Barbara Brown Taylor

   I was telling a friend about this wonderful book I read several years ago called "Leaving Church," by Barbara Brown Taylor.  I picked it up again today to try and find a quote that I love.  It describes the community of people that I have come to love and be a part of.
    "We are a motley crew, distinguished not only by are inability to explain ourselves to those who are more certain of their beliefs than we are but in many cases by our distance from the centers of our faith communities as well.  Like campers who have bonded over cook fires far from home, we remain grateful for the provisions we have brought with us from those cupboards, but we also find them more delicious when we share them with one another under the stars.
        This wilderness experience sets up a real dilemma for some of us, since we know how much we owe to the traditions that shaped us.  We would not be who we are without them, and we continue to draw real sustenance from them,but insofar as those same traditions discourage us from being with one another, we cannot go home again.  In one way or another, every one of us has gotten the message that God made us different that we might know one another, and that how we treat one another is the best expression of our beliefs."