Taylor is a post-modern mystic who believes that God and God's miracles are awaiting in the everyday stuff of our lives. She can take a seemingly routine thing (making a sandwich, going for a walk, talking on the phone) and show us how God, as I love to say quoting Augustine, is closer to us than we are to ourselves. One friend emailed me this week to say how much An Altar meant to him: "I thought each chapter I read was the best until I got to the next one . . . "
Chapter Three, The Practice of Wearing Skin, is one of the better poetical understandings of Incarnation I've read.
From walking to getting lost, listening to seeing, Taylor has blazed a new path for those of us trying to be tied to the God of Creation and Incarnation as Torah and Gospels teach us to be.
An example:
At this advanced level, the practice of getting lost has nothing to do with wanting to go there. It is something that happens, like it or not. You lose your job. Your lover leaves. That baby dies. At this level, the advanced practice of getting lost consists of consenting to be lost, since you have no other choice. The consenting itself becomes your choice, as you explore the possibility that life is for you and and not against you, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
This rock-bottom trust seems to come naturally to some people, while it takes disciplined practice for others. I am one of the latter, a damaged truster who hopes she has lots of time to work up to the advanced level before her own exodus comes. To that end, I keep my eyes open for opportunities to get slowly lost, so that I can gradually build the muscles necessary for radical trust (An Altar in the World, 80).
2 comments:
Okay, I bought the book. I was trying to hold off a month or two till I had time to read it. But you just keep making it look good. Teacher's Pet.
Jonathan,
Two things.
1. BBT's does not read this blog. Ha.
2. Buy your plane tx. Now.
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