I thought being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was…it wasn’t until I failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR
Barbara Brown Taylor on becoming
Barbara Brown Taylor78 quotes“I thought being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was…it wasn’t until I failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.”
More from Barbara Brown Taylor
The abundance of our lives is not determined by how long we live, but how well we live. Christ makes abundant life possible if we choose to live it now.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor 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.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor I live by the simplest, perhaps facile command that Jesus ever gave, which is to love God with the whole self and the neighbor as the self, and I find that’s entirely consuming. To do those two things leaves me very little time to do much else.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor When I say I trust Jesus, that is what I mean: I trust that the way of life leads through perishability, not around it.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor We’re children of God through our blood kinship with Christ. We’re also sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, with a hereditary craving for forbidden fruit salad.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor You can create an intimate community of about 20 or 25 people, and beyond that you’re into a different kind of relationship.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor The problem is, many of the people in need of saving are in churches, and at least part of what they need saving from is the idea that God sees the world the same way they do.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor God does some of God’s best work with people who are seriously lost.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor Humanity can be pretty stinky.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor It does seem to me that at least some of us have made an idol of exhaustion. The only time we know we have done enough is when we are running on empty and when the ones we love most are the ones we see the least.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor Day by day we are given not what we want but what we need. Sometimes it is a feast and sometimes…swept crumbs, but by faith we believe it is enough.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor I didn’t want to be a priest. I wanted to do the work that priests do, and that required becoming a priest.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor I read more widely. I made friends more widely. I wore more red. I stayed home on Sundays. I did things that were never in the realm of possible things to do before. That was a real desert experience for me.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor I began to get notes from people saying they were sorry to hear I’d left ministry. And for a while, I halfway believed they were right, that I’d left.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor I’m leaving out some of the hugely successful megachurches, of which I have very little experience.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor The great wisdom traditions of the world all recognize that the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed.
Barbara Brown TaylorBarbara Brown Taylor
Original quotes
From our community writers
Don’t compare her to sunshine and roses when she’s clearly orchids and moonlight.
Melody LeeMelody Lee Oh moonlight, continue to shine on me. As you light up the sky, maybe some peace will come to me.
ShamaShama Stop counting the reasons why they should be loved and start counting the many reasons why you are the one who is worth loving.
Ayaka HaseAyaka Hase Sure, there are oceans and seas and magnificent things – but none of them are you.
L.T. PhoenixL.T. Phoenix I wish you the wildest of dreams.
Kate WestKate West The way you look at me, The way you make me feel whole, The way you make me feel safe, thats poetry to me.
Barbara GianquittoBarbara Gianquitto You cannot leave and have me too I cannot exist in two places at once-when you ask if we can still be friends.
Rupi KaurRupi Kaur Live to be happy not to impress.
Hayley EvansHayley Evans
Meet the writers
More on becoming
I’m kind of glad that I was able to properly grow up before becoming a massive movie star.
Adam RaynerAdam Rayner Only a Californian would have observed that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the real fake from the fake fake.
Ada Louise HuxtableAda Louise Huxtable Obviously there was Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe, but Howard was on the brink of becoming a famous director – it didn’t happen because he died.
Aaron BrooknerAaron Brookner Creative things have to sell to get acknowledged as such.
Steve WozniakSteve Wozniak If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.
Robert GravesRobert Graves Culture, then, is a study of perfection, and perfection which insists on becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances.
Matthew ArnoldMatthew Arnold If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.
Robert GravesRobert Graves It is not becoming to grieve immoderately for the dead.
TacitusTacitus