On the Nightstand

Since I’ve discovered knitting, reading has suffered. It’s the lonely stepchild now. The pile of “to be read” titles continues to grow as my pile of “to be knit” takes center stage.

I miss reading. . .but not enough to put the needles down!

Then I saw that Barbara Brown Taylor has a new book. If you’ve heard me preach more than three and a half sermons you’ll know that I am quite in awe of Barbara Brown Taylor. She writes with simple honesty about being a woman. About being a preacher. About the flaws of the church and the flaws of being human.

So, I’m reading her newest book “Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith” – knitting be damned. . .

It’s worth it. She has an unerring, lasered perspective on what it feels like to be in ministry. She describes the frustrations, the joys, the questions and the insecurities in ways that make my heart sigh, “Yeah. . .that’s what it’s like.”

She manages to describe in a way that I never could, what’s its like to live somewhere between the image that other people assign to you and the truth of what it’s really like to live in a preachers skin.

I wanted to cry when Taylor describes a church party where people were pushing each other into a pool. It’s such a lonely feeling. Even though you are enjoying what everyone else is doing, no one would dare push the minister in. So there she stands, part of the party, but not really – when someone gives her a push into the water with everyone else! In that moment she remembered what it was like to be just “a regular person.” And she realized that “regular life” was calling.

Eventually she left pastoral ministry. The job of helping other people maintain their faith became too much to balance with trying to keep her own faith growing and alive.

It’s a book that funny and honest and simple. I loved it because sometimes it’s enough just to know that you aren’t alone.