Let God Hold You
Last night, I curled in bed with the book I am currently reading - An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith , by Barbara Brown Taylor , a former parish priest, who currently teaches spirituality. This book is delicious in every way - not one to be raced through - but one to be savored, and so I "tasted" the chapter "The Practice of Saying No." It begins by explaining the historical, cultural, and religious differences between keeping the Sabbath and the Christian practice of observing Sunday - and then explores the value of having one day a week where we say no to doing, and simply enjoy being. Taylor begins the chapter with this quote from Meister Eckhart: "God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by subtracting." A couple of pages into the chapter, she quotes the Swiss theologian Karl Barth : "A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity." Later, she refers to Abraham Heschel : "The first holy thing in ...