| Travelling Mercies - Some Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott This book is one of those that gives me fits when I ask for it in a bookstore. The cashier says, "what section would it be in?" and I answer "well, nonfiction maybe... um, literature. Personal essay, is that a section? It could be under religion or spirituality... or autobiography?" The cashier just looks at me and tries not to laugh. Lamott writes about herself and all around her. The first third of the book, my favorite part, is a journey of faith from California hippie agnosticism/mysticism to strict atheism to christianity. She writes about her son, about her friends, alive and dying, about her journies and discoveries. She is very real, very tough, very high-strung emotionally and quite honest, I think. She reminded me of Ani Difranco -- if Ani Difranco was a bit older, had a son, was christian, and lived in California. This book could be a cool drink of water to many sick and tired of "mainstream" christianity. Anne Lamott isn't mainstream, but she is definitely christian. She writes, "My friends like to tell each other that I am not really a born-again Christian. They think of me more along the lines of that old Jonathan Miller routine, where he said, "I'm not really a Jew -- I'm Jew-ish." They think I am Christian-ish. But I'm not. I'm just a bad Christian. A bad born-again Christian. And certainly, like the apostle Peter, I am capable of denying it, of presenting myself as a sort of leftist liberation-theology enthusiast and maybe sort of a vaguely Jesusy bon vivant. But it's not true...I could go to a gathering of foot-wash Baptists and, except for my dreadlocks, fit right in. I would wash their feet; I would let them wash mine." Anne Lamott describes herself as "slightly more anxious than the average hypochondriac", and maybe it's well-earned. There is a lot of disease and dying in this book -- often used to paint a wonderfully painfully important lesson about faith, God, and people. I can't quite decide if reading this while being close to a serious illness would be incredibly good or disastrously bad. All, in all, her writing is pretty good. At the end of some chunks, I was a little lost about how we got to this conclusion, or even what conclusion we came to. But the book is quite enjoyable, and potentially powerful. It's a quick, easy read, with pieces to savour. A sample: "Nothing happened. No burning bush, no cereal flakes dropping from heaven, forming letters of instruction in the snow. It's just that God began to act like Sam-I-Am from Green Eggs and Ham. Everywhere I turned were helpful household hints on loving one's enemies, on turning the other cheek, and on how doing that makes you look in a whole new direction. There were admonitions about the self-destructiveness of not forgiving people, and reminders that this usually doesn't hurt other people, so much as it hurts you. In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die. Fortune cookies, postcards, bumper stickers, everything but skywriting -- yet I kept feeling that I could not, would not forgive her in a box, could not would not forgive her with a fox, not on a train, not in the rain."... |