An Altar in the World: Finding the sacred beneath our feet - Softcover

Barbara Taylor

4.34

8,616 ratings by Goodreads

9781853119903: An Altar in the World: Finding the sacred beneath our feet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853119903 ISBN 13: 9781853119903

Publisher: Canterbury Press Norwich, 2009

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The prize winning writer Barbara Brown Taylor opens this stunningly beautiful book by considering a comment that many people make today, 'I'm not really religious but I am spiritual.' While they will often go to extraordinary lengths in search of a 'spiritual experience' she shows that the stuff of our everyday lives is a holy ground where we can encounter God at every turn. For her, as for Jacob in the Genesis story that opens this book, even barren, empty deserts can become 'the house of God and the gate of heaven' - places where a ladder of angels connects heaven to earth and earth to heaven. Our lives are full of such meeting places. In simple practices such as walking, working, resting and waking, Taylor reveals concrete ways to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see. Our vision of the world and of ourselves is renewed and transformed. This ancient spiritual understanding is found throughout the Bible, in Celtic and other great spiritual traditions. As it is explored afresh for our own times we discover that no physical act is too earthbound or too humble to become a path to the divine.

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From the Back Cover:

In her critically acclaimed Leaving Church ("a beautiful, absorbing memoir."—Dallas Morning News), Barbara Brown Taylor wrote about leaving full-time ministry to become a professor, a decision that stretched the boundaries of her faith. Now, in her stunning follow-up, An Altar in the World, she shares how she learned to encounter God beyond the walls of any church.

From simple practices such as walking, working, and getting lost to deep meditations on topics like prayer and pronouncing blessings, Taylor reveals concrete ways to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see. Something as ordinary as hanging clothes on a clothesline becomes an act of devotion if we pay attention to what we are doing and take time to attend to the sights, smells, and sounds around us. Making eye contact with the cashier at the grocery store becomes a moment of true human connection. Allowing yourself to get lost leads to new discoveries. Under Taylor's expert guidance, we come to question conventional distinctions between the sacred and the secular, learning that no physical act is too earthbound or too humble to become a path to the divine. As we incorporate these practices into our daily lives, we begin to discover altars everywhere we go, in nearly everything we do.

About the Author:

Barbara Brown Taylor is a priest in the Episcopal church and the author of twelve books which have been showered with awards. She is on the Board of Advisors of Yale Divinity School

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