Barbara Brown Taylor top speaker at Greenbelt this year::
Greenbelt Festival 2010: The art of looking sideways
Barbara Brown Taylor teaches religion at Piedmont College in rural northeast Georgia and is an adjunct professor of spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur. She is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller An Altar in the World, published by HarperOne in February 2009.
Martin Wroe says::
Barbara Brown Taylor is that rare find - a preacher who can write, a writer who can preach. In 'Leaving Church' she charted her journey away from institutional religion after many years as a minister. With 'An Altar In The World' she focusses on what she has found since - tracking divine footprints 'beyond the walls of any church' .
Documenting her findings in a series of spiritual practices, some old, some new, she celebrates the virtue in getting lost, in physical labour, in getting sick, of wearing skin, in experiencing loss and in being with people. The presence of the divine cannot be conjured up, she argues, only noticed. It is never absent, only ignored. Holiness is not about how much stuff you believe, but about how seriously you take the journey. 'Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it 's a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.'
One of her spiritual practices is called '`the practice of saying `No'. Fortunately she didn't apply that one to us, when we invited her to visit Greenbelt this summer.
'An Altar In The World' (SCM-Canterbury Press)
