have even been a blessing. I don’t know if saying it this way is spiritually worthy, but I thought I’d prayed very well.

Perhaps the Petersons had brought them along—I don’t remember. It would have been unlike them to do that, but there were dozens of copies of The Message sitting there, a sufficient number, I think, for the whole group of maybe 25 people. The Schaaps already had a copy, and I knew we had several of the smaller editions of individual books--when I wrote devotions on the psalms, I used his psalms a lot, simply to see how Eugene had rendered what I’d have read in the NIV or KJV.

I took a copy. Eugene was sitting at a table signing. Now let me be clear about this—I’m now 74 years old, and more than aware of the way things thin out with the years—from hair to skin to tooth enamel. We wear out, period, which is itself wearing.

But I’d spent hours with Eugene and Jan—not at this their last hurrah with the Society, but at other meetings and even by ourselves. The biography says a great deal about their hospitality, how they loved to entertain there in Flathead country, at their lake cabin. Honestly, I’m sure they’d invited the Schaaps up a half-dozen times—both Eugene and Jan, probably Jan most forcefully. "Please come by sometime, we have plenty of room."

When I came to the front of the line, I opened the cover to the first page and laid the book in front of him. I’m sure I said some things about how we’d miss him. Then, he set the pen to the paper, then lifted it, stopped. It was painfully clear that he was riffling through a mental notebook of names and faces, trying to remember exactly whose name to write.

Honestly, it could just as easily have been happening to me, but I didn’t know how to play the silence. Should I simply tell him my name—and risk embarrassment, or should I wait for him to ask and pretend I didn’t know what was going on in a mind that was painfully and regretfully, even embarrassingly uncooperative?

“And who again?” he said, looking up.

And it hurt, I’m sure, when I said “Jim Schaap.”

He smiled.

Eugene had a lovely smile, and he wore it constantly. Then he told me, clearly and without flinching, that things weren’t working all that well anymore. He raised his right hand, the one with the pen, and pointed to his temple, nodded a bit, still smiling, then finished the dedication.

That was five years ago. I was 69 years old—far beyond being shocked or embarrassed by memory lapses.

That wide smile made it clear that he wasn't either.

What Eugene Peterson wanted to be, Winn Collins insists in his authorized bio, is a saint.

When I came home from the Red Rocks around Colorado Springs my very first meeting with the Chrysostom Society, I told my wife I’d met this lanky gentleman in a flannel shirt and a vest—Eugene Peterson. I’d known of him by reputation (this was pre-Message days), but I had never been in a room with him, certainly in a position to have meals with him and Jan. I said to Barbara that one of the writers in the group really stuck out to me, although others did too for different reasons. “This one,” I said, Eugene Peterson, “I can’t help think of as something of a saint.”

I’m not so bold as to believe I can determine a worthy definition. Eugene Peterson spent hours and hours contemplating the word saint, I'm sure. That very first reaction was quick-draw, shot-from-the-hip. What I knew was that this Westerner in the vest was somehow extraordinary. He conveyed the kind of paradox he himself found joyful: he took great joy in the things of this world, the flora and fauna all around, his friends, his loving wife, his Montana holy land, his prayers and thoughts, because to him it was all of a piece, as real and earth-bound as it was perfectly divine.