Bono has been reading Eugene Peterson..again.

I was a bit baffled but largely blessed when I first heard the line in "Crazy Tonight":

"It's not a hill, it's a mountain, as you start out the climb."

Especially because he sang it as if it were the GOOD, not bad news.

But I see Bono has been reading Eugene Peterson..again.

Atu2 was the first to trace the tracks (thanks to Beth for following up)

Since the news broke a few weeks ago that Songs of Ascent is the next U2 album — due out (probably) in 2010 – several bloggers have started to unpack the title and wonder what’s in store for us listeners.

In most English translations Psalms 120-134 are identified as songs of degree or ascent. In The Message, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, they are called pilgrim songs. We know Bono is a fan of The Message, so it’s likely he would have read Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, a psalm by psalm commentary on these 15 pilgrim songs. A main theme of Peterson’s study is that a life of discipleship is more like climbing a mountain than a hill.link

One reviewer of that book suggests we "make molehills out of mountains."
The book itself:

"Between feasts the people lived these realities in daily discipleship until the time came to go up to the mountain city again as pilgrims to renew the covenant..
Singing the fifteen psalms is a way both to express the amazing grace and to quiet the anxious fears. There are no better "songs for the road" for those who travel the way of faith in Christ..

How appropriately these songs may be sung 'between the times.' ..
The world whispers, 'the future is a holocaust, avoid it...There is no payoff for discipleship, there is no destination for pilgrimage. Get God the quick way; buy instant charisma.' But other voices speak..


The psalms of ascent are also evidence of what Isaiah promised when he said, 'You will sing! sing through an all-night holy feast; your hearts will burst with song.'
These psalms of ascent were no doubt used in such ways by the multitudes Isaiah described as saying, 'Come, let's climb God's mountain...
He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we're made (Is 2:3).
They are also evidence of what Isaiah promised when he said, You will sing! sing through an all-night holy feast; your hearts will burst with song,
make music like the sounds of flutes on parade, en route to the Rock of Israel' (Is 30:29)
-"A Long Obedience in the Same Direction," 19, 21