Holy Luck

Throughout his many years of pastoral ministry, almost everything Eugene Peterson has done — preaching, teaching, praying, counseling, writing — has involved words. To keep himself attuned to the power of words and to help himself use language with precision and imagination, Peterson both reads and writes poetry.

Holy Luck presents, in one luminous volume, seventy poems by Peterson, most of them not previously published. Speaking to various aspects of “Kingdom of God” living, these poems are...