Barbara Brown Taylor

BBT was here last night, and she was wonderful. She talked mostly about her most recent book, Leaving Church. I've read a number of her other books, too. Hearing her talk about her rural parish in North GA made me a little homesick for Camp Mikell. Probably some of the seeds for this journey I'm on got planted in my summers there. It is kind of weird to be a seminarian just getting ready to enter the ministry and hear about a woman priest who has found freedom in giving up the ministry. She talked about it as a midlife book - and though I'm not quite to midlife yet, I resonate with leaving a beloved vocation. Maybe priesthood will be what I want it to be, and maybe it won't, but my first love was theatre, and as much as I was ready to leave it, I still grieve the loss of it. People tell me I can use my skills from there, and I'm sure that's true, though I haven't found them that helpful in the seminary setting. People also think that I'll want to direct the Christmas pageant and put on skits. That's not the loss that I'll grieve. What I did was very far away from skits. I actually have very lame skit skills. BBT is glad to be teaching and not priesting anymore, but she does miss parts of it. The same is true for me and theatre. I don't want to go back, but I do miss it and the people a lot.