Barbara Brown Taylor is a renowned Episcopal priest, former Piedmont professor, author, theologian and lover of libraries— the Clarkesville library in particular.
Taylor, author of New York Times bestsellers “Leaving Church,” “An Altar in the World” and “Holy Envy,” was featured at the Friends of the Clarkesville Library Book and Author Luncheon on Saturday, a fundraising event for the Clarkesville Library.
She spoke about the importance of libraries in the community and her relationship with the Clarkesville library to a room packed with members of the Friends of the Clarkesville Library, fans of her books and followers of her teachings.
“Getting a library card was one of the first things I did when I moved here [to Clarkesville], though I ended up being the kind of person who keeps books for ages and wants to write in them, so borrowing them didn’t always work out for me,” Taylor tells Now Habersham. “I’ve still gone back to hear speakers, donate books and borrow the bandwidth when I needed to do a book event on Zoom that my home signal couldn’t handle.”
Taylor’s love of books began as a child, when her parents taught her the importance of reading and opening gateways to knowledge.
“My [father] shared his love of books and his belief in the power of learning to change lives,” Taylor said at the event. “Though she [my mother] and my dad did not take my sisters and me to church every week, they took us to the public library— every single week— to check out as many books as we could carry back to the car.”
Taylor carries those lessons with her now, speaking to luncheon attendees about the importance of libraries in the community, and their impact on children.
“If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes that village to care for the library that helps them do that,” Taylor says.
Barbara Brown Taylor has lived in Clarkesville since 1992 after her move from Atlanta, and has lived here ever since. She says that Clarkesville’s slower pace and small-town feel keep her writing, and that the city and its people keep her in Habersham County.
“Being a writer requires a lot of quiet time and privacy, which is hard to get in a big city where people think you’re a big deal,” she says. “I love the sense of community and civic responsibility in Clarkesville. I love the landscape, and how easy it is to get into nature here. I love the smaller scale of everything, from the local newspaper to the number of traffic lights in town. I especially love the sorts of people who live here or move here for the same reasons I did.”
She tells Now Habersham that preparing for the luncheon and spending time with the community and the Friends of the Clarkesville Library at the weekend event has reconnected her to the importance of financially supporting her local library.
“Giving this talk has reawakened me to the importance of supporting the library with my dollars,” Taylor says. “Because whether I’m there regularly or not, a lot of other people are, especially children, and I want to be part of their lives.”
Taylor encourages others to do so too by becoming a member of the Friends of the Clarkesville Library organization, which helps support the programs the library offers free to citizens.
“We’re lucky to live here, in other words— where the saints at the library know us, our children, and our elders by name; where people from all walks of life come to borrow books and movies, get help with their taxes, look up their ancestors, use computers to look for work or housing, or bring their own laptops and piggyback on some of the best bandwidth in town,” Taylor said Saturday. “The vitality of a community’s public library is one of the best measures of how open that community’s mind is, and how generous its heart.”
