Learning to Walk in the Dark

Since I am flailing instead of walking in the dark, I thought this would be good for me to read. The author, Barbara Brown Taylor, says that it is not a how-to book, but I'd guess that many people pick it up hoping that it contains instructions. And at the end, there are some coy instructions that would be given if it were a how to book: basically, become curious about your own darkness. The body of the book consists of the author's writing about becoming curious about physical darkness and her own emotional/psychic darkness. I'm sympathetic with her complaint, that mainstream Christianity does not acknowledge a place for darkness in human life, that darkness is used as a metaphor for evil so that we become afraid of darkness, even wholesome darkness. Her chapters about her excursions into various types of darkness are not How-To pieces, certainly, but they are worth pondering if, like me, you feel you are thrashing around in the dark (whatever kind of dark). It's a slender book and her writing is beautiful, but her advice is just a suggestion.