Leaving Church - Barbara Brown Taylor [88]
Chapter 7
Taylor writes that people find God in books, buildings, and other people, but that she has always met God most reliably in creation. Which of these holds the strongest connection to God for you? What is it about you or about that particular medium that makes it so powerful?
According to the Irish, “thin places” are “places on earth where the Presence is so strong that they serve as portals between this world and another.” How does such a phenomenon fit with your view of creation? Have you ever encountered a “thin place”?
Taylor writes of feeling maternal about the land on her new property, growing angry about the litter she saw there. “No one had to explain to me why Mother Nature was a she,” she writes. Do you think that women have a stronger connection to nature? Do Christians have a stronger connection to nature? Should they? Why?
Place is clearly very important to Taylor. Does setting matter to you in the same way? Think about how setting affects your worship. Do you find it easiest to worship God in an old church with historic pews, a contemporary church with bright colors, an outdoor service, or a public place surrounded by other people?
Chapter 8
To Taylor, worship is the time when everyone stops multi-tasking and joins together as one, with “nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but sit there together, saying sonorous words in unison, listening to language we did not hear anywhere else in our lives.” She writes of how the word of God becomes fluid and real when read through the varying voices of the congregation and of the beauty of singing what could otherwise be said. What are your favorite parts of worship services? How does it make God’s word real to you?
Are you comfortable with silence? Why or why not? What do you normally think or feel when there is silence during your worship service?
Taylor describes losing track of herself and feeling a sense of mystical union with God and the others in the congregation when she baptizes babies. When have you experienced such transcendence? Is achieving this one of the reasons we attend church?
Taylor writes that she “knew where God’s fire was burning, but I could not get to it. I knew how to pray, how to bank the coals and call the Spirit, but by the time I got home each night it was all I could do to pay the bills and go to bed. I pecked God on the cheek the same way I did Ed, drying up inside for want of making love.” When have you been too busy, perhaps doing God’s work, to spend time with God? How does her description speak to your experience?
Chapter 9
Taylor describes her faith as more relational than doctrinal, and she observes that “whenever people aim to solve their conflicts with one another by turning to the Bible…defending the dried ink marks on the page becomes more vital than defending the neighbor.” To her “the whole purpose of the Bible…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.” How does this description fit with your own understanding of the Bible? How has the Bible encouraged you to engage or not engage the world?
Taylor lists several different ways that church members deal with conflict—writing long letters to clergy, sitting quietly until they explode, simply leaving. Do you recognize yourself in any of these depictions? If so, why have you chosen that option? How has your church as a whole handled conflicts such as the Episcopal Church’s ongoing discussion about the ordination of gay and lesbian priests?
Taylor writes that she is less concerned with believing than with beholding. She writes that she wants 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.” How well does this describe your faith? What role do belief and doctrine play in your faith?
Do you also struggle