Barbara Brown Taylor

And we actually probably haven't, in 10 years of podcasting, had a previous episode fit so perfectly into a theme as this month.

We've got Barbara Brown Taylor back.

So she...

If you don't know BBT, she is, um, who, one of who I would consider my most important spiritual mentors, um, which is a very short list for me.

So perfect for this conversation.

We recorded this at the end of 2022 as a benediction to the year Stick around to the end because she wrote something special just for this community, and I cried through the entire thing.

So here she is, the wonderful, wonderful Barbara Brown Taylor.

[upbeat music] All right, Barbara, I'm so delighted to see you.

No, I don't.

But I mean, luckily, we've heard themes like that echoed over and over from people like Barbara Brown Taylor, right? Her book, Learning to Walk in the Dark.

Right, right.

Wouldn't that be a fantastic conference talk title, Learning to Walk in the Dark? That's also never going to happen.

So another fork in the road.

And so on one side fits thinking and on the other side fits experience, right? A bit.

Okay, Barbara Brown Taylor says, faith has more to do with staying fully present to what is happening right in front of you than with being certain of what it all means.

The meeting is the thing.

I love the book Walking in the Dark.

I think it's called Walking in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor.

And she writes that new life always starts in the dark.

Whether it's a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it always starts in the dark.

So I just wanted to underline that.

I don't know if you wanna say more about it, but I like how Barbara Brown Taylor says it.

She says, in the end, if my theology doesn't make me more loving, doesn't make me more kind, doesn't make me more of a compassionate person, then I am going to love my neighbor because God never called me to love my theology.

And if your theology is not causing your heart to break for Haitian neighbors and for neighbors that fear for their future because they don't know what this administration is going to do to them, they might go to a court date.

I have never stopped thinking about, and neither have you because they continue to be downloaded, downloaded, downloaded.

The first one is with Barbara Brown Taylor.

Um, who is one of my spiritual mentors.

I mean, that list for me is a short list of the ones that I would consider my elder in the faith that I respect and listen to and learn from and whose life has borne out their faithfulness.

Okay? Nobody is writing a payroll check for either one of those.

But both of those are sacred work.

This is exactly what I mean, by the way, about Barbara Brown Taylor.

And she uses this phrase because she calls it an altar.

That's the next book.

Let's write it together." Usually, I'm reading something from Frederick Buechner or from Barbara Brown Taylor or some other great writer.

Uh, this evening, I regret to inform you that you're going to get a slightly less caliber, uh, piece of work from myself.

[laughs]

One practice that I love when it comes to honoring the good is keeping a list of things that are saving my life right now.

I stole this practice from author Barbara Brown Taylor.

Things that are saving

my

And really, really, yeah, really, really good stuff.

I met Doug Padgett, Brian McLaren, Diana Butler Bass, Barbara Brown Taylor.

Yeah, it was a really defining moment for me.

But anyway, it was a whole year of planning, you know, and then the thing released in the world.

You think of people like Elaine Pagel's Alexander John Shy has been on a bunch of times.

Brian McLaren.

We had one with Barbara Brown Taylor when she came on.

We've had Bart Ehrman.