Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
38 quotes
"I kept my expectations low, which is one of the secrets of life."
"Help" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, "Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom."
"I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be. There are parts I don’t love—until a few years ago, I had no idea that you could have cellulite on your stomach—but not only do I get along with me most of the time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side. Left to my own devices, would I trade this for firm thighs, fewer wrinkles, a better memory? You bet I would. That is why it’s such a blessing that I’m not left to my own devices."
"Most of us don’t notice how great we look until years, even decades later. Not long ago, I was looking at photos of myself at various ages and weights—way before the neckular deterioration began, way before the fanny pack of menopause—and I could see how gorgeous I must have looked to everyone else."
"There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside."
"When we did art with the kids, the demons would lie down."
"I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns."
"Certainty is missing the point entirely."
"A good marriage is supposed to be one where each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better deal."
"Usually if you pray from the heart, you get an answer—the phone rings or the mail comes, and light gets in through the cracks, so you can see the next right thing to do. That’s all you need."
"Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside."
"Prayer usually means praise, or surrender, acknowledging that you have run out of bullets."
"First find a path, and a little light to see by. Then push up your sleeves and start helping."
"Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare..."
"If you haven't already, you will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and you never completely get over the loss of a deeply beloved person. But this is also good news. The person lives forever, in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through, and you learn to dance with the banged-up heart."
"Hope is not logical. It always comes as a surprise, just when you think all hope is lost. Hope is the cousin to grief, and both take time: you can’t short-circuit grief, or emptiness, and you can’t patch it up with your bicycle tire tube kit. You have to take the next right action."
"Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?"
"It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born.” That line came back to me, from out of nowhere, and I decided to practice radical hope, hope in the face of not having a clue."
"We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you."
"You celebrate what works and you take tender care of what doesn’t, with lotion, polish, and kindness."
"What you're looking for is already inside you. You've heard this before, but the holy thing inside you really is that which causes you to seek it. You can't buy it, lease it, rent it, date it, or apply for it. The best job in the world can't give it to you. Neither can succes, or fame, or financial security - besides which, there ain't no such thing."
"But you don't always get what you want;,you get what you get"
"When I asked Father Tom where we find God in this present darkness, he said that God is in creation, and to get outdoors as much as you can."
"He lost the great big outward thing, the good- looking package, and the real parts endured. They shine through like crazy, the brillian mind and humor, the depth of generosity, the intense blue yes, those beautiful hands."
"One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness"