A Month of
Sundays
By Eugene H. Peterson
Life is complex, exceedingly complex.
The moment we wake up to what is
involved in being human beings, we
very often feel like we are in the middle
of a labyrinth. We try this passage
and end up at a dead end, and then
this one, and then that one. We ask
for directions and are given bad ones.
Just about the time we get the animal
skills mastered—learn to walk, to
eat with a spoon and fork, get toilet
trained, acquire enough language so
that we can understand the natives—
we find that there is a lot more to it,
that being a higher form of animal is
not enough. We have to be human, and
we don’t know the first thing about it.
That is why adolescence is such a
messy time: we are trying to find our
way in a world that we don’t know much
about. We know our address, that’s
true, and can find our way home after
dark. We know our vocabulary lists
and can make ourselves understood
to strangers. We know how to count
and can figure out how to pay for a
Big Mac and french fries and get the
right amount of change back. But
being human—being me—how do I go
about doing that?
But this messiness is not confined to
adolescence. We are pushed or fall
into it over and over throughout our
lives. Things deteriorate into chaos,
and we have to start all over again. So
where do we start?
We start with the baptism of Jesus.
We go to the river and look and listen.
We stand on the edge of the Jordan
River and watch John the Baptist
take the hand of his cousin, Jesus of
Nazareth, let him walk out to a depth
of three or four feet in the river, and
baptize him, immersing him in those
waters and then lifting him out again,
drenched and clean and alive. We
observe what happens, and we listen
to what is said. And we say, “That
looks like a good start. I think I’ll start
Solutions • 23