Peterson's first chapter is on what he views as the primary angle of pastoral vocation - prayer. He begins the chapter by describing the meaning of ordination as he sees it and his words are so very poignant that I must retype them for myself. Peterson writes these words as the words of the church to the pastor who is ordained and charged to lead it.

"Yet century after century Christians continue to take certain persons in their communities, set them apart, and say 'We want you to be responsible for saying and acting among us what we believe about God and kingdom and gospel. We believe that the Holy Spirit is among and within us. We believe that God's Spirit continues to hover over the chaos of the world's evil and our sin, shaping a new creation and new creatures. We believe that God is not a spectator in turn amused and alarmed at the wreckage of world history but a participant in it . . . We believe all this, but we don't see it. We see, like Ezekiel, dismembered skeltons whitened under a pitiless Babylonian sun. We see a lot of bones that were once laughing and dancing children, of adults who once made love and plans, of believers who once brought their doubts and sang their praises in church - and sinned . . .

'But we believe something else. We believe in the coming together of the bones into connected, sinewed, muscled human beings who speak and sing and laugh and work and believe and bless their God. We believe that it happened the way Ezekiel preached it and we believe that it still happens. We believe it happened in Israel and that it happens in the church. We believe that the most significant thing that happens or can happen is that we are no longer dismembered but are remembered into the resurrection body of Christ.

'We need help in keeping our beliefs sharp and accurate and intact. We don't trust ourselves - our emotions seduce us into infidelities. We know that we are launched on a difficult and dangerous act of faith, and that there are strong influences intent on diluting or destroying it. We want you to help us: be our pastor, a minister of word and sacrament, in the middle of this world's life. Minister with word and sacrament to us in all the different parts and stages of our lives . . . this isn't the only task in the life of faith, but it is your task. We will find someone else to do the other important and essential tasks. This is yours: word and sacrament.

'One more thing: we are going to ordain you to this ministry and we want your vow that you will stick to it. This is not a temporary job assignement but a way of life that we need lived out in our community. We know that you are launched on the same difficult belief venture in the same dangerous world as we are. We know that your emotions are as fickle as ours, and that your mind can play the same tricks on you as ours. This is why we are going to ordain you and whay we are going to exact a vow from you. We know that there are going to be days and months, maybe even years, when we won't feel like we are believing anything and won't want to hear it from you. And we know that there will be days and weeks and maybe even years when you won't feel like saying it. It doesn't matter. Do it. You are ordained to this ministry, vowed to it. There may be times when we come to you as a committee or delegation and demand that you tell us something else than what we are telling you now. Promise right now that you won't give in to what we demand of you. You are not the minister of our changing desires, or our time-conditioned understanding of our needs, or our secularized hopes for something better. With these vows of ordination we are lashing you fast to the mast of word and sacrament so that you will be unable to respond to the siren voices. There are a lot of other things to be done in this wrecked world and we are going to be doing at least some of them, but if we don't know the basic terms with which we are working, the foundational realities with which we are dealing - God, kingdom, gospel - we are going to end up living futile, fantasy lives. Your task is to keep telling the basic story, representing the presence of the Spirit, insisting on the priority of God, speaking the biblical words of command and promise and invitation.'"

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I've started re-reading Eugene Peterson's book "Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity" as my morning devotion. I'm struck by how appropriate Peterson's description of the current reality of pastoral work is to my own experience. He speaks of how easy it is to do the outward and visible work of a pastor without attending to the inward disciplines that form the basis of our calling. Peterson is almost angry as he begins his introduction:

"American pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting other jobs. Congregations still pay their salaries. Their names remain on the church stationery and they continue to appear in pulpits on Sundays. But they are abandoning their posts, their calling" (page 1).

The "angles" in the title of this book are for Peterson the necessary acts of ministry that connect the triangular lines of pastoral work. He envisions the lines of the triangle as preaching, teaching and administration - important work that unfortunately can be accomplished disconnected from the angles - prayer, Scripture and spiritual direction. He writes "working the angles is what gives shape and integrity to the daily work of pastors and priests. But if we are careless with or dismiss the angles, no matter how long or straight we draw the lines we will not have a triangle, a pastoral ministry" (page 5).

"Three pastoral acts are so basic, so critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are praying, reading Scripture and giving spiritual direction. Besides being basic, these three acts are quiet. They do not call attention to themselves and so are often not attended to. In the clamorous world of pastoral work nobody yells at us to engage these acts. It is possible to do pastoral work to the satisfaction of the people who judge our competence and pay our salaries without being either diligent or skilled in them. Since almost never does anyone notice whether we do these things or not, and only occasionally does someone ask that we do them, these three acts of ministry suffer widespread neglect" (page 3).

Peterson distinguishes between a job and a calling, and he says that when we are given our first appointment as a pastor, we are suddenly asked to do a job, complete an assignment. Deal with the needs of the people in our church. And often, the job that we are asked to do conflicts with our fundamental calling:

"Am I keeping the line clear between what I am committed to and what people are asking of me? Is my primary orientation God's grace, his mercy, his action in creation and covenant?" (page 12).

"How do I keep the line sharp? How do I maintain a sense of pastoral vocation in the middle of a community of people who are hiring me to do religious jobs?" (page 13).

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