<\/p>\n
Forty-two.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a particularly symbolic age accompanied by traditional rituals or rites of passage.<\/p>\n
At 16, I was old enough to get a driver\u2019s license. At 18, I could vote, and three years later, I could order a cocktail at dinner without using a fake I.D. I met my husband when I was 25 and we were married when I was 27. When I turned 30, we threw a big party and some of my best college friends flew in to celebrate that chronological milestone.<\/p>\n
At 35, I received a contract to write my first book, and published two more before I reached the big Four-Oh, which is also the age at which I left the newspaper business after 15 years and became a mother for the first time.<\/p>\n
Recently having reached the inauspicious age of 42, no longer a \u201ckid\u201d but not yet feeling entirely \u201cgrown up,\u201d I find myself in a decidedly reflective mood. I\u2019ve been taking stock \u2014 spiritual, emotional, relational, familial, vocational \u2014 as I stare with some trepidation at the unchartered future, or what I like to think of as Me 4.0.<\/p>\n
Obviously, my experiences of late, while not quite universal, are hardly unique. There are many terms used to describe this time of life, some less generous than others. (\u201cMid-life crisis,\u201d comes to mind.)<\/p>\n
\u201cBetwixt and between,\u201d is how the Scottish anthropologist Victor Turner described folks like me, hunkered down in a \u201climinal phase\u201d \u2014 on the threshold between one chapter (or, perhaps, volume) of our life story and the next \u2014in a kind of existential limbo.<\/p>\n
We may be given to periods of introspection, seclusion, tumult, acting out or \u201cadultolescent\u201d behavior. As we wrestle with ambiguity, some of us seek the counsel of wise elders, with the hope that they might steer us in the right direction or, more plainly, tell us what to do and how to do it.<\/p>\n
Such was the case at a gathering I attended in New York City earlier this year, where a small(ish) group of young(ish) Christian influencers \u2014 pastors, writers, artists, and a host of American evangelicalism\u2019s mover-shakers \u2014 were invited to two private, day- long sessions with the venerable author and theologian Eugene Peterson<\/a>.<\/p>\n Perhaps best known for The Message \u2014 his \u201cpara-translation\u201d of the Bible into modern English \u2014 Peterson is a scholar and prolific writer, authoring more than 30 books including A Long Obedience in the Same Direction<\/a>, Subversive Spirituality, and (my favorite) Run With the Horses<\/a>.<\/p>\n In evangelical circles, Peterson is a rock star. (With the gravitas of an elder statesman and elusive mystique of an artist who isn\u2019t concerned with courting public notoriety, he is the Dylan to Billy Graham\u2019s Springsteen.) A bespectacled, ginger-haired gentleman with the plainspokenness and genuine humility commonplace among Montanans, he is a practical sage and modern mystic \u2014 equal parts pastor, poet, prophet, and pioneer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Reared a Pentecostal<\/a> and ordained a Presbyterian minister, Peterson, who turned 80 this month, retired to his native western Montana in 2006 after 29 years as pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Md., and many years as a professor of spiritual theology at Vancouver\u2019s Regent College.<\/p>\n Peterson doesn\u2019t travel much these days, preferring instead to spend most of his time along the shores of Flathead Lake in Big Sky Country. So when an invitation arrived to spend a couple of days literally sitting at Peterson\u2019s feet as he told stories from his life and faith, I jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n Thanks be to God \u2014 I am I glad I did. Rather than assume the position of a professor lecturing to students, Peterson\u2019s approach was wonderfully conversational. He told stories \u2014 about his faith, the majesty and mystery of God, the joys and difficulties of the pastorate, about living simply, the true meaning of a Sabbath, and the life he\u2019s created with his wife of more than 50 years and mother of his three grown children, Jan.<\/p>\n We asked questions. He told more stories. Jan joined him on stage to tell a few of her stories, too. It was marvelous.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know what to expect from those two days with Peterson. I just knew that spending time with him would be a blessing and I had a hunch that I would learn something important, something that might help me navigate the \u201cbetwixt and between.\u201d<\/p>\n [slideshow]<\/p>\n In the months that have passed since those two days with Peterson in the Big Apple, I\u2019ve poured over the pages and pages of notes I furiously scrawled in a journal, determined not to overlook a single gem from the mind and heart of The Pastor. It was an embarrassment of riches, yes, but as time went on and I reflected on the event, I began to see a bigger picture, a macro-level lesson.<\/p>\n Most of the questions posed to Peterson at our gathering shared a common theme: I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing. Tell me if I\u2019m doing it wrong. And if I\u2019m doing it wrong, please tell me how to do it right.<\/p>\n And almost to a person, Peterson\u2019s answer, was the same: I don\u2019t know. What works for me may not work for you. Figure out what God is calling you to do and do that. Don\u2019t worry about \u201cdoing\u201d it \u201cright.\u201d Here, let me tell you a story \u2026<\/p>\n Many of the folks in the room wanted Peterson to give them advice and answers. What he kindly told us was that, while we may find inspiration or words of wisdom from someone else, we cannot mimic what they\u2019ve created, done or said and expect identical results. You have to have your own faith journey. You have to have your own pastorate, marriage, and life. You can\u2019t have anyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n Why are we compelled to look to others to show us what to do rather than muddle through on our own?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A few weeks after I returned from New York, I called Peterson at home in Montana and asked him precisely that question.<\/p>\n \u201cI wonder about that too,\u201d he said. \u201cWe live in a very un-relational society and asking a question is trying to get some information and it doesn\u2019t work. But this is what we\u2019re trained to do. We\u2019ve lost the heart of relationship, friendship, of just being with another person.<\/p>\n \u201cSo when I\u2019m with these people, what I try to do, eventually, is just listen to them,\u201d he said, \u201cso that something happens between us that isn\u2019t just an idea or a suggestion or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n You can\u2019t give someone the answers for what they should do or how they should live, can you, I wondered aloud.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, but you can start entering into a relationship with them and maybe then they\u2019ll start to get it,\u201d Peterson said.<\/p>\n Peterson is an avid hiker and for many years was a competitive runner. He told us many stories that revolved around walking \u2014 walking in the woods with Jan, birdwatching on a hike, strolling near the lake with guests from out of town. Walking. Quietly. Walking alone or rather, alone with God.<\/p>\n Perhaps that\u2019s the invitation God extends to each of us.<\/p>\n I know you have lots of questions. Hey, come take a walk with me\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou know, Jesus is walking all the time,\u201d Peterson said, referring to the stories of Jesus\u2019 life as told in the Gospels. \u201cAnd what are you doing when you\u2019re walking? Well, you\u2019re not talking a whole lot. When people come here to see me, we usually go out walking in the hills. A lot of the time is quiet. And then they\u2019ll write to me a couple of weeks later and say, \u2018Boy, I\u2019ve never heard that before!\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I didn\u2019t say anything,\u201d he said, chuckling. \u201cIt was something different. It was something \u2026 we\u2019re not used to this are we?\u201d<\/p>\n Surely not. Silence is scary. Surrendering the idea of investment and outcome is uncomfortable. Doing is easy. Being is much harder.<\/p>\n Peterson is almost precisely twice my age, and just a couple of years younger than my father. Daddy is struggling with the effects of Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a> and is not able to talk to me the way he would when I was younger \u2014 for hours, about everything and anything, not on walks but on drives through the countryside in his car.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cLet\u2019s just see where this road goes,\u201d Daddy would say, turning off the main drag onto an unexplored side road. On those rides, he told me thousands of stories from his life growing up in New Hampshire with my Italian immigrant grandparents, his years in the Navy, his early days as a teacher in Germany and then in the States.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Daddy\u2019s stories that I miss the most. And yet, even when there are no words, just being with my father speaks volumes. Seeing him as his most essential self \u2014 sweet, gentle, funny, deeply kind and never uttering a single complaint \u2014 has taught me more than I could have imagined.<\/p>\n Peterson knows a bit about my dad and his physical challenges. And he understands something of the peculiar liminality of this moment in our family\u2019s story and the pain, loss, and unexpected grace inherent in it.<\/p>\n So I asked him something I might ask my own father: When you think back to when you were my age, are there perhaps a few things that you didn\u2019t know then that you wish you had?<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was 40, I was just coming out of what I called \u2018the Badlands,\u2019\u201d Peterson said. \u201cI realized early on \u2014 after the first few years of being a pastor \u2014 that I was just a competitor. I lived by competition. So, I realized that I just couldn\u2019t do this. I couldn\u2019t be a pastor and be a competitor. You can\u2019t treat people in your congregation or any place else as competitors and get along very well. Somebody else always has to get beat.<\/p>\n \u201c I just didn\u2019t know what to do. I was just stumped. So I didn\u2019t do anything. I started keeping a sabbath. Jan and I did that every Monday \u2014 we\u2019d go to the woods. I got a spiritual director \u2014 a Carmelite nun. I started running again. I didn\u2019t know adults ran races. So I started running again \u201410k races. And that took care of it,\u201d he said. \u201cI had something to do competitively again. The people I was beating \u2014 I didn\u2019t know their names and they didn\u2019t know mine. So that was safe.\u201d<\/p>\n While living in Maryland, Peterson and his family would make the trek west to Montana each summer for six weeks. Rather than thinking of it as a holiday, the Petersons turned it into a pilgrimage.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up here, so I was home ground. But they, the children, found this holy ground, too. And those kinds of things,\u201d he said. \u201cI was trying not to do anything, so all of these acts that I was doing was kind of not doing things. When I was 40, it just was like I had no sense that anything was happening through those years, and then suddenly, I was at home. I didn\u2019t have to do anything. And that\u2019s when I really started writing my best work.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a voice and it was kind of true and it was congruent to who I was,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I was 40, something happened, almost overnight, when I realized I wasn\u2019t the same person anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s a matter of finding ourselves?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOr being found,\u201d Peterson said, just before telling me the story of his spiritual director, the Carmelite nun.<\/p>\n \u201cI was introduced to her by a friend,\u201d he began. \u201cShe\u2019d never \u2026 been in close relationships with Protestants. She became a Carmelite when she was 18 years old. So she didn\u2019t know Protestants. I was new territory for her. And I\u2019d never been close to a nun before.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically, spiritual direction is her work. She was with 13 nuns at this convent in Baltimore. She didn\u2019t do much. She asked me questions, she listened, she told me stories about herself. And it took me maybe two or three years to realize that most of what she said to me was indirect. It was no giving answers, it was letting me enter into her life and she entering into mine.<\/p>\n \u201cShe never prayed with me, which surprised me. She says, \u2018Come to our prayer service and we\u2019ll pray together in the community.\u2019 So for somebody who grew up Pentecostal and didn\u2019t really trust liturgy very much, it was another instance of what I\u2019m right now calling \u2018not doing,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cShe had no program, she had no techniques, but she knew how to be relational.\u201d<\/p>\n Peterson still sees his Carmelite sister. They\u2019re the same age. She comes out to Montana each summer to visit for a few days.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an elusive quality to life itself and if we try to hard, we miss it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n I think I\u2019m starting to grasp that. I\u2019m not all the way there yet, but the fog is lifting a bit and I\u2019m beginning to see lights on the road.<\/p>\n \u201cForty is kind of a benchmark,\u201d Peterson told me. \u201cYou think, the things that you thought you were going to be doing when you were 20, you\u2019re not. And so\u2026what do I do now? Try another spouse? Try another body? Get another job?<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something about entering into where you are and getting comfortable with that,\u201d he said as we were about to hang up the phone. \u201cWhen you go back home to Connecticut to be with your father, I hope that goes well.\u201d<\/p>\n It did. And I didn\u2019t have to do<\/em> anything.<\/p>\n Being<\/em> with my dad \u2014 exactly as he is and exactly as I am \u2014 was more than enough.<\/p>\n Cathleen Falsani<\/strong>\u00a0is the Web Editor and Director of New Media for\u00a0Sojourners<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0A version of this piece originally appeared in the November 2012 edition of\u00a0<\/a><\/em>Sojourners<\/a> magazine.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>All photos by Cathleen Falsani for Sojourners.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThere\u2019s an elusive quality to life itself and if we try to hard, we miss it,\u201d Peterson said.<\/p>\n I think I\u2019m starting to grasp that. I\u2019m not all the way there yet, but the fog is lifting a bit and I\u2019m beginning to see lights on the road.<\/p>\n \u201cForty is kind of a benchmark,\u201d Peterson told me. \u201cYou think, the things that you thought you were going to be doing when you were 20, you\u2019re not. And so…what do I do now? Try another spouse? Try another body? Get another job? There\u2019s something about entering into where you are and getting comfortable with that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1151,18],"tags":[1112,21,1260,17,24,1261,1262,522,515,1114,1195,413,1263,1264],"class_list":["post-5136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-sojo-net","category-godstuff-2","tag-eugene-h-peterson","tag-faith","tag-fortysomething","tag-god","tag-jesus","tag-liminal-space","tag-midlife-crisis","tag-new-york-city","tag-pastor","tag-peterson","tag-sabbath","tag-spirituality","tag-subversive-spirituality","tag-victor-turner"],"yoast_head":"\n