Christ Plays in 10.000 Places

A Propaedeutic for faith-learning integration suggests that there is a sense by which all of life is a sacrament, providing a variety of contexts for expressing an inner reality that God is to be glorified in all things. Eugene Peterson provides a useful metaphor for working out all the details of what is involved in Christian living. Stated simply, Christ plays in 10.000 places. Peterson's metaphor is taken from a sonnet by the Christian poet and priest, Gerard Hopkins.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal things does one thing and the same;

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells,

Crying what I do is me: for that I came

I say more: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: the keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is-

Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places.

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Peterson explains that the conviction expressed in this sonnet is that Christ is behind and in all of life. He writes:

The message is that all this life, this kingfisher-drangonfly-aflame life, this trumbled stone and harp string and bell-sounding life, gets played out in us, in our limbs and eyes, in our feet and speech, in the faces of the men and women we see all day long, everyday, in the mirror and on the sidewalk, in classroom and kitchen, in workplaces and on playgrounds, in sanctuaries and commitees. . . . Which is to say that all life is, or can be worhip. Peterson is advocating a life of congruence. The Christian life is the lifelong practice of attending to the details of congruence-congruence between ends and means congruence between what we do and the way we do it. The Christian life lived, lived with this sense of congruence between who Christ is and who I am; lived at this busy, heavily trafficked North America intersection with the kingdom of God; Christ playing in my limbs and eyes.

Please try reading Peterson's book on the topic "Christ Plays in Thousand Places."