Practice of Incarnation

Barbara Brown Taylor also talks in her book about the need we have to not only now things *about* God but to actually experience God's love in our bodies and souls through spiritual practices. Here's how she puts it:

"In an age of information overload...the last thing any of us needs is more information about God. We need the practice of incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose intellectual assent has turned as dry as dust, who have run frighteningly low on the bread of life, who are dying to know more God in their bodies. Not more *about* God. *More God*" (45).

I think this practice is particularly important for religious people and institutions, who can sometimes get caught up in and become overly rigid about doctrinal formulations about God. While these can be important, they also need to be balanced with the kind of prayerful, spiritual practices that ground us and remind us that anything we say about God is only, by necessity, a dim, remote approximation of a reality that's at once far beyond us and at the same time closer to us than we are to ourselves.

Peace,
Padre Chuck