Larry Eugene.

Larry Eugene? Hang with me if you will.

Last night, Lea and I were at the kitchen table about to pay our bills together for the month. I told Lea that I wanted to play a video clip for her. I stumbled across a clip of the filming of the final scene of the the Lord of the Rings movies where Elijah Wood plays Frodo. After years of filming the trilogy of the Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson was directing the final scene that Wood would film as Frodo. The five minute clip shows how Jackson kept asking Wood to do another take over and over again. Other fellow actors who had gathered on the set for this final shoot shared how Jackson clearly had the take he wanted and needed about the third take, but everyone gathered knew that he kept asking Wood to do another take because he just didn't want it to end. After one particular take, Jackson moved back from his viewing screen and said, "Ok, we've got it, check the gate" which signified that the take was done and at that particular take, Wood was done as Frodo. There was a silence on the set. Jackson took off his headphones and moved towards Wood and the two embraced and began to weep. It was over. They were saying goodbye to a process years in the making.

As Lea and I watched the clip at story table together last night, we both wept. As we watched a documentary clip of the final days of the making of the LOTR trilogy, I know we were both thinking the same things. Our family anticipated each of the LOTR movies. We went as a family to midnight showings of each of the three movies. It is a part of our family history that we have savored and cherished. Even to watch a five minute clip of those saying goodbye to each other who actually made the movie enhances the goodbyes that we have encountered as a family, and the one that is coming soon.

I don't really know Larry Crabb. Lea and I first read Larry's book Inside Out in the first year of our marriage. We've attended two intensive weeks of spiritual direction training under his care. God has used this man to influence the way that I live my daily life. Wow. That's a dramatic statement. He is the first man that I ever heard use the words "holy relating". Most of his writing has centered around the gutsy, needy cries of the heart to long to live authentically with the Trinity in the midst of a dry and weary land. His writing has so impacted my life. I certainly live "not authentically" a lot, but it is not without bearing accountable witness to being taught about holy relating by Trinity through Larry Crabb. Currently today, Larry is in an extended stay in a Charlotte hospital battling Leukemia. He is still engaged in treatments and seeking to live and love and write and teach, but I am mindful of all that is pressing him in these days of disease. I simply don't want to miss a chance to declare how thankful I am for the life of Lawrence J. Crabb.

I don't really know Eugene Peterson. I can't fathom the countless times that I have taken his paraphrase of the Bible called the Message into my hands and been nourished by the fresh, gritty language that he pressed into to offer to his church congregation. He began writing weekly chunks of the book of Galatians into this paraphrase for a weekly sunday school class and eventually gave himself to two decades of writing to complete the entire bible. I've never met Mr. Peterson in person and yet I feel as though I have received from the profound movement of God in his life to impact me. I have also been impacted by a hearty stack of books that have pressed and formed my heart and mind over decades. Eugene Peterson died earlier this week. He died on a Monday, which was the day that he and his wife usually practiced the Sabbath together for many years. I believe he now knows Sabbath in a way that is hard to fathom here. I simply don't want to miss a chance to declare how thankful I am for the life of Eugene H. Peterson.

Larry.....

Eugene.....

Frodo....

I thank God for you.

There's more.