Barbara Brown Taylor — “This Hunger for Holiness”
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Published 2023-04-06
It's fascinating to trace the arc of spiritual searching and religious belonging in my lifetime. The Episcopal priest and public theologian Barbara Brown Taylor was one of the people I started learning about when I left diplomacy to study theology in the early 1990s. At that time, she was leading a small church in Georgia. And she preached the most extraordinary sermons, and turned them into books read far and wide. Then in 2006, she wrote Leaving Church — about her decision to leave her life of congregational ministry, finding other ways to stay, as she's written, "alive and alert to the holy communion of the human condition, which takes place on more altars than anyone can count.”
She's written other books since, with titles like An Altar in the World, Learning to Walk in the Dark, and Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others. Being in the presence of Barbara Brown Taylor's wonderfully wise and meandering mind and spirit, after all these years of knowing her voice in the world, is a true joy. I might even use a religious word — it feels like a "blessing." And this is not a conversation about the decline of church or about more and more people being "spiritual but not religious." We both agree that this often-repeated phrase is not an adequate way of seeing the human hunger for holiness. This is as alive as it has ever been in our time — even if it is shape-shifting in ways my Southern Baptist and Barbara's Catholic and Methodist forebears could never have imagined.
ABOUT
Barbara Brown Taylor is the author of many books, including "An Altar in the World", "Leaving Church", "Holy Envy", and "Learning to Walk in the Dark". Her 2020 book is "Always a Guest", a compilation of recent sermons. She is the former rector of Grace-Calvary Episcopal Church of Clarkesville, Georgia, and she taught for two decades in the religion department at Piedmont College.
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All Comments (16)
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The wilderness we were taught to fear that calls to us is but home.
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Thank you for this wonderful interview! BBT's books have been immensely comforting and encouraging to many of us at the edges of our spiritual maps.. 🩷🙏🕊️
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"A meandering journey ..." that is so apt for many of us and the world we grew up in. The search for friends, for belonging, not finding it in church or elsewhere. Seeking for experience truthfulness and authenticity .To walk with a consciousness of walking on of holy ground ... in the evolution of my/ our spiritual/ earthy journey.
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There is so much in this talk! The isolating effect of the pandemic enhanced the deconstruction movement of many, yet we now have a greater and pressing need. Not so much in the forms, that are breaking apart, but in the wild and untouched nature of joining presence. The knock is louder and closer. The pain and suffering more intense. Calling God to take us off the edge!
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Thank you 🙏🏼🌺
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Morning Barbara Brown Taylor🌞🚭🌐🛡️♀️🧬🙏🍵🫖🤓🍿Holiness😊
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I so connected with Barbara's experience and her current map of the theological edges. I wonder if she is an enenatype 5w6 or 6w5?
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I once wrote a paper for phemonolgy called Red Bird Flying Before Naming. Loved hanging clothes outside on the line when I could.
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I have so totally lost any sense of purpose in my life never accomplished anything and I hate myself and I still love God still love no I don't know what I love the world I think... Can I come to Clarksville and see the art when would that be possible?
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I have lived at the edge at Uber the edge my whole life and I am who right now for the first time afraid.
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I learned this from Eckhart Tolle: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus said, “for theirs will be the kingdom of heaven.”1 What does “poor in spirit” mean? No inner baggage, no identifications. Not with things, nor with any mental concepts that have a sense of self in them. And what is the “kingdom of heaven”? The simple but profound joy of Being that is there when you let go of identifications and so become “poor in spirit.” This is why renouncing all possessions has been an ancient spiritual practice in both East and West.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
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Restorative.
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A fool in Paradise is an expression I recently heard by Robert Edward Grant. He said it in the context of I would rather be a fool in Paradise rather than blah blah blah. I'd have to find it again to find the blah blah blah. For me being a fool in Paradise summarizes what spirituality is Pig
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Spiritual, non-denominational!
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Maybe poor in spirit includes depression. .
