Synopses & Reviews
From the
New York Times bestselling author of
An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylors
Learning to Walk in the Dark provides a way to find spirituality in those times when we dont have all the answers.
Taylor has become increasingly uncomfortable with our tendency to associate all that is good with lightness and all that is evil and dangerous with darkness. Doesnt God work in the nighttime as well? In Learning to Walk in the Dark, Taylor asks us to put aside our fears and anxieties and to explore all that God has to teach us “in the dark.” She argues that we need to move away from our “solar spirituality” and ease our way into appreciating “lunar spirituality” (since, like the moon, our experience of the light waxes and wanes). Through darkness we find courage, we understand the world in new ways, and we feel Gods presence around us, guiding us through things seen and unseen. Often, it is while we are in the dark that we grow the most.
With her characteristic charm and literary wisdom, Taylor is our guide through a spirituality of the nighttime, teaching us how to find our footing in times of uncertainty and giving us strength and hope to face all of lifes challenging moments.
Review
“Taylor is one of those rare people who truly can see the holy in everything.” < i=""> Publishers Weekly <> (starred review)
Review
“Taylor seems simply incapable of writing a bad book. . . . A wonderfully gifted Christian writer and speaker.” < i=""> Kansas City Star <>
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“Barbara Brown Taylor is one of our most important spiritual writers today.” < i=""> ExploreFaith <>
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“In this season of national want, Barbara Brown Taylor serves up beefy soul food.” < i=""> Atlanta Journal-Constitution <>
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“Taylors spiritual reflections are original, bringing fresh air to her topics because her spirituality is steeped in everyday life while illuminated by the ancient Christian spiritual tradition.” < i=""> National Catholic Reporter <>
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“Barbara Brown Taylor is a favorite among church members who struggle to connect the sacred and secular, the heavenly and the earthly. These readers appreciate the candor with which she writes about it.” < i=""> Raleigh News and Observer <>
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“Barbara Brown Taylor penetrates the religious clutter. She comforts. She revives our spirits.” < i=""> The Congregationalist <>
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“Taylor writes fluently, with an eye and ear for the striking image and memorable phrase. Many readers, especially the vast numbers of the ‘unchurched but ‘spiritual, will find support and useful counsel.” < i=""> Library Journal <>
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“With calm confidence and hard won humility, Barbara Brown Taylor continues to serve our recovery of a whole faith, a performed faith, a lifesaving and lifegiving faith. With a delightfully deft touch, she replaces a wide array of false dichotomies with true coherencies.” Scott Cairns, author of < i=""> Short Trip to the Edge: Where Earth Meets Heaven & #150;A Pilgrimage <>
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“In the spirit of the great mystics, Barbara Brown Taylor has looked beyond the walls of the church and found...God. With her always winsome prose... we can confidently place ourselves in her hands; she is the most generous and gracious of spiritual guides.” Tony Jones, author of < i=""> The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life <> and < i=""> The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier <>
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“To the parish of the seldom, or sorely, or no longer ‘churched, to the doubting and dumbfounded and blessedly vexed, Barbara Brown Taylor tenders an elegant epistle.” Thomas Lynch, author of < i=""> The Undertaking <> and < i=""> Booking Passage <>
Review
“Eyes wide open, Barbara Brown Taylor has written a precise and evocative field guide to the dark. Exploring the complex and generative terrain of twilight and absence on her own terms, she generously includes us on her journeys, and encourages us to make our own.” Sharon Salzberg, author of < i=""> Real Happiness and Lovingkindness <>
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“Reading Barbara Brown Taylors writing stuns me, challenges me, and heals me, both with the beauty of her prose and the depth of her wisdom. A gift to every person whos felt the darkness but not had the words to articulate it… A truly beautiful book.” Shauna Niequist, author of < i=""> Bread & Wine <>
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“Beautiful. Profound. Nourishing. I have needed to read this book for a long time.” Lauren Winner, author of < i=""> Still <> and < i=""> Girl Meets God <>
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“Taylor continues her unconventional, outside-the-pulpit Episcopalian ministry by showing readers how she has learned from the darkness: learning to cross the street as if blind;… looking for Gods nocturnal appearances in the Bible. Taylor writes with consistent charm and an unobtrusive faith in God.” < i=""> Library Journal <>
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“An elegant writer with the common touch, Taylor is always a wonderful guide to the spiritual world, and this book is no exception. Here she encourages us to turn out the lights and embrace the spiritual darkness, for it is in the dark, she maintains, that one can truly see.” < i=""> Booklist <>
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“Taylor writes with consistent charm and an unobtrusive faith in God; her work is certain to appeal to… fans of Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott.” < i=""> Library Journal <>
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“Barbara Brown Taylor shows readers that dark times can be great times of learning. The former Episcopalian priest shares her experiences of walking through the dark in her own life. … She takes the reader on a journey to explore and understand the ‘dark better.” < i=""> CBA Retailers <> magazine
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“Compellingly makes the case for why darkness is as necessary to our well-being as light. . . . A charming, witty and wise guide into the heart of darkness. . . . There is plenty here to ponder.” < i=""> Shelf Awareness <>
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“Offers a different way of looking at darkness, not as something to be feared, but as something to be embraced.” Interfaith Voices, NPR
Review
“Few souls are as synched to the worlds mysteries as Barbara Brown Taylors.” Time magazine
Synopsis
New York Times Bestseller
From the New York Times bestselling author of An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor's Learning to Walk in the Dark provides a way to find spirituality in those times when we don't have all the answers.
Taylor has become increasingly uncomfortable with our tendency to associate all that is good with lightness and all that is evil and dangerous with darkness. Doesn't God work in the nighttime as well? In Learning to Walk in the Dark, Taylor asks us to put aside our fears and anxieties and to explore all that God has to teach us "in the dark." She argues that we need to move away from our "solar spirituality" and ease our way into appreciating "lunar spirituality" (since, like the moon, our experience of the light waxes and wanes). Through darkness we find courage, we understand the world in new ways, and we feel God's presence around us, guiding us through things seen and unseen. Often, it is while we are in the dark that we grow the most.
With her characteristic charm and literary wisdom, Taylor is our guide through a spirituality of the nighttime, teaching us how to find our footing in times of uncertainty and giving us strength and hope to face all of life's challenging moments.
Synopsis
Follow Barbara Brown Taylor on her journey to understand darkness, which takes her spelunking in unlit caves, learning to eat and cross the street as a blind person, discovering how "dark emotions" are prevented from seeing light from a psychiatrist, and rereading scripture to see all the times God shows up at night. With her characteristic charm and wisdom, Taylor is our guide through a spirituality of the nighttime, teaching us how to find God even in darkness, and giving us a way to let darkness teach us what we need to know.
About the Author
Barbara Brown Taylor's last book, Leaving Church, was met with widespread critical acclaim including the New York Times, USA Today, NPR's Fresh Air, and others. Taylor spent fifteen years in parish ministry and was named one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world by Baylor University in 1996. She became a professor of religion at Piedmont College in 1998 and also teaches spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary. Still a priest in the Episcopal church, Taylor has traveled the world in pursuit of sacred wisdom, finding most of what she needed in her backyard. She lives on a working farm in rural north Georgia with her husband, Ed.