Anne Lamott on Faith
This may be one of Anne Lamott's best-known books, yet I'd read a half dozen others before I arrived at this one. I love them all, and I imagine I'll continue to love them all for as long as she keeps writing and publishing.Traveling Mercies is kind of her coming-to-Jesus moment, though more like a journey than a moment. She shares all the different stories that have evolved her faith, from its absence to its ever-present comfort. I'd love to go to church with her, to pass notes back and forth during the announcements, to get lunch after at a drive-thru and dip our fries into our shakes, and to chat about life. This book is a pretty good glimpse what that might be like.
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
The following are excerpts taken from Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies. Bold and italics and notes are mine. The rest is Anne's.
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My parents and their friends were yellow-dog Democrats, meaning they would have voted for a yellow-dog before they would have voted for a Republican.--
There are cracks, cracks, in everything, that's how the light gets in.
- Leonard Cohen--What did it mean to be saved, I asked, although I knew the word smacked of Elmer Gantry for both of us."You don't need to think about this," he said."Just tell me.""I guess it's like discovering you're on the shelf of a pawnshop, dusty and forgotten and maybe not worth very much. But Jesus comes in and tells the pawnbroker, 'I'll take her place on the shelf. Let her go outside again.'"--
And here in dust and dirt, O here,The lilies of his love appear.
- George Herbert--She told us this story just the other day: When she was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big gown where they lived, but he couldn't find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, "You could let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here."--
Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure.- Rumi
--A woman I know says, for her morning prayer, "Whatever," and then for the evening, "Oh, well."--
Everything is a miracle; it's a miracle that one does not dissolve in one's bath like a lump of sugar.
- Picasso--
The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.
- Joanna Macy--This is what we do in families: We help, because we were helped.--Courage is fear that has said its prayers.--
Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings.Move within, but don't move the way fear makes you move.
- Rumi--You can buy the book here. :)