{"id":714,"date":"2006-02-15T06:00:54","date_gmt":"2006-02-15T06:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/christ-plays-wondering-about-w.html"},"modified":"2006-02-15T06:00:54","modified_gmt":"2006-02-15T06:00:54","slug":"christ-plays-wondering-about-w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/christ-plays-wondering-about-w.html","title":{"rendered":"Christ Plays: Wondering about Wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eugene Peterson, in his <em>Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places<\/em>, pp. 119-129, sets out a second element of cultivating fear of the Lord in creation. The first was Sabbath, upon which I posted some time in December, and the second is <strong>wonder<\/strong>. Ever wonder about wonder? <!--more|inline--><br \/>\nEveryone was suprised, no one did anything to prepare for it, marginal people play a central role, it took place quietly, and it evoked <em>fear<\/em>. And it should. &#8220;Fear-of-the-Lord is fear with the scary element deleted&#8221; (121).<br \/>\nHere&#8217;s his thesis. <strong>What do you think?<\/strong> &#8220;Fear-of-the-Lord is the cultivated awareness of the &#8216;more and other&#8217; that the presence or revelation of God introduces into our lives: I am not the center of my existence; I am not the sum-total of what matters; I don&#8217;t know what will happen next&#8221; (122). Then, &#8220;Without wonder we approach life as a self-help project. We employ techniques; we analyze gifts and potentialities; we set goals and assess progress. Spiritual formation is reduced to cosmetics&#8221; (123).<br \/>\nHow can we recover wonder?<br \/>\nWe have deconstructed it. In the workplace. &#8220;Along the way the primacy of God and his work in our lives gives way ever so slightly to the primary of <em>our<\/em> work in God&#8217;s kingdom, and we begin thinking of ways that we can use God in what we are doing&#8221; (124). This is idolatry, &#8220;germs&#8221; of idolatry that will corrupt the whole. So, we package solutions and before long it becomes one fix after another &#8212; as we become &#8220;consumers of packaged spirituality&#8221; (125).<br \/>\nTechnology promotes idolatry; deconstructs wonder. Impersonal things. Peterson thinks the primary place for spiritual formation is the workplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eugene Peterson, in his Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, pp. 119-129, sets out a second element of cultivating fear of the Lord in creation. The first was Sabbath, upon which I posted some time in December, and the second is wonder. Ever wonder about wonder?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Christ Plays: Wondering about Wonder - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/christ-plays-wondering-about-w.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christ Plays: Wondering about Wonder - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eugene Peterson, in his Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, pp. 119-129, sets out a second element of cultivating fear of the Lord in creation. 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