An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

by Barbara Brown Taylor

To make peace with the pain can require as much energy as fighting it.

sad hole in this logic is the illusion that pain can be controlled—if not by the self, then by the love or manipulation of some power greater than the self.

seven different kinds of prayers: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession, and petition.

Prayer, according to Brother David, is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing. When I am fully alert to whatever or whoever is right in front of me; when I am electrically aware of the tremendous gift of being alive; when I am able to give myself wholly to the moment I am in, then I am in prayer. Prayer is happening, and it is not necessarily something that I am doing. God is happening, and I am lucky enough to know that I am in The Midst.

The Practice of the Presence of God,

resolved to give himself wholly to God no matter what he was doing, “and out of love for Him to renounce everything that was not Himself.”

key to blessing things is knowing that they beat you to it. The key to blessing things is to receive their blessing. You do not always have to use the magic words, either. Sometimes it is enough to see the world through a tree’s eyes.

often we are embarrassed to do and say the things that really affect us.

God has no hands but ours, no bread but the bread we bake, no prayers but the ones we make, whether we know what we are doing or not. When Christians speak of the mystery of the incarnation, this is what they mean: for reasons beyond anyone’s understanding, God has decided to be made known in flesh. Matter matters to God. The most ordinary things are drenched in divine possibility. Pronouncing blessings upon them is the least we can do.

No one’s spiritual practice is exactly like anyone else’s. Life meets each of us where we need to be met, leading us to the doors with our names on them.

Because God made these beings, they share in God’s own holiness, whether or not they meet your minimum requirements for a blessing.

To pronounce a blessing is to participate in God’s own initiative. To pronounce a blessing is to share God’s own audacity.