Leap Over a Wall Quotes

“Story is the most adequate way we have of accounting for our lives, noticing the obscure details that turn out to be pivotal, appreciating the subtle accents of color and form and scent that give texture to our actions and feelings, giving coherence to our meetings and relationships in work and family, finding our precise place in the neighborhood and in history.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians

“Pain isn’t the worst thing. Being hated isn’t the worst thing. Being separated from the one you love isn’t the worst thing. Death isn’t the worst thing. The worst thing is failing to deal with reality and becoming disconnected from what is actual. The worst thing is trivializing the honorable, desecrating the sacred. What I do with my grief affects the way you handle your grief; together we form a community that deals with death and other loss in the context of God’s sovereignty, which is expressed finally in resurrection.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians

“David's isn't an ideal life but an actual life.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians

“The prayer of David traditionally assigned to this story is Psalm 57. While there are lines in that psalm that convey David's fugitive state at the time, its overwhelming impression is of energetic and ebullient praise of God. This means that while Saul was the occasion for David's being in the wilderness, Saul neither defined nor dominated the wilderness. The wilderness was full of God, not Saul.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians