Anne Lamott- Traveling Mercies

Needing a memoir-style book to remind me how to write creative memoirs for a paper in my Life Stories class, I picked up Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith at Elon's library yesterday. I originally was only going to read a chapter or two to help me find my' narrative voice' but of coarse I got sucked into the book and have read about halfway through it already (I guess I could find worse ways to procrastinate).

I'd been wanting to read Traveling Mercies for awhile. I'd heard good things about Anne Lamott through some Religious Studies major friends, so my mom and I rented Plan B on tape this fall as we drove out to North Carolina. I loved that book and I was a little afraid that I wouldn't enjoy Traveling Mercies as much, but Anne Lamott never fails to make me laugh, offer keep perspective about faith, and inspire me to write more myself.

I didn't realize this in Plan B as much, but I think one of my favorite things about Anne Lamott's writing is that I identify with her a lot. I identify with how neurotic, emotional, self-absorbed, and at times, quite irrational she is. Her reflection on God give me hope in reminding me that Jesus even loves those of us who aren't quite all put together, who don't have it all figured out {even though I like to act like I do haha!}, and who are a bit neurotic and anxious. I also love how real she is about her imperfections and the hope she does have in God polishing them.

I also identify with Anne feeling like some sort of alien in the American Christian culture (and in the American culture for that matter!). It is encouraging to know that Jesus understanding what it feels like to be a foreigner, an alien as someone from the unmentionable Bethlehem. Jesus also knew what it felt like to have people not get him, to constantly feel misunderstood, and to feel unaccepted. I dunno....but I think it's cool to have a God that can identify with all of our human idiosycracies and the feeling of rejection that we all feel.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book so far (some that are funny, some thoughtful, and some both):

"I love these stories because they show where we began, and therefore how far we have come, from the blame and delusions of our drinking days to the gentle illusions by which we stay sober [Lamott is a former alcholic] . Now we understand that the blanket really does protect Linus and that Schroeder really does play lovely music on a toy piano, because both of them keep at it. They believe." (189)

"I don't know why life isn't constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistkes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and our kids do scayr things and our parents get old and don't always remember to put pants on before hey go out for a stroll. I don't know why it's not more like it is in the movies, why things don't come out neatly and lessons can't be learned when you're in the mood for learning them, why love and grace often come in such motley packages." (143-144)

"Out of nowhere I remembered something one of my priest freinds had said, that grace is having a commitment to- or at least an acceptance of- being ineffective and foolish." (142-143)

"I do not understand at all the mystery of grace- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. It can be received gladly or grudgingly, in big gulps or in tiny tastes, like a deer at the salt. I gobbled it, licked it, heldit down between my little hooves." (143)

" I drank up her generosity, the radical wisdom in her stories, the wonderful sense of perspective, grounded in self-forgiveness. She pointed out her own flaws and foibles, but it was clear that she was not bogged down in them, not caught up in the small stuff. Foibles are not worth hating- that was the point; what was worth hating were poverty, injustice, the killing of our sons and brothers." (140)

"I am someone who can say with all sincerity that I owe my life to the movement [the feminist movement] , but as it first emerged from New York, much of its gospel was defined by grown-up daughters who did not want to risk having anything in common with what had been their mothers' entrapment. As a result, some of the language of the early movement contained an ugly rejection of mothers, of motherhood, of softness, of wanting to be in deep relationships with men. But at the sme time, coming out of New York from the tenements and the village and the antiwar movement was a short-story writer whose work taught me that you could be all the traditional feminine things- a mother, a lover, a listener, a nurterer- and you could be critically astute and radical and have a minority opinion that was profoundly moral. You could escape the fate of your mother, become who you were born to be, and succeed in the world without having to participate in traditionally male terms- with hardness, coldness, one-upmanship, without having to compete and come out the winner." (139-140)

"I understood that Auden meant grace in the theological sense, meant it as the force that infuses our lives and keeps letting us off the hook. It is unearned love- the love that goes beofre, that greets you on the way. It's the grace you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there." (139)
"And there's something so graceful about a skinny little kid with poor coordination who's running in a gangly, goony way, arms akimbo, knees knocking-- this hopless little kid who will always be picked last in school-yard games but who's just so happy to be running to fast, running the exact way she's running." (138)

"Our preacher Veronica said recently that this is life's nature: that lives and hearts get broken- those of people we love, those of people we'll ever meet. She said that the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less okay for now need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, untilt he healer comes. You sit with people, she said, you bring them juice and graham crackers." (106)

"'Traveling Mercies,' the old people at our church said to her when she left. This is why they always say one of us goes off for awhile. Traveling mercies: love the journey, God is with you, come home safe and sound." (106)

"We said a prayer together that we find a solution, that we feel calmer. I don't believe in God as an old man in the clouds- 'bespectacled old Yahweh,' as the late great John Gardner put it, 'scratching his chin through his mountains of beard.' But I do believe that God is with us even when we're at our craziest and that this goodness guides, provides, protects, even in traffic." (110)

"But the way I see things, God loves you the same whether you're being elegant [noble, virtuous] or not. It feels much better when you are, but even when you can't fake it, God still listens to your prayers." (120)

"I went around saying for a long time that I am not one of those Christians who is heavily into forgiveness- that I am one of the other kind. But even though it was funny and actually true, it started to be too painful to stay this way. They say we are not punished for the sin but by the sin and I began to feel punished by my unwillingness to forgive. By the time I decided to become one of the ones who is heavily into forgivenss, it was like trying to become a marathon runner in middle age; everything in me either recoiled, as from a hot flame, or laughed a little too hysterically. I tried to will myself into forgiving various people who had harmed me directly or indirectly over the years- four former Republican presidents, three relatives, two old boyfriends, and one teacher in a pear tree-- it was 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' meets Taxi Driver. But in te end I could only pretend that I had. I decided I was starting off with my sights aimed too high. As C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity, 'If we really want to learn how to forgive, perhaps we'd better start with something easier than the Gestapo.'" (128)

"One Sunday when I was struggling with this, the Scripture reading came from the sixth chapter of Luke: 'Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.' Now, try as I might , I cannot find a loophole in that. It does not say, 'Forgive everyone, unless they've said something rude about your child.' And it doesn't even say, ' Just try." It says, If you want to be forgiven, if you want to experience that kind of love, you have to forgive everyone in your life- everyone, even the very worst boyfriend you ever had- even, for God's sake, yourself" ...... "The clipping sid forgiveness meant that God is for giving, and that we are here for giving too, and that to withhold love or blessings is to be completely dilusional." (134-135)

"Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me,' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you." (82)

Who Knew?

So even though I'm not finished decorating my blog, and am hoping to find a blog template that is more "me" I thought I would go ahead and start posting. I also thought it would be good to start on a positive note.

Tonight we had our alpha chi semi-formal dance (my last ever....tear). It was of coarse quite fun but there was one thing in particular that really stood out to me. Our chapter turned in senior superlatives about a week ago, and tonight they announced who had gotten awards (most seniors did) tonight at the dance.

Well, to my surprise, I actually won one! I honestly did not expect to. I often don't feel like I fit in with the senior class and I thought I would be the senior who was completely forgotten about. The award I ended up receiving was the "unsung hero" award, which was really flattering (once I found out what it meant..haha!) So often I feel so invisible, like people don't really notice me or the ways I try to help. I'm not super outgoing so I've never really felt that outgoing, and I'm shy so it takes me a while to get to know people.

I'm not sure why people thought I deserved this award but it was heart-warming. A self-diagnosed wallflower, I've never been one of those people who's often in the spotlight (and to tell you the truth, I'm not good at being in it). It felt good to realize that people do take notice of the ways I try to strengthen relationships and help sisters out and just love on them in any way I can. As I thought more about what the phrase "unsung hero" meant I felt even more honored because I think this is a life philosophy I want to embrace. I hope that when I die people will look back at my life and still say the same thing. Why? Because the "unsung hero" seems to play the role of the humble servant. I hope that my life embodies that, in small and large ways. I hope I can not rely on praise in life- realizing that it is going to be fleeting. So often in my life I've worried so much about what people thought, and how I thought they didn't like me, and have wished people would praise me more. And I still do sometimes, but I've also realized that seeking people's praise and acceptance is never going to make me truly happy, is never going to fill my soul with contentment.

I have to admit, though. It is nice to hear compliments like this every once in while. It's like Charlie says in The Perks of Being A Wallflower: "I don't think we should base so much on weight, muscles, and a good hair day, but when it happens, it's nice. It really is."

Okay, well I'm going to end at that because it's really late and I'm tired. Till next time! Cheers.