An Altar in the World - by Barbara Brown Taylor (Paperback)

About the Book

The critically-acclaimed author of "Leaving Church" continues her spiritual journey by revealing how she learned to encounter the sacred everywhere in the world.

Book Synopsis

In the New York Times bestseller An Altar in the World, acclaimed author Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey by building upon where she left off in Leaving Church. With the honesty of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and the spiritual depth of Anne Lamott (Grace, Eventually), Taylor shares how she learned to find God beyond the church walls by embracing the sacred as a natural part of everyday life. In An Altar in the World, Taylor shows us how to discover altars everywhere we go and in nearly everything we do as we learn to live with purpose, pay attention, slow down, and revere the world we live in.

From the Back Cover

In her critically acclaimed Leaving Church ("a beautiful, absorbing memoir"--The Dallas Morning News), Barbara Brown Taylor wrote about her experience leaving full-time ministryto become a professor, a decision that stretched the boundaries of her faith. Now, in her stunning follow-up, An Altar in the World, she shares how she learned to encounter God far beyond the walls of the church.

Taylor reveals meaningful ways to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see, from simple practices such as walking, working, and prayer. Something as ordinary as hanging clothes on a clothesline becomes an act of meditation if we pay attention to what we're doing and take time to notice the sights, smells, and sounds around us. Making eye contact with the cashier at the grocery store becomes a moment of true human connection. Allowing yourself to get lost leads to new discoveries. As we incorporate these practices into our daily lives, we begin to discover altars everywhere we go, in nearly everything we do. Through Taylor's expert guidance and delicate, thought-provoking prose, we learn to live with purpose, pay attention, slow down, and revere the world we live in.

Review Quotes

"This is the most completely beautiful book in religion that I have read in a very long time. Gentle, humbly crafted, lyrical, and deeply wise, Altar is Barbara Brown Taylor as she was meant to be, a pastor who understands that knowing God occurs in a place beyond theology." - Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence
"This book is the most practical but everyday mystical book I have read on spiritual practices." - Kate Campbell, singer-songwriter
"Elegant, wise, and insightful, this book is also sacramental: it mediates the life it describes." - Marcus Borg, author of Jesus
"An Altar in the World is about how faith can be both practical and sensuous. In Barbara Brown Taylor's hands, the old division between heaven and earth is healed and both come alive. Your mind, your body and your soul will be well fed by this wonderful book." - Nora Gallagher, author of Things Seen and Unseen and Changing Light
"Throughout the book, Taylor's strength is in her word choice. The attentive reader will have a hard time not appreciating her fresh vocabulary and insightful metaphors. Overall... if one can read Taylor's insights reflectively, with an eye toward Scripture, Altar will serve as a refreshing reminder that the physical world is designed to help us experience the spiritual one." - ChristianityToday.com
"Overall... if one can read Taylor's insights reflectively, with an eye toward Scripture, Altar will serve as a refreshing reminder that the physical world is designed to help us experience the spiritual one." - ChristianityToday.com
"Barbara Brown Taylor penetrates the religious clutter. She comforts. She revives our spirits. With lovely words she finds 'alters in our world.'" - The Congregationalist
"While I don't like long books, this one could have been 500 pages longer with no complaints from me." - Christian Science Monitor
"Leaving Church settled it for me that Taylor, as thinker and stylist, ranks with the best. The new book confirms that. . . . This book is not a page-turner. It's a page-lingerer. I wore out a highlighter marking passages I want to read again." - Dallas Morning News
"Without denigrating altars in churches, Brown helps us discover and honor all the 'altars in the world'--the red Xs that mark the spot, but that we cannot see because we are standing on them. She does so with a depth that readers will appreciate and savor." - --U.S. Catholic
"...[H]er honest elegance... express[es] truths that throw open windows in our everyday lives-allowing fresh perspectives on life. You'll finish her book with dozens of pages folded over or marked in some other fashion so you can find and re-read favorite lines again." - Read the Spirit
"Taylor's book is a marvelous series of reflections on different practices of the engaged spiritual life....Each [chapter] is tightly and elegantly crafted, a real treat for eye, mind, and heart. Taylor's prose is gorgeous, ardent, and filled with light, spilling out on the page like so much spiritual honey. ...Taylor's not shy in using the practices of others to explore ways in which we can expand our own awareness and joy at the gift of life. In what often seems to be an increasingly xenophobic and narrowly black-and-white culture, An Altar in the World is a stirring invitation to embrace religious diversity, and to truly open our hearts to, and be transformed by, the experience and traditions of others. ...At heart, An Altar in the World is an extended discourse on building, maintaining, and strengthening our sacred relationships with ourselves and all of existence, both the seen and the unseen variety. As such, it triumphs, calling us forth to embrace our better selves. Could anyone ask for more?" - Powell's Book Blog