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Shape of Creation
wonderful study of how to use the Psalms as tools for prayer. Peterson is Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. THE SHAPE OF CREATION Prayer recovers the shape of our creation. We are created in "the image of God." We are declared, on the authority of Genesis, "good." We, and everyone and everything around us have this basic beauty, this wondrous goodness. But we very often don't feel at all good. We do not perceive ourselves "in the image of God." We are conscious of failure and inadequacy; we experience criticism and rejection; we feel lousy. The memory of our good creation is obscured in a thick fog of failure and inadequacy. Prayer is a reentry into the reality of our good creation. The Psalms, all spoken out of this ordered and purposed beauty, activate our memories of creation. Always the Genesis milieu is implicit; sometimes it is explicit. When we pray the Psalms we consciously enter the reality of our good creation. Our lives are bracketed by God: "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!" is the first last line of both Psalm 8 and of our lives. Within the brackets-and there is nothing that is not within the brackets-our creation takes place. - Eugene H. Peterson in ANSWERING GOD: THE PSALMS AS TOOLS FOR PRAYER, HarperCollins Publishers, 1989. [SPECIAL INVITIATION: Anyone who is within a reasonable drive of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is invited and encouraged to join us for Max McLean's one-man dramatic presentation of GENESIS. The free performance will be this Sunday evening, September 27, 7:00pm, at the Chapel Hill Bible Church. Max McLean, president of Fellowship for the Performing Arts, is an accomplished actor who uses his considerable dramatic skills to bring the scriptures to life. For more information on GENESIS, you may consult our web site at < http://www.biblechurch.org/docs/artist_lecture_series.htm>.] Have a great week, Chip Stam Pastor of Worship and Music Chapel Hill Bible Church Chapel Hill, North Carolina |