Our First Book

OK, CECoP Book Studiers, it's time to get into our first book. Here's a quick review and some suggested first steps.

I first heard Barbara Brown Taylor's name years ago in seminary. At the time using all three of your names was kind of the in-thing to do, but I already had my fan slot used up (Sarah Michelle Gellar, if you must know) so I didn't read any of Taylor's books until long after I should have. This past Fall the Discernment Group passed around a pile of books on vocation and discernment so that we could each take one and report back to the group on our reading. I took Taylor's Leaving Church and really, really enjoyed it.

Enjoyed it so much in fact that I promptly bought her latest book, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (doesn't it seem like subtitles are now what using all three of your names was back in the mid-90s?). Leaving Church was great, but its intended audience was pretty small. Outside of ordained clergy in the Episcopal church, it seemed to me that only die-hards would we interested. Altar is much more widely of interest and should appeal to anyone who has spent time thinking about making their Sunday morning worship connect to their every day lives. More than that though, this book is for people trying to do that while not shutting off half their brain or entering a different worldview from the one the rest of the humans typically live in.

Each chapter in Altar is based on a practice: The Practice of Waking Up to God, The Practice of Paying Attention, The Practice of Feeling Pain. This aims to be a very practical book about how to practice faith in very normal kinds of situations. In that sense it is a book following in a long tradition of religious gurus, for isn't that what a saint does, makes the everyday alive with God?

An Altar in the World is a pretty easy read; it's light enough for summer with short, easily digestible chapters, but the ideas and practices contained within are also plenty deep enough for some serious examination and exploration. I encourage you to pick up a copy and read along. There's still room in the IRL book group (In Real Life) if you can meet the time/date constraints, or else you can follow along and participate here on the blog.

Altar is still in print and widely available at major booksellers virtual or physical. Used copies are abundantly available on Amazon.com, and the Puyallup and Pierce County libraries both have copies. The reading assignments for the book study are as follows:

June 6th: Introduction through Chapter 4, pages xiii - 68.
June 13th: Chapters 5 through 8, pages 69 - 120.
June 20th: Chapters 9 through 12, pages 121 - 209.

Meeting for the in-person group are at 7pm on Sunday evenings at my house. Please send an email to save yourself a spot and get directions.

I hope you'll read along this summer and put your two cents in, either in person or in the comment section below.