In Acts, Philip meets a eunuch on the road. In the course of their conversation, Philip asks the eunuch if he understands the scripture he is reading. The eunuch replies, "How can I, unless someone explains it to me?"

This unvarnished, honest reply reflects where I find myself much of the time. The Holy Spirit is my first resource, of course, but sometimes it seems to me that I am unable to avail myself of the understanding that I should have. So I too ask, "How can I [understand] unless someone explains it to me?"

UPC has two pastors who complement each other very well. Glenn's scholarship and Sharon's empathy with her congregation have proven to be great resources to me. By this I don't mean to indicate that Glenn has no empathy, nor Sharon scholarship, but I have found their strong points to be as I described.

I have been troubled by my inability to reach to the heart of the spirituality I seek, so I have been asking what I will call the "Eunuch's Question" more frequently.

A couple of weeks ago, Sharon recommended Barbara Brown Taylor's book, "An Altar in the World" to me. I have found it very helpful in terms of redirecting me from a search outside of myself to that which I encounter every day with my human senses. It's very fine to seek a supernatural experience, an epiphany, an "AHA!" moment, but when it comes to spiritual matters, the Holy Spirit says to me more often than not, "Come on, Tony; you know I don't work that way!" (Some readers may recall God speaking this line to Bill Cosby's Noah back in the 70s.)

It only took me a week to read, but has profoundly affected my spiritual thought process. It's available from Amazon, and is in Kindle format (my favorite).