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When I forget the power of the word, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget the deep relief of telling the truth, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget to look for the holiness all around me, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget why the gospel matters, I read Frederick Buechner.

Barbara Brown Taylor

God does some of God’s best work with people who are seriously lost.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Lost People Seriously
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 TAYLOR

Ministry People Sorry
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 TAYLOR

Doe Idols Running
The value for me being in a mainline tradition is history and memory, which is not just Christian tradition but denominational tradition, and characters, you know, with real distinct flavors of ways to be Christian.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Christian Memories Real
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

Dark Light Needs
Salvation happens every time someone with a key uses it to open a door he could lock instead.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Doors Keys Locks
I love being alone. I learned that from my father, I think, who loved his own company.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Father Love Thinking
I found myself in a maze where I’d taken the wrong turn. In my wish to do well for that congregation I wasn’t doing particularly well for myself or my friends or my family, and I even found that the work for God was taking me away from God.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Maze Taken Wish
The boundaries became constrictive in what I was doing, and if my faith grew, it was because I pressed some of the boundaries in ways I hadn’t felt comfortable or responsible doing that before.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Boundaries Responsible Way
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 TAYLOR

Community Different People
Church can be extremely boring. It can be very meaningful, it can be character forming, but can be have very little fizz in it.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Character Church Meaningful
Having been brought up with a definition of faith as adherence to a set of beliefs, I have more and more begun to turn instead toward a definition of faith as openness to truth, whatever truth may turn out to be.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Adherence Definitions May
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 TAYLOR

Believe Needs Want
To be fully human is perhaps why I’m Christian, because I see in the life of Jesus a way of being fully human.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Christian Jesus Way
Most of us like thinking we are God’s only children…At least one of the purposes of church is to remind us that God has other children, easily as precious as we. Baptism and narcissism cancel each other out.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

Baptism Children Thinking
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

When I forget the power of the word, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget the deep relief of telling the truth, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget to look for the holiness all around me, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget why the gospel matters, I read Frederick Buechner.

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When I forget the power of the word, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget the deep relief of telling the truth, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget to look for the holiness all around me, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget why the gospel matters, I read Frederick Buechner.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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