Quotes from Barbara Brown Taylor
Christians are not particularly gifted at knowing how we sound to others, especially in parts of the world where our voices are the loudest and most numerous.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish—separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the distinctions we make between the two.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
Even when light fades and darkness falls--as it does every single day, in every single life--God does not turn the world over to some other deity...Here is the testimony of faith; darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
I noted that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
I wanted to recover the kind of faith that has nothing to do with being sure what I believe and everything to do with trusting God to catch me though I am not sure of anything.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
You only need to lose track of who you are, or who you thought you were supposed to be, so that you end up lying flat on the dirt floor basement of your heart. Do this, Jesus says, and you will live.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
1. When trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of the religion and not its enemies. 2. Don't compare your best to their worst. 3. Leave room for holy envy. (Krister Stendahl's rules of religious understanding)
- Barbara Brown Taylor
Instead, I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
Sometimes I wondered if it even mattered whether our communion cups were filled with consecrated wine or draft beer, as long as we bent over them long enough to recognize each other as kin.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
here is the testimony of faith: darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God's sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.
- Barbara Brown Taylor
Now Ed and I operate by our first amendment to the Golden Rule, which is not "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them (instead of thinking they are just like you).
- Barbara Brown Taylor