Reviewed by Dr. Susan K. Hedahl

For the last year a number of friends have said to me, "You have to read this book,"
and so I have.  Since the author and I have similar life profiles - teacher, a woman early ordained, pastor and a writer - the book acted as a rather odd mirror for me of the similar struggles, realities and joys we have each experienced in what it means to remain faithful to self and vocation and God.

Taylor arranges the book around a trinity of categories: finding, losing, keeping.  The work is chronological and moves from childhood through ordination and life as a pastor.  It concludes with her decision to leave her congregation and take a job as a teacher of religion in a small college nearby.

This work is "typical Taylor" in that her writing always manages to reveal, charm and instruct in a lucid fashion.  One can easily underline key sentences and entire paragraphs with the jolt of recognition that says, "Yes, I've been there....."   She writes lovingly and specifically about her parish, peoples' problems, the fights, the tragedies and her unexpected growing fatigue spiritually and physically with it all.  While this work is about Taylor's life in the church, at another level it is a recognizable parable of how much church has changed for us all and how little  - in some ways - it fits contemporary life anymore.

Her decision to leave parish ministry was prompted in part by overwork, the perfectionist's effort to be Christ to everyone even if it meant "over my dead body"'  As she negotiates what seems to be part nervous breakdown and part spiritual realignment, Taylor notes an insight prompted by leaving the formal structures of ministry: 

"If my time in the wilderness taught me anything, it is that faith in God has both a center and an edge and that each is necessary for the soul's health.  If I developed a complaint during my time in the wilderness, it was that Mother Church lavished so much more attention on those at the center than on those at the edge." (175).      

Her journey away from formal ministry is marked by her understanding that entertaining the mysteries of faith far surpasses the importance of maintaining the dogmas of faith.  This insight comes in company with this core observation about the unworkability of church today:

"All these years later, the way many of us are doing church is broken and we know it, even if we do not know what to do about it.  We proclaim the priesthood of all believers while we continue living with hierarchical clergy, liturgy and architecture.  We follow a Lord who challenged the religious and political institutions of his time while we fund and defend our own.  We speak and sing of divine transformation while we do everything in our power to maintain our equilibrium." (220) 

If you have not read this book, read it.  It will take you beyond mere appreciation to deeper self assessments about self, ministry and God.  This is a primer of a faith journey which has its own messages for those in ministry, training for ministry and leaving ministry.  The challenge the work presents is this:  If Taylor had the courage to face her demons and her God, can we each do the same, whatever might be at stake?