Holy Luck: Selected Poems

By Eugene Peterson

The renowned Christian pastor and author of The Message and Run with Horses shares his spirituality in a very personal collection of poetry.

Eugene H. Peterson had long been known as a pastor, professor, and provocateur. With his first-ever collection of verse, Peterson became known as a poet, too. Holy Luck emerged over many years, initially as individual poems sent to family, friends, and church congregations. Now, the translator of the bestselling Bible paraphrase The Message has collected his poems into three thematic sections of verses—on the Beatitudes, the kingdom of God in the ordinary, and following Jesus everyday—here released as one transcendent volume.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781625391773

Eugene Peterson

Eugene H. Peterson, translator of The Message Bible (17 million sold), authored more than 30 books, including the spiritual classics A Long Obedience in the Same Direction and Run with the Horses. He earned his BA in Philosophy from Seattle Pacific University, his STB from New York Theological Seminary, and his MA in Semitic Languages from John Hopkins University. He also held several honorary doctoral degrees. In 1962, Peterson was founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Bel Air, Maryland, where he and his wife, Jan, served for 29 years before retiring in 1991. Peterson held the title of professor emeritus of spiritual theology at Regent College, British Columbia, from 1998 until his death in 2018.

Book preview

Holy Luck

Eugene H Peterson

Good luck have thou with thine honour Psalm 45:4 (BCP)

Copyright

Holy Luck

Copyright © 2012 by Eugene H Peterson

Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2012 by Bondfire, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Electronic edition published 2012 by Bondfire LLC,

Author is represented by Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard St., Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

ISBN EPUB edition: 978-0-7953-2360-7

Dedication

For Jan in our 54th year of marriage

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

I Holy Luck

1 The Lucky Poor

2 The Lucky Sad

3 The Lucky Meek

4 The Lucky Hungry

5 The Lucky Merciful

6 The Lucky Pure

7 The Lucky Peacemakers

8 The Lucky Persecuted

II The Rustling Grass

1 Cradle

2 Dream

3 Tree

4 Present

5 Kiss

6 Pain

7 Dance

8 Star

9 Time

10 Candle

11 Offertory

12 War

13 Choir

14 Greetings

15 Feast

16 Stamp

17 Womb

18 Question

19 Dawn

20 Egypt

21 Message

22 Lights

23 Pregnancy

24 Glory

25 Meditation

26 Homecoming

27 Story

28 Quiet

29 Terror

30 Snow

31 Ancestors

32 Silence

33 Beauty

34 Hospitality

35 Uncle Ernie

36 Altar

37 Yes and Amen and Jesus

38 Green

39 Friends

III Smooth Stones

1 Smooth Stones

2 A Prayer of Blessing for Trygve the New

3 Assateague Island

4 Lazarus in Spring

5 Beware the Dogs

6 Prayer Time

7 Intercessory Prayer

8 Aaron’s Beard

9 Lent

10 Hell

11 Ascension

12 Shalom

13 Maranatha

14 Birdwatching

15 Let No Man Put Asunder

16 Ballad to the Fisher King

17 Light on Light

18 Sermons from Figs

19 A Cave of Marriage

20 Resurrection Flower

21 The New Math

22 Stations of the Cross

23 Sabbath Prayers

Introduction

David’s Psalms were my introduction to poetry. I was thirteen years old and had just purchased with my own money a burgundy, leather-bound King James Bible. It was summer and we had just moved across town to a neighborhood where I had yet to make new friends. Friendless and bored I filled in the empty, unfriended days by reading my new Bible. It wasn’t long before I discovered the Psalms.

The biblical culture in which I grew up was fiercely insistent that every word in the Bible is true just as it appears on the page, literally true, straight from the mouth of God, no questions asked. But in the Psalms that way of reading wasn’t getting me anywhere I wanted to go. I read …thou, O Lord, art a shield…The Lord is my rock….put thou my tears in thy bottle…God shall shoot at them with an arrow…

God is a weapon?

Reviews for Holy Luck

[ajlewis2_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The poems link the spiritual with the natural. I would say that one need not be a believer in God to find truth in these words. I loved several of them that resonated with my own experience or desires. Others, as is usual with poetry, went right over my head. I bought, rather than borrowed, this book because it is beauty that I want on hand.