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Most of us spend so much time thinking about where we have been or where we are supposed to be going that we have a hard time recognizing where we actually are.

Barbara Brown Taylor

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

Becoming Faithful might
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 TAYLOR

Self Tradition World
As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Behave Believe Politics
If God is about putting God ahead of myself then I’ve just quit being religious, because that’s what got me into such deep trouble.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Quitting Religious Trouble
For a long time I listened to other people to decide whether I was still Christian or not, and I would sort of vet myself by the traditional formulae.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Christian Long People
I don’t have time for a job that doesn’t leave me time to be quiet or still or to pray.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Jobs Praying Quiet
Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Christian Inspirational Religious
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 TAYLOR

Determined Life Long
Salvation happens every time someone with a key uses it to open a door he could lock instead.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Doors Keys Locks
The great thing about civility is that it does not require you to agree with or approve of anything. You don’t even have to love your neighbor to be civil. You just have to treat your neighbor the same way you would like your neighbor to treat your grandmother, or your child.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Children Grandmother Love You
I wanted to be as close as I could to the Really Real, and I’ll capitalize both of those R’s, because God is a word that means different things to different people, but we might all agree it’s what is most real.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Mean People Real
The beauty in the losing is a loss finally of self-consciousness. There’s a gorgeous moment that can happen in all kinds of places. It can happen with people, it can happen with nature, and it can happen with my eyes shut anywhere I am.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Eye Loss Self
With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Blessed Jesus Religious
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 TAYLOR

Jesus Self Two
The tradition piece is so embedded in me I don’t know that I can see it any more, but the community piece is one I’ve been in danger of losing.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Community Losing Pieces
I think a toxic message in a lot of Christianity has been that the self has to be annihilated in order for God to be found. I think that has been a toxic message.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Order Self Thinking

Most of us spend so much time thinking about where we have been or where we are supposed to be going that we have a hard time recognizing where we actually are.

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Most of us spend so much time thinking about where we have been or where we are supposed to be going that we have a hard time recognizing where we actually are.

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Popular Authors

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