All by Amy Peterson

Testimonies

Testimonies

Amy Peterson
Bookish, Truth

Christians love to ask each other how they “got saved.” It’s never been an easy question for me to answer. If you ask, I’ll probably say that I am saved, but also that I am being saved all the time, that it’s a thing I’m working out with more than a little fear and trembling. I’ll say that my “testimony” involves a lot of stories, not just one. My personal history of faith is all bound up in my personal history as a writer and a reader. If you have time to listen, I’ll tell you some of the tales.

Song Dedications

Song Dedications

Amy Peterson
Music, Truth

Who am I to say how or when God communicates, or what a DJ has to do with the divine? But maybe this is the way of God, to hover over the surface of the waters, to speak something new into being. To speak something new when all is dark and cold, something that will penetrate the opaque substance of hull or hill or heart.

Milk and Honey

Amy Peterson
Feast, Hospitality, Truth

To be human is to be hungry, to crave milk and honey, to be brought to a banqueting table bannered with love. I’m pulling my chair up to that table, that midnight feast, that last supper, that hospital dumpling delivery, that promise of milk and honey and the ability to enjoy it.

What We Cannot Hold

Amy Peterson
Truth

I did not choose to become a mother because I had dealt with all of my fears. We say yes to new life not because it’s logical, not because we believe we are prepared to handle the brilliance of the pain and the complexity of the relationship. We say yes because of love, which as Pascal said, “has reasons of which reason knows nothing.” Our yes means accepting mortality, feeling life and its frailty in our very bellies. 

Remembering Rich Mullins

Amy Peterson
Music, Truth

I used to desire, more than anything, to be useful to God. To be a good Christian. To change the world for Christ. To burn with the prophetic fire that lit Rich Mullins. But when my good works turned to ashes in my hands, I learned for the first time how precious it was to be wanted by God, apart from any usefulness I might have. Rich fought hard to grasp this lesson, and maybe if I’d been listening better I could have learned it from him while he was alive, but I doubt it: I had to fight for it on my own.

Life in a Sod House

Amy Peterson
Bookish, Place, Truth

When I wash the dishes or grade the multiple choice quizzes, then, I try to cultivate my understanding of how those tasks fit into(yes!) the redemptive arc of history.  Maybe I'm joining in God’s creative nature by creating babies and veggie stir-fry and quilts, by telling stories and painting with watercolors and making up silly songs and dances. Maybe I am making all things new by doing loads of laundry and getting dirty dishes to sparkle again. In each of these tasks, I am — hopefully — participating in God's plan to bring restoration to a broken world.

Vinyl and Liturgy

Amy Peterson
Music, Truth
Listening to a record is a physical process. I don't type a name in a search box; I kneel and flip through record sleeves. I stand, and lift the lid, and place the needle just right. The music requires attention, and after a few songs, I move to turn the record over. The records, and the player, take up physical space in my life — a rooted kind of space. They require a physical response, and like the prayers at church, they are repeated. Place and posture, roots and response, attention and repetition: these not only signal that what I'm doing means something, but that it is creating meaning as well.

Barefoot Places

Amy Peterson
Bookish, Hospitality
Paris never slept, as I found to my pleasure when I returned at 21 and took up residence in a crummy hostel. Upland, in contrast, rarely seems to wake. But you can see the stars here like you never can in Paris, and the lonesome quiet of the prairie has started to feel like a companion. Maybe even a friend.