Quotes from Barbara Brown Taylor

Because we cannot stand the God-shaped hole inside of us, we try stuffing it full of all sorts of thing, but only God may fill.

Come tell us what is saving your life now.

However you define the problematic present-day stranger—the religious stranger, the cultural stranger, the transgendered stranger, the homeless stranger—scripture's wildly impractical solution is to love the stranger as the self.

if you always do what you have always done, then you will always get what you have always got. Extreme measures are sometimes called for, and these measures sometimes even produce results.

The problem was that I could not teach other people's religions without loving them as I loved my own, or at least giving it my best shot.

Prayer, according to Brother David, is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing. When I am fully alert to whatever or whoever is right in front of me; when I am electrically aware of the tremendous gift of being alive; when I am able to give myself wholly to the moment I am in, then I am in prayer. Prayer is happening, and it is not necessarily something that I am doing. God is happening, and I am lucky enough to know that I am in The Midst.

Think hard before you do this," one said to me when I told him I wanted to be ordained. "Right now, you have the broadest ministry imaginable. As a layperson, you can serve God no matter what you do for a living, and you can reach out to people who will never set foot inside a church. Once you are ordained, that is going to change. Every layer of responsibility you add is going to narrow your ministry, so think hard before you choose a smaller box.

Most of us prefer to remain on our cow paths, where we know the language and we do not need maps because we know the way by heart. Some of us even stay behind our own fences because we do not want to be mistaken for interlopers in other people's pastures

If you are not able to set priorities any other way, then getting lost may be the kick in the pants you have been waiting for.

I have lived through parts of life that no one in her right mind would ever willingly have chosen, finding enough overlooked treasure in them to outweigh my projected wages in the life I had planned. These are just a few of the reasons that I have decided to stop fighting the prospect of getting lost and engage it as a spiritual practice instead.

Gradually I remembered what I had known all along, which is that church is not a stopping place but a starting place for discerning God's presence in this world. By offering people a place where they may engage the steady practice of listening to divine words and celebrating divine sacraments, church can help people gain a feel for how God shows up—not only in Holy Bibles and Holy Communion but also in near neighbors, mysterious strangers, sliced bread, and grocery store wine.

Maybe someone should start an Opaque Church, where we could learn to give up one kind of vision in hope of another. Instead of wearing name tags, we would touch each other's faces. Instead of looking around to see who's there, we could learn to listen for each other's voices.