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Barbara Brown Taylor

Barbara Brown Taylor Quotes

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Famous Barbara Brown Taylor Quotes

“So if waiting is an aggravation, it is at least partly because we do not like being reminded of our limits. We like doing -- earning, buying, selling, building, planting, driving, baking -- making things happen, whereas waiting is essentially a matter of being -- stopping, sitting, listening, looking, breathing, wondering, praying. It can feel pretty helpless to wait for someone or something that is not here yet and that will or will not arrive in its own good time, which is not the same thing as our own good time.”

IfsFeelsMatterHappensWaitingWonderBuildingListeningPrayingLimitsSittingDrivingThings HappenSellingBreathingBuyingGood TimesHelplessEarningStoppingBakingAggravation
Book:Gospel Medicine
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“It can be difficult to be an introvert in church, especially if you happen to be the pastor. Liking to be alone can be interpreted as a judgment on other people's company. Liking to be quiet can be construed as aloofness. There is so much emphasis on community in most congregations that anyone who does not participate risks being labeled a loner.”

PeopleIfsDoeHappensPastDifficultCommunityChurchCompanyRiskQuietJudgmentIntrovertPastorEmphasisLonerCongregationAloofness
Book:An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
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“If churches saw their mission in the same way, there is no telling what might happen. What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they are doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in the church?”

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Book:Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith
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“Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God's will from their own. Temple police are always a bad sign. When chaplains start wearing guns and hanging out at the sheriff's office, watch out. Someone is about to have no king but Caesar”

IfsKnowsMindUseLawOrderJesusForceWatchesAtheismKingsOfficeGunClaimsPolicePreparedGods WillTemplesHanging OutAnarchyConformLaw And OrderSheriffsChaplains
Author:Barbara Brown Taylor
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“The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self - to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.”

IfsWorldHumansSelfHelpingUseSpiritualHuman BeingsSpringPrisonNeighborHardestEncountersConvinceSpiritual Work
Book:An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
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