An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

Barbara Brown Taylor is such a national treasure that she has even been noticed by the MSM--the main stream media--and been put on the cover of Time magazine. She was featured in this hallmark way because of her latest book, *Learning to Walk in the Dark.* I haven't yet read that book, or her first one, *Leaving Church.* But I have listened online to a few of her sermons and some interviews she has done, and I'm guessing that *An Altar in the World* will one day be seen as a volume in an on-going spiritual biography. I certainly plan to read her newest book soon. When I bought this book, five years or so after it had been published, I had no idea that she was coming out with a new book. I am very glad, however, that I have read this one now.I think the introduction itself is a classic, which I wish I could have read and appreciated many years ago. It begins with a discussion about the all too commonplace platitude about being "spiritual but not religious." What I like is that she explores the messiness of the word "spiritual," and how she does it. She writes about spirituality for many as a longing for "more meaning, more feeling, more connection, more life." The way to find that more, she believes, is not in pilgrimages to India, mission trips to Belize, or hours of fervent prayer. That more, she affirms, is available to every one of us, and is indeed actually within us. Indeed, she writes, "The last place most people look is right under their feet, in the everyday activities, accidents, and encounters of their lives." So how do we uncover and develop this untapped resource? Through "practices." Each one of the succeeding twelve chapters is about practices.Chapter one is about "The Practice of Waking Up to God." Taylor begins this most engaging book with a reflection on the fact, which many Christians don't seem to either know or care about, that the entire world is, to use the Jewish word that has come into common English usage, in the United States at least, "Bethel": the house of God. She asks a very disarming question here which should make all of us pause. "Do we build God a house in lieu of having God stay at ours?" That is truly a question to think long and had about. But at the same time, she points to another big problem for many Christians in our day: we attend churches that have divided our bodies from our souls and the church from the world. These divisions, whether we realize it or not, renders creation bad, which drives us inward, away from the world. Finally, the introduction points to a truth that needs to be driven home relentlessly: Wisdom is not about knowing what is right, but rather practicing what is right.Following chapters deal with the practices of: paying attention, reverence; wearing skin, incarnation; walking on the earth, groundedness; getting lost, wilderness; encountering others, community; living with purpose, vocation; saying no, sabbath; carrying water, physical labor; feeling pain, breakthrough; being present to God, praying; and pronouncing blessings, benediction.As I often do, I kept track of the writers Taylor cited. In addition to many of the usual suspects, she included references to Georgia O'Keefe, hymn writer Brian Wren, Rumi, Jonathan Swift, Alexis de Tocqueville, Louis L'Amour and her fellow writer-farmer Wendell Berry. Non-Christian writers cited included Rumi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Chief Rabbi of Britain Jonathan Sacks, Abraham Heschel--a usual suspect, but I encourage people to read him every chance I get--and the Bhagavad Gita, among others. But she also cited the film "My Life as a Dog," and the fictional character and novel namesake Zorba the Greek. Wisdom is found in all sorts of places.There are so many things I could highlight here, but I will confine myself to one. Rabbi Sacks teaches her something important about community. The Hebrew Bible, he explains, commands in one verse that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. But, he points out, there are no fewer than thirty-six places that command us to love the stranger, that is, the people who are not part of "us," however we define that. There is a practice we ALL need to work on. The last chapter, on the practice of pronouncing blessings, also deserves a special mention because it is something that most people never even thing of doing, much less do. Barbara Brown Taylor teaches us that we all can pronounce blessings, and encourages us to do it. (I have tried this with a couple of my friends who are frequently in need of encouragement, and have found it can be a very moving experience for both sides of the blessing!) In particular, among lots of wonderful tales about blessings in the lives of some of the saints and sages she writes about, Taylor makes three powerful points about blessings. First, a blessing does not confer holiness, it only acknowledges the holiness that is already there in all of us. Second, we have to get over drawing lines between what is good for us and what is bad. She tells us to pronounce a blessing not only when we win the lottery, but when we break a bone too. We don't the wisdom to know what will turn out to our good or bad. Third, we should not count on ordained ministers to pronounce blessings, we should all engage in that practice. She ends with a particularly touching story about the power of benediction that I will not spoil, but only say that it is one of the most powerful stories in the book, and it is all hers.As it happens, and without any plan on my part, I have read Barbara Brown Taylor during a period in which I read, among other books, articles, and essays, books by Rachel Marie Stone, Sarah Bessy, Rachel Held Evans, Esther De Waal, and Christine Pohl. All of these women write about different things. But each of these amazing women, in her own way, whether directly or not, provides a powerful testimony to the importance of being present and mindful always, where we are, and with whom we are at that precise place and time. It is there and then that we can and should, if we are faithful to our baptism, carry out both of the great commandments.*An Altar in the World* happens to be a book that addresses these things quite directly. Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us in this book that we belong to a priesthood of all believers, and that we are always at the altar, no matter where we are or what else we are doing.This books helps us to be better children of God, better neighbors--to those we know and love and to strangers too--and to be better priests too. I love having Barbara Brown Taylor for a teacher, a preacher, and a companion along the Way.

How do we encounter God? By waking up, paying attention, walking, getting lost, encountering others, working, feeling pain, and praying. “In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life.” Taylor’s reflections guide her readers to discover the divine in the simple, ordinary course of our lives.

Barbara Brown Taylor's amazing book “An Alter in the World” is insightful and wise. She says she forgot the whole world is the House of God before she woke up to God. She wondered who persuaded her that God preferred four walls to wide-open spaces, that God's home is a church and that the world was a barren place full of lost souls needing help. She now believes the people in churches need saving from the idea that God sees the world the same way they do.Like Francis of Assisi Taylor says we can read the world as reverently as we read the Bible. She sees reverence as the awaking of awe. It's the reminder of our true size. The easiest way to practice reverence is to sit outside and pay close attention to everything that lives nearby. With luck we'll feel a tenderness and wonder for the struggles of ants and acorns. We may even feel the beat of our heart.Taylor shows how our spiritual lives depend on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with exquisite attention. What we lack for this treasure is a willingness to imagine we already have everything we need.She says all the world's great faiths are meant to teach us what it means to be more fully human. We live in the world that is waiting for us to notice the holiness in it. Faith is not just a way of thinking. Bodily practices should remind us that faith is a way of life. Our spiritual practices should bring us back to our body. To have gratitude for life as God's trusted flesh and blood. To bring divine love to earth. She asks us not to dismiss the body's wisdom because it does not use words.Taylor says when people ask about her prayer life she sometimes describes hanging laundry on the line. As the breeze tosses the clothes in the wind she imagines her prayers spinning away over the tops of the trees. This work is good prayer.Taylor says walking is the most available spiritual practice. We have difficulty recognizing where we really are as we spend most of our time thinking about the past. There are spiritual teachers who teach attentiveness including walking meditation. The four gospels give many accounts of Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee and even walking on water. Going barefoot is also a spiritual practice. Moses was told to remove his sandals as the place he was standing on was holy ground. Taylor says the spiritual practice of going barefoot can take you around the world and wake you up to your place in the world.The Practice of Getting Lost was one of my favorite chapters. We, like Taylor's cows, follow the same tracks in a field. It's normal and there are good reasons. However, it also allows us to stay unconscious. Getting lost is a good remedy for the deadening habit of taking the safest, shortest path. It leads us to new people, places and things. It makes us more aware of our steps, forces us use to all of our senses and to make new choices. When we are alert, our senses come alive, we become more aware and see more. Choosing to get lost is a low-risk way to develop new skills for managing panic. Taylor recommends looking at being lost as a spiritual practice, a way to build the muscles for radical trust. God does some of His best work with people who are truly, seriously lost. Even Jesus chose to become lost when he spent 40 days being tested in the desert. She says the best way to grow empathy for those who are lost is to know what it means to be lost yourself.Her chapter on community was particularly helpful. I too am an introvert and feel grateful when people draw me out of myself. Taylor says the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed.She also speaks of the Christian mystical tradition of divine union. It can happen alone, with other people or with the natural world. The light of wholeness makes no distinction between God, other people or trees. Everything exists and lives in wholeness and light. She says the hardest spiritual work is to love your neighbor as yourself. Unfortunately, in our world nothing strengthens community like a common enemy. Yet, what we have in common is our humanity.Concerning work Taylor says it's not what we do but how we do it that matters. Our work not only includes loving God and neighbor as myself but the vocation of becoming fully human. To turn gratitude for being alive into some common concrete good. Taylor sees housework as a domestic art. It's a powerful way to return to our senses.Keeping the Sabbath can be part of the practice of saying No. A way to resist the our culture's killing rhythms of drivenness, depletion, compulsion and collapse.Taylor says there is grace in physical labor when it is done as a spiritual practice. She points out how spikes in our pain bear some relationship to leaps of growth. To make peace with pain can require as much energy as fighting it. She says for those willing to stay awake, pain remains a reliable altar in the world.There is profound, life-changing wisdom on every page of Barbara Brown Taylor's book “An Alter in the World.”

I was very happy with the quality of this item and the speed with which it was processed and delivered. I will definitely order from the Sisters again!

Barbara Taylor Brown’s book has illuminated a thrilling pathway that leads the reader to a clear, understanding of practices that are capable of lighting up one’s soul.Twelve “Practices” are addressed as the author masterfully builds upon the wisdom of Job, Merton, Buddha, Rumi, Thoreau, Hahn, & many others, to create a strong foundation of thought, ways and beneficial actions.Insightful, Well Written, Very Entertaining!

This book promises to be a winner!

Good book to read. We're using it for a Bible study group. No questions at the end of the chapters. Easy read.

I've read all of BBT's books and I have enjoyed all of them. But this is the most remarkable. I have given copies of it to friends who have gotten to the place in their faith journey where what they learned early in their journey doesn't hold up in the face of life's experiences. It got me off the ledge in my own ministry and allowed me to see more clearly.

I have a close circle of friends that has been slowly growing over the years. They are the authors who have been given a unique gift of challenging my mind but also penetrating my heart. George McDonald, Dallas Willard, Henry Nouwen, Gerald May, Richard Rohr . . . This list is growing because today I add one more friend to this circle: Barbara Brown Taylor.I just finished her trilogy that began with Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith and concluded with Learning to Walk in the Dark. An Altar in the World is the middle book and is on contemplative spiritual practices.What I like most about Barbara is her humanity, her humility, and her honesty. Take for example her confession at the beginning of her chapter on prayer: "I know that a chapter on prayer belongs in this book, but I dread writing it. I have shelves full of prayer books and books on prayer. I have file drawers full of notes from courses I have taught and taken on prayer. I have meditation benches I have used twice, prayer mantras I have intoned for as long as a week, notebooks with column after column of the names of people in need of prayer (is writing them down enough?) . . . . I am a failure at prayer".Another thing I have strongly valued in Barbara's writings is her knack for bridging the artificial gap between spiritual and natural. Her titles for the various chapters on spiritual practices successfully incorporates this non-dualistic truth.This allows her to include some spiritual practices that many would never consider to be spiritual practices. Take for example her chapter on "The Practice of Getting Lost". Do you remember the bumper sticker back in the 70s: "I found it"? When the band U2 came out with the hit song: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking for" I honestly jumped to the conclusion that they must be "lost" - so ingrained in me was the spirituality of success, of certainty, of conviction, of knowing where I am going and how I am going to get there.Barbara recognizes that "Popular religion focuses so hard on spiritual success that most of us do not know the first thing about the spiritual fruits of failure. When we fall ill, lose our jobs, wreck our marriages, or alienate our children, most of us are left alone to pick up the pieces. Even those of us who are ministered to by brave friends can find it hard to shake the shame of getting lost in our lives. And yet if someone asked us to pinpoint the times in our lives that changed us for the better, a lot of those times would be wilderness times".The fact that we have preserved our spirituality of success through the ages is rather surprising when you consider how central to the story of God and his people (including Jesus) is being lost in the desert.Barbara writes one of the better chapters on the practice of the Sabbath that I have read in some time. I love that she calls it "The Practice of Saying No". Another wonderful example of her unique gift of dissolving the distinction between the holy and the profane.I love to walk. Important things happen when I walk and these extend beyond the physical benefits, as important as these are. So I confess I felt a little vindicated when Barbara decided to include the chapter on this spiritual practice: "The Practice of Walking on the Earth". Benefits of walking are available to people like me who walk to and from work and walk my dog in the woods as well as those who walk 800 km spiritual pilgrimages in Europe.Included in her list are spiritual practices of waking up, paying attention, wearing skin, encountering others, living with purpose, carrying water, feeling pain, being present to God, and pronouncing blessings.So I thank you Barbara for this gem. We may never meet on this side but I am happy to call you my friend.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Taylor's writing is like having a wonderful companion letting you tag along while they guide you down trails that perhaps you have traveled before, but with a refreshing new spin on what's around you. It was also nice to read a "spiritual" book with some humour in it for a change.Taylor is down-to-earth and steeped in faith at the same time, and makes the two seem easily compatible. Hers is a faith in the real world, and I appreciated that very much. She manages to find the sacred in ther everyday. The book is well-written, and it is easy to want to read chapter and chapter in one sitting, but I would encourage the reader to pace yourself, give yourself a chance to absorb each chapter before moving on. I read this as part of a church book group, yet this is a good book for the non-church-going trying to find a new grounding in everyday life. I liked this book so much I am looking forward to reading some of her other works.

The ancient practice of alter creating is such a deep need for our world today, particularly as we explore the new foundations of religious, spiritual, & community meaning amidst isolation & pandemic health realities. Deeply thankful for Taylor’s book as she revealed the presence of both meaningful & living alters in life today.

I loved this book, the author Barbara Brown Taylor is so down to earth & describes her feelings with such honesty. I used it with a discussion group & most seemed to get a great deal of food for thought & ideas to discuss. We do need to make our faith real in our own reality not just keeping it in our Church world & in our minds. Worshipping God needs to have a practical side & this book helps one to see that.

We have long known Barbara Brown Taylor to be a superb writer, able to engage readers and feed them good solid food. Altar in the World is no exception. This is a book that speaks with equal power and insight to the devoted believer and to the confused seeker. There is profound wisdom in each chapter, presented in unpretentious language and extremely accessible images and stories.Altar in the World is a good "one sitting" read, as well as a bedside reflection book. Would that more religious writers could shift into non-religious mode to draw people into spiritual reflection as well as this author.