Current read

"Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity" by Eugene H. Peterson

It was one of John's textbooks in college for his Youth & Family Counseling degree. And I have committed myself to reading all the books we have in our house.
Believe it or not, it is a fascinating book. I have no desire to be a pastor, but the history and principles in it are applicable to the life and career of any believer.

Here are some of my highlighted excerpts:
"Yes, but how? Terrific ideas! Excellent thinking! Superb insights! Great goals! Yes, but how? How do I go about it? What are the actual means?...None of us can mature into excellence without a lifelong persistence of trained attentiveness to God."
"[Go] to our faith ancestors, the Hebrews. The Hebrews were not so much interested in understanding the human condition as they were in responding to the divine reality. Their supreme effort was to hear God's word, not to tell stories about gods. Their characteristic speech was prayer...Their purpose was not to understand what was going on in the human race but to be a part of what was going on with God...The Hebrews had a prayer for every occasion...Prayer means that we experience the world first not as a problem to be solved but as a reality in which God is acting."
"The Psalms were the prayer book of Israel; they were the prayer book of Jesus; they are the prayer book of the church."
"We need a strategy that takes into account the daily dilemma of living between two sets of demands that seem to cancel each other out, a strategy that accepts both sets without favoring one over the other. The first set of demands is that we respond with compassionate attentiveness to the demands of the people around us, demands that refuse to stay within the confines of regular hours and always exceed our capacity to meet them all...The second set of demands is that we respond with reverent prayer to the demand of God for our attention, to listen to him, to take him seriously in the actual circumstances of this calendar day...and not bluff our way through...This is a kind of attentiveness that can be entered into slowly and deliberately...God must be deeply pondered, lovingly believed...It means entering realms of spirit where wonder and adoration have space to develop, where play and delight have time to flourish."