Riverside BookClub

On Saturday, May 13, 2023, the Riverside Book Club will meet to discuss  Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark.  In the book, Taylor says that she has become increasingly uncomfortable with our tendency to associate all that is good with lightness and all that is evil and dangerous with darkness. “Doesn’t God work in the night time as well?”

In Learning to Walk in the Dark, Taylor asks us to put aside our fears and anxieties and to explore all that God has to teach us “in the dark.” She argues that we need to move away from our “solar spirituality” and ease our way into appreciating “lunar spirituality” (since, like the moon, our experience of the light waxes and wanes). Through darkness we find courage, we understand the world in new ways, and we feel God’s presence around us, guiding us through things seen and unseen. Often, it is while we are in the dark that we grow the most. [Amazon Book Review].

Barbara Brown Taylor is the New York Times bestselling author of An Altar in the World, Learning to Walk in the Dark, and Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others. She has been an Avon lady, a cocktail waitress, a horseback riding instructor, and a hospital chaplain, but her favorite job was teaching world religions at Piedmont College for twenty years before putting the chalk down in 2017. She now divides her time between writing, speaking, and caring for the land on which she lives. Barbara and her husband Ed tend a small farm in the foothills of the Appalachians” [Author’s Website, [https://barbarabrowntaylor.com’] Appp

Moderating the discussion will be Reverend  Charlene A. Wingate who serves as the Support Minister for Worship and Arts at the Riverside Church as well as the Student Support Services Leader in the New York City Department of Education.

With over two decades of teaching experience, she finds joy in applying her studies of music, religious education, and equity to the development of inclusive worship services.  In addition, she is an Adjunct Professor of various courses for the Certificate Program at New York Theological Seminary, and serves at Riverside as the Chairperson of the Adult Christian Education Committee, former Vice Chairperson of the Education Commission, overseer of the Open Bible Study (OBS) small group, producer of Riverside’s Fresh Start early morning service, and worship leader, liturgist, and guest preacher.

Rev. Wingate is an ordained minister with the American Baptist Churches (USA).  She earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts at City University of New York, and a Masters of Arts at Teacher’s College, Columbia University in New York. She earned a Masters of Divinity, MARE at New York Theological Seminary and a Masters in Educational Leadership from Bank Street College of Education in New York. Her religious affiliation is with the American Baptist Churches (USA).

The book is available online in Kindle, audiobook and paperback formats, and is available for purchase in Riverside’s Giftshop. To register and receive the ZOOM join link, click below.

BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

THE BOOK

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