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A Memoir of Faith
HarperSanFrancisco
June 2006
On Sale: May 30, 2006
256 pages ISBN: 0060771747 EAN: 9780060771744 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
By now I expected to be a seasoned parish minister,
wearing black clergy shirts grown gray from frequent
washing. I expected to love the children who hung on my legs
after Sunday morning services until they grew up and had
children of their own. I even expected to be buried wearing
the same red vestments in which I was ordained.
Today those vestments are hanging in the sacristy
of an Anglican church in Kenya, my church pension is frozen,
and I am as likely to spend Sunday mornings with friendly
Quakers, Presbyterians, or Congregationalists as I am with
the Episcopalians who remain my closest kin. Some-times I
even keep the Sabbath with a cup of steaming Assam tea on my
front porch, watching towhees vie for the highest perch in
the poplar tree while God watches me. These days I earn my
living teaching school, not leading worship, and while I
still dream of opening a small restaurant in Clarkesville or
volunteering at an eye clinic in Nepal, there is no
guarantee that I will not run off with the circus before I
am through. This is not the life I planned, or the life I
recommend to others. But it is the life that has turned out
to be mine, and the central revelation in it for me -- that
the call to serve God is first and last the call to be fully
human -- seems important enough to witness to on paper. This
book is my attempt to do that. After nine years
serving on the staff of a big urban church in Atlanta,
Barbara Brown Taylor arrives in rural Clarkesville, Georgia
(population 1,500), following her dream to become the pastor
of her own small congregation. The adjustment from city life
to country dweller is something of a shock -- Taylor is one
of the only professional women in the community -- but
small-town life offers many of its own unique joys. Taylor
has five successful years that see significant growth in the
church she serves, but ultimately she finds herself
experiencing "compassion fatigue" and wonders what exactly
God has called her to do. She realizes that in order to keep
her faith she may have to leave. Taylor describes a
rich spiritual journey in which God has given her more
questions than answers. As she becomes part of the flock
instead of the shepherd, she describes her poignant and
sincere struggle to regain her footing in the world without
her defining collar. Taylor's realization that this may in
fact be God's surprising path for her leads her to a
refreshing search to find Him in new places. Leaving
Church will remind even the most skeptical among us that
life is about both disappointment and hope -- and
ultimately, renewal.
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