THE LOLOLOLO TREE

A memoir of an intensely aware little girl living in rural Tennessee during the 1940s.

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“A symbolic book about the adventures of a journey to the universe of childhood’s affections. Agile and delightful prose recreates with acuity the familial world and enables the reader to rapidly identify with its characters. Book-tree which, sinking ints roots in the past, opens itself to the sky of ethics through the aesthetic and, on providing us with personal experiences, travels the path of the essentiality.” – Dra. Sylvia Puentes De Oyenard – Writer

“Audrey Taylor evokes, from teh point of view of a small white girl, the legendary American South, its music and its mysteries of African roots. Devoid of rhetoric, her narration has rhythm, grace, and that flavor of those memories that create an endearing reality.” – Mercedes Rein – Writer and Playwright

“The book’s greatest virtue is its recreation of a child’s world with authentic spontaneity and freshness. Throughout the book one discovers a profound human respect and a feeling of rejection of all forms of discrimination. Well worth reading.” – Dr. Adela Reta. Ex-Minister of Education and Culture (Uruguay)

“The author moves freely as a nostalgic character in the bucolic world on her infancy, its countryside, its characters – be they real or be they children of recurring dreams…” – Julio Cesar Da Rosa – President of The National Academy of Literature (Uruguay)

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SERMONS’N’ SUCH

The moving message of the first woman ordained to ministry in Uruguay’s history. From the bottom of the soul of a woman steeped in an extraordinary faith.

Synopsis

The numerous and diverse homilies included in this compendium were pronounced by the Reverend Audrey Taylor de Gonzalez, the first woman ordained minister of the Anglican Church in Uruguay, in June 1995.

While many of these pieces – possibly all – address, directly or tangentially, theological subjects, these do not attempt to be erudite disquisitions or doctoral reflections; this is neither their vocation nor their purpose.

Sermons’n’ Such, as suggested by the casual informality of its title, is, rather, the copious testimony of a vehement and torrential faith, welling from the depths of the soul of a woman with an extraordinary life experience.

In point of fact, in temperaments not absolutely forged in the crucible of nobility and goodness, so impetuous a faith could go astray toward fanaticism and intolerance. But in well tempered personalities, baptized in live and mercy, as that of the author, faith is sublimated in abnegation, in disinterest devotion, in a desire to serve, in compassion.

These sermons are, by definition, verbal pieces. No one should look for – indeed they will not find – formal perfection or literary refinement, attributes almost always elusive in the spoken word. They will, however, find truth, sincerity, purity, honesty, and light.

“Well done, my daughter, faithful servant!” Is all Audrey Taylor hopes God will say to her at the supreme instant.

This book clearly demonstrates that she is on the good path toward this blessing of christian simplicity.

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THE SHADY PLACES

Synopsis

Oral transmission seems to be one of the most efficient means of spreading doctrines and precepts, both ethical and religious.

Buddha and Socrates, to mention only two teachers whose teachings have had a fundamental incidence on the traditions of both East and West, never wrote a word.

Jesus, possibly the greatest minister of all times, on only one occasion wrote a few words in the sand, and nobody read them. Had the teacher written the secret name of the Father, the final and definitive cipher, the key to the Universe? We don’t know. But we do know that his doctrine, orally transmitted by generations of ministers and pastors – not with standing for evangelists who left their history in writing – transformed the world, turned on a light, opened the doors to transcendence, gave meaning to life, invented love, created a new man, or, at the very least, broadened human liberty to include the option of being better. And to continue to do so, every day, the world over.

Certainly, with unhappy frequency, we disregard His teachings and we become wolves to our brothers whom we annihilate in monstrous wars, we submit to iniquitous situations of spoliation and injustice and we abandon them to their solitude, anguish, disease, and misery. It is for this reason that Christian ministers continue to be so important, and so admirable and moving their work, their blessed obstinacy and fierce patience, in their unceasing efforts to redeem, shouting, even, in the desert.

Audrey Taylor de Gonzalez belongs to this luminous tradition of pastors who keep alight the Master’s flame.

She well knows that a flock’s conversion is nurtured by two main streams: the word and the did. The most inspired and persuasive eloquence will not suffice if those receiving his words do not act in accordance with them.

The work of Audrey Taylor de Gonzalez, assisting prisoners and the terminally ill and, in general, the most vulnerable and destitute of our brethren, speaks for itself.

As for her ministry, the present volume is the second such compendium and includes her sermons, essays and other work dating from the close of 1998 until the end of 2000.

Mary seated herself at the feet of Jesus to listen to him with devotion. Martha, as busy as ever, protests: “Lord, does it not concern you that my sister leaves all the work to me? Tell her to help me.” “Martha, Martha, ” says the Lord, “you worry yourself with too many things, but only one is necessary.”

The Rev. Audrey Taylor de Gonzalez in her ceaseless activity to the benefit of her neighbour is, to some extent, Martha: and in her devoted contemplation of Jesus is, to some extent, Mary: both personalities to the greater glory of God.

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WAITING FOR RAIN

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“Audrey Taylor is a rare, fierce spirit. It is good to have this book of her poems in hand with its urgencies and grace and salt tang of a lived life…” – Robert Hass (USA)

“The poems of Waiting for Rain map the fragility inherent in a life that refuses nothing: ‘nothing stopped/ not death/ not grace/ not loneliness.’ Here faith, love and aging are stripped down to their most mortal positions. It is rare for a collection of poetry to allow its readers to exist on the threshold of such awareness and grace.” – Claudia Rankine (USA)

 

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HURGADORES DE LA VIDA