Barbara Brown Taylor Shares Her Gifts: A Fabulous Writer Can Make You Think

First, read this:

The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor… Jesus never commanded me to love my religion. – Barbara Brown Taylor, from Holy Envy

Okay, I said the J word. Some are religious people, and some are not.

BUT great thinkers can parse an idea from it’s context to see if there is still merit in it. Take a look at that idea and see what you all think. What does it ask of you? What does it tell you to do?

How does it push you to think more critically in each separate situation?

Okay, now I’m going to tell you something here – I LOVE Barbara Brown Taylor’s ideas. She commands a richness and finesse with language that could make even atheists want to be stronger people.

Read some of these powerful and thought provoking quotes and see which ones resonate with you. Why do they? Who are these ideas pushing you to be?

Three more favorites:

“The only real difference between Anxiety and Excitement was my willingness to let go of Fear.” ― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Those most likely to befriend strangers, in other words, are those who have been strangers themselves. The best way to grow empathy for those who are lost is to know what it means to be lost yourself.” ― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy. And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone. In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life.” ― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith : This one reminds me that one does not have to be religious or trying to be holy to be a good person. I LOVE that.

GoodReads Barbara Brown Taylor Quotes LINK.

A related Hero who found her way by trying something scary and strange – Nadia Bolz-Weber Story LINK.

Happy Hunting!