Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

by Barbara Brown Taylor

All these years later, I like to think that I learned as much about human nature waiting tables at Dante’s as I did writing papers for my seminary professors. One happened in the dark and one happened in the light, but together they offered me a better education in the mysterium tremendum than I could ever have gotten by attending just one of them. Later, when I stood in front of an altar waving incense, I would remember standing in front of the bar at Dante’s waving cigarette smoke out of my face, and the exact same feeling of tenderness would wash over me, because the people in both places were so much alike. We were all seeking company, meaning, solace, self-forgetfulness. Whether we ever found those things or not, it was the seeking that led us to find each other in the cloud even when we had nothing else in common. Sometimes I wondered if it even mattered whether our communion cups were filled with consecrated wine or draft beer, as long as we bent over them long enough to recognize each other as kin.