Learning to Walk in the Dark
Best-selling author and former Episcopal priest Taylor returns with another thoughtful book. This time Taylor confronts head-on faith and, most significantly, the dark night of the soul. But really this is a meditation on darkness itself—more a journal, she emphasizes, than a manual. What does Taylor mean by darkness? Darkness, she writes, is “shorthand for anything that scares me.” That could include something as profound as the absence of God to the fear of dementia to the loss of family and friends, as well as that “nagging” question of “what it will feel like to die.” She recounts how she became impatient with church teachings that accentuated the light while denying the existence of darkness, and comments on the difference between faith and belief, certainty and trust. An elegant writer with the common touch, Taylor is always a wonderful guide to the spiritual world, and this book is no exception. Here she encourages us to turn out the lights and embrace the spiritual darkness, for it is in the dark, she maintains, that one can truly see. --June Sawyers