Do you see the recurring theme?
At the time I bought my first Anne Lamott book I was struggling with my Christian identity. Often times we only allow ourselves to see the possibilities that are shown to us. Even when you know there are different paths for leading a happy faithful life, if you don’t know anyone living that word, it is hard to start down that road.
In other words, it is hard to feel normal as a progressive Christian when you are surrounded by uptight conservative fundamentalists. Lamott articulated several of my feelings and observations. She made me feel that it was “OK” to follow a Christian faith, let people know I am a Christian and all that can coexist with a liberal progressive ideology.
Lamott wraps all this heavy philosophical stuff in flowing prose and wonderful stories of life’s challenges. She is not what you think she might be. Many of her phrases and sentences just put a real smile on my face. Consequently, I thought they might make some one else smile so I started tweeting them. There are times when I can’t her quote her word for word so I have to modify the structure to get the essence of her idea. (Anne, if you are reading this, I am not re-writing you, just trying to put it into that precious twitter format.)
Anne Lamott interviewed by Steven Cobert
The Colbert Report
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All of the following twitter quotes come from Traveling Mercies, Some Thoughts On Faith.
| I was raised by my parents to believe you had a moral obligation to try and save the world. |
| I got teased a lot by strangers and big boys for having hair that was fuzzy and white. |
| I loved the slutty older Catholic girls, with their mean names, the ones with white lipstick. |
| My father despised Christianity, he called Presbyterians, “God’s Frozen People” |
| We were raised to believe in books and music and nature. |
| I bowed my head in bed and prayed, because I believed-not in Jesus- but in someone listening. |
| All my life people thought I looked Jewish- or rather the ones who didn’t think I looked mulatto. |
| I thought about my brilliant progressive friends..what would they think if I became a Christian. |
| “F” it, I quit, you can come in. So this was the beautiful moment of my conversion. |
| I was more and more comfortable with the radical message of peace and equality, with the God whom Dr. King believed |
| I was not sure I could go, or wanted to go, one day without drinking or pills or cocaine. |
| I could feel God say hello. It was like being in a relationship with Casper. |
| When I see the faces of the people at church and hear their tawny voices, I can always find my way home. |
| My idea of everything going smoothly on an airplane: none of the passengers talk to me. |
| They think I am Christian-ish. I am not. I am just a bad Christian. |
| I know that a basic tenent of the Christian faith is that death is just a major change of address. |
| It is only by experiencing that ocean of sadness in a naked and immediate way that we come to be healed. |
| Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy susan. |
| After you have a child things come out much less orderly and rational than they did before. |
| They are Bhuddists, Jews, Christians, people banding together to work on themselves and human rights. |
| When I was at the end of my rope, the people at St. Andrews tied a knot and helped me hold on. |
| I do NOT leave family gatherings with the feeling that I have just received some sort of spiritual chemotherapy. |
| This is in fact what I think God might smell like, a young childs slightly dirty neck. |
| At other people’s houses, my kid doesn’t suck the energy and air out of the room. -Lamott |
| Do you ever want to throw yourself down the stairs b/c you’re so bored with your child? – Lamott |
| If people saw your hidden angry side, they’d draw back when they saw you coming. -Lamott |
| Children are going to give you something to yell about. -Lamott |
| What Fresh Hell is this? The afternoon play date called and cancelled. -Lamott |
| I lay on the couch, shocked by how hard it is to be a parent. -Lamott |
| I planted bulbs, which is a form of prayer. -Lamott |
| We should try to stay on God’s good side. God has extremely low standards. -Lamott |
| The most ancient of sorrows in the world: dead civilians and young soldiers. -Lamott |
| You take action and the insight follows. -Lamott |
| It was my mother who taught me how to wander through the racks at the library. -Lamott |
| Wander through a a book and let it take you where it would. -Lamott |
| Reading was like breathing fresh ocean air. -Lamott |
| In a library you can find small miracles and truth. – Lamott |
| I have found sanctuary in libraries my whole life. -Lamott |
| Libraries are like mountains or meadows or creeks, sacred space. -Lamott |
| If U want to change the way you feel about ppl, U have to change the way you treat them. -Lamott |
| If the present is all we really have, then the present lasts forever. -Lamott |
| I feel like a gymnast who has performed a flawless routine in an empty auditorium. -Lamott |
| Maybe this is what grace is, the unseen sounds that make you look up. -Lamott |
| Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life- it has given me. – Lamott |
| I’d give up all of this for a flatter belly? Only about 1/3 of the time. -Lamott |