I’ve been picking away at The Pastor by Eugene Peterson for some time. The book is wonderful (especially for those thinking of the ministry), but it is also in many ways prophetic.
I thought Peterson hit the nail on the head in the following paragraph from his chapter “Eucharistic Hospitality.” He writes,
“It is hard to care for creation, its resources and its beauties, when we are immersed in a culture of consumption. It is hard to take time to be personal, leisurely, relational with another when there are so many impersonal time-saving technological shortcuts at hand. It is hard to cook a nutritious meal and gather children and spouse and friends around a table in conversation and blessing when there are so many easier and quicker ways to get fed. There is a lot of hate in the air and strangers who are suspicious of one another. There is a lot of rude, even rapacious, treatment of creation—air and water, soil and forests—that is our home. The conditions are not propitious for hospitality…”
