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But You Can’t Get To Any Of These Truths By Sitting In A Field Smiling Beatifically, Avoiding Your Anger And Damage And Grief. Your Anger And Damage And Grief Are The Way To The Truth. We Don’t Have Much Truth To Express Unless We Have Gone Into Those Rooms And Closets And Woods And Abysses That We Were Told Not Go In To. When We Have Gone In And Looked Around For A Long While, Just Breathing And Finally Taking It In – Then We Will Be Able To Speak In Our Own Voice And To Stay In The Present Moment. And That Moment Is Home.

-Anne Lamott

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But You Can’t Get

Anne Lamott

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But You Can’t Get To Any Of These Truths By Sitting In A Field Smiling Beatifically, Avoiding Your Anger And Damage And Grief. Your Anger And Damage And Grief Are The Way To The Truth. We Don’t Have Much Truth To Express Unless We Have Gone Into Those Rooms And Closets And Woods And Abysses That We Were Told Not Go In To. When We Have Gone In And Looked Around For A Long While, Just Breathing And Finally Taking It In – Then We Will Be Able To Speak In Our Own Voice And To Stay In The Present Moment. And That Moment Is Home.

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Some People Seem To Understand This - That Life And Change Take Time - But I Am Not One Of Those People.

Life And Change

Frederick Buechner Is One Of My Favorite Writers. The Eyes Of The Heart Is Beautiful And Wise, Full Of Insight, Charm, And Tenderness.

My Coming To Faith Did Not Start With A Leap But Rather A Series Of Staggers From What Seemed Like One Safe Place To Another. Like Lily Pads, Round And Green, These Places Summoned And Then Held Me Up While I Grew. Each Prepared Me For The Next Leaf On Which I Would Land, And In This Way I Moved Across The Swamp Of Doubt And Fear.

You Just Have To Keep Getting Out Of Your Own Way So That Whatever It Is That Wants To Be Written Can Use You To Write It.

Becoming A Writer Is About Becoming Conscious.

Right Foot, Left Foot, Right Foot, Breathe.

For Some Of Us, Books Are As Important As Almost Anything Else On Earth. What A Miracle It Is That Out Of These Small, Flat, Rigid Squares Of Paper Unfolds World After World After World, Worlds That Sing To You, Comfort And Quiet Or Excite You. Books Help Us Understand Who We Are And How We Are To Behave. They Show Us What Community And Friendship Mean; They Show Us How To Live And Die.

Being Enough Was Going To Have To Be An Inside Job.

A Writer Paradoxically Seeks The Truth And Tells Lies Every Step Of The Way.

You Don't Always Have To Chop With The Sword Of Truth. You Can Point With It Too.

If You Want To Know How God Feels About Money, Look At Whom She Gives It To.

There Are A Lot Of Us, Some Published, Some Not, Who Think The Literary Life Is The Loveliest One Possible, This Life Of Reading And Writing And Corresponding. We Think This Life Is Nearly Ideal.

Good Writing Is About Telling The Truth.

Telling The Truth

If You Fixate On The Big Picture, The Whole Shebang, The Overview, You Miss The Stitching.

I Know That If I Feel Any Deprivation Or Fear [about Money], The Solution Is To Give. The Solution Is To Go Find Some Mothers On The Streets Of San Raphael And Give Them Tens And Twenties And Mail Off Another $50 To Doctors Without Borders To Use For The Refugees In Kosovo. Because I Know That Giving Is The Way We Can Feel Abundant. Giving Is The Way That We Fill Ourselves Up.... For Me The Way To Fill Up Is Through Service And Sharing And Getting Myself To Give More Than I Feel Comfortable Giving.

I Went To Goucher College In Maryland For The Best Possible Reasons - To Learn - But Then I Dropped Out At 19 For The Best Possible Reasons - To Become A Writer.

Writing And Reading Decrease Our Sense Of Isolation. They Deepen And Widen And Expand Our Sense Of Life: They Feed The Soul.

There Is Nothing As Sweet As A Comeback, When You Are Down And Out, About To Lose, And Out Of Time.

I Find Most Famous Christians To Be Full Of Themselves And Of Prejudice And Self-loathing, Masquerading As Devout Religious Belief. I Find All Fundamentalism To Be Terrifying And Very Destructive.

Now. Maybe You Think It Is Arrogant Or Self Centered, Or Ridiculous For Me To Believe That God Bothered To Wiggle A Cheap Bolt Out Of My New Used Car Because He Or She Needed To Keep Me Away For A Few Days Until Just The Moment When My Old Friend Most Needed Me To Help Her Mother Move Into Whatever Comes Next. Maybe Nothing Conscious Helped To Stall Me So That I Would Be There When I Could Be Most Useful. Or Maybe It Did. I’ll Never Know For Sure. And Anyway, It Doesn’t Really Matter.

We All Know We're Going To Die; What's Important Is The Kind Of Men And Women We Are In The Face Of This.

This Is The Most Profound Spiritual Truth I Know: That Even When We're Most Sure That Love Can't Conquer All, It Seems To Anyway. It Goes Down Into The Rat Hole With Us, In The Guise Of Our Friends, And There It Swells And Comforts. It Gives Us Second Winds, Third Winds, Hundredth Winds.

Rituals Are A Good Signal To Your Unconscious That It Is Time To Kick In.

The Grief And Tears Didn't Wash Me Away. They Gave Me My Life Back! They Cleansed Me, Baptized Me, Hydrated The Earth At My Feet.

Almost Everything Will Work Again If You Unplug It For A Few Minutes, Including You.

It Was Not Facing What Life Dealt That Made You Crazy, But Rather Trying To Set Life Straight Where It Was Unstraightenable.

I've Always Thought I Could Use My Brain And My Heart To Jockey Everyone Around To The Good. But Life Is Not Jockeyable. When You Try, You Make People Infinitely Crazier Than They Already Were, Including Or Especially Yourself.

I Think We're All Pretty Crazy On This Bus. I'm Not Sure I Know Anyone Who's Got All The Dots On His Or Her Dice.

...[t]here Should Be A Real Sense Of Your Imagination And Your Memories Walking And Woolgathering, Tramping The Hills, Romping All Over The Place. Trust Them. Don't Look At Your Feet To See If You Are Doing It Right. Just Dance.

And She Is Going To Dance, Dance Hungry, Dance Full, Dance Each Cold Astonishing Moment, Now When She Is Young And Again When She Is Old.

If Something Inside Of You Is Real, We Will Probably Find It Interesting, And It Will Probably Be Universal. So You Must Risk Placing Real Emotion At The Center Of Your Work. Write Straight Into The Emotional Center Of Things. Write Toward Vulnerability. Risk Being Unliked. Tell The Truth As You Understand It. If You’re A Writer You Have A Moral Obligation To Do This. And It Is A Revolutionary Act—truth Is Always Subversive.

Grace Arrived, Like The Big, Loopy Stitches With Which A Grandmotherly Stranger Might Baste Your Hem Temporarily.

The Reason I Never Give Up Hope Is Because Everything Is So Basically Hopeless.

When I Was A Kid, Our Family Used To Watch 'bonanza.' I Really Liked Having A Sunday Night Tv Ritual.

My Heart Was Broken And My Head Was Just Barely Inhabitable

I Read The Same Amount Of Nonfiction And Fiction.

Fiction And Nonfiction

I Had No Interest In Being A Theologian, Especially Not A Christian, As I Had Been Raised By Progressive Atheists. We Bowed Down Every Morning To The Golden Calf Of The New York Times, Noam Chomsky, Hannah Arendt. I Tried To Get My Parents To Respect And Nourish Me, Let Alone Delight In Me, So Even Though I Secretly Loved And Believed In The Divine Something - Goodness, Good Orderly Direction, Gift Of Desperation, The Cosmic Muffin - I Wasn't Ready Yet To Commit Myself To The Study Of A Higher Power.

This Is The Easter Message, That Awakening Is Possible, To The Goodness Of God, The Sacredness Of Human Life, The Sisterhood And Brotherhood Of All.

I Was Raised In A Family Where None Of Us Ever Raised A Voice, So There Was No Room To Express Feelings Of Rage Or Even Unabashed Joy - A Little Bashed Joy, Here Or There, Or Being Mildly Disgruntled.

Here's How I Became Myself: Mess, Failure, Mistakes, Disappointments, And Extensive Reading; Limbo, Indecision, Setbacks, Addiction, Public Embarrassment, And Endless Conversations With My Best Women Friends; The Loss Of People Without Whom I Could Not Live, The Loss Of Pets That Left Me Reeling, Dizzying Betrayals But Much Greater Loyalty, And Overall, Choosing As My Motto William Blake's Line That We Are Here To Learn To Endure The Beams Of Love.

My Friend Terry Says That When You Need To Make A Decision, In Your Work Or Otherwise, And You Don’t Know What To Do, Just Do One Thing Or The Other, Because The Worst That Can Happen Is That You Will Have Made A Terrible Mistake.

I Am Going To Try To Pay Attention To The Spring. I Am Going To Look Around At All The Flowers, And Look Up At The Hectic Trees. I Am Going To Close My Eyes And Listen.

They Believe That If They Do Get Published, A Wonderful New Life Is In Store. It Will Turn Out That Deep Down They Are Really Valuable People And Will Have Lots Of Money From Now On And Really Cool People Like Ethan Hawke Will Be Dropping By All The Time. But It's A Lie. Being A Published Writer Will Make Them Long To Be Only As Mentally Ill As They Are Now. Their Current Level Of Obsession And Doubt And Self-loathing Will Look Like The Good Old Days. Honest.

And I Felt Like My Heart Had Been So Thoroughly And Irreparably Broken That There Could Be No Real Joy Again, That At Best There Might Eventually Be A Little Contentment. Everyone Wanted Me To Get Help And Rejoin Life, Pick Up The Pieces And Move On, And I Tried To, I Wanted To, But I Just Had To Lie In The Mud With My Arms Wrapped Around Myself, Eyes Closed, Grieving, Until I Didn’t Have To Anymore.

Hope Begins In The Dark.

When Writers Make Us Shake Our Heads With The Exactness Of Their Prose And Their Truths, And Even Make Us Laugh About Ourselves Or Life, Our Buoyancy Is Restored. We Are Given A Shot At Dancing With, Or At Least Clapping Along With, The Absurdity Of Life, Instead Of Being Squashed By It Over And Over Again.

Absurdity Of Life

After A While The Middle-aged Person Who Lives In Her Head Begins To Talk To Her Soul, The Kid.

My Experience As A Writer Is That You Really Do Write Seven And Eight Pages To Find The Paragraph You Were After All Along.

The Mix In Our Rooms Is So Touching: The Clutter And The Cracks In The Wall Belie A Bleakness Or Brokenness In Our Lives; While Photos And A Few Rare Objects Show Our Pride, Our Rare Shining Moments ... These Rooms Are Future Ruins

Never Compare Your Insides To Everyone Else's Outsides.

Radical Self-care Is Quantum, And Radiates Out Into The Atmosphere, Like A Little Fresh Air. It Is A Huge Gift To The World. When People Respond By Saying, “well, Isn’t She Full Of Herself,” Smile Obliquely, Like Mona Lisa, And Make Both Of You A Nice Cup Of Tea.

Part Of Me Loves And Respects Men So Desperately, And Part Of Me Thinks They Are So Embarrassingly Incompetent At Life And In Love. You Have To Teach Them The Very Basics Of Emotional Literacy. You Have To Teach Them How To Be There For You, And Part Of Me Feels Tender Toward Them And Gentle, And Part Of Me Is So Afraid Of Them, Afraid Of Any More Violation.

For Too Long, And Despite What People Told Me, I Had Fallen For What The Culture Said About Beauty, Youth, Features, Heights, Weights, Hair Textures, Upper Arms.

You Own Everything That Happened To You. Tell Your Stories.

I Get To Tell My Truth. I Get To Seek Meaning And Realization. I Get To Live Fully, Wildly, Imperfectly. That's Why I'm Alive. And All I Actually Have To Offer As A Writer Is My Version Of Life. Every Single Thing That Has Happened To Me Is Mine.

You Can Get The Monkey Off Your Back, But The Circus Never Leaves Town

Tidiness Makes Me Think Of Held Breath, Of Suspended Animation.

The Truth Is That Progress Is Usually Small And Sneaky.

Maybe It's Wishful Thinking, This Snaggly Faith Of Mine, Or Maybe It's Miles Davis Saying, Don't Play What's There, Play What's Not There.

Mine Was A Patchwork God, Sewn Together From Bits Of Rag And Ribbon, Eastern And Western, Pagan And Hebrew, Everything But The Kitchen Sink And Jesus.

But You Don't Always Get What You Want;,you Get What You Get

Reading Poetry And Reading The Great Works Of The Canon That We Were Reading In The '60s And The '70s And '80s Was Mind Altering.

I Do Not Have Deep Theological Understanding Or Opinion, But I Do Not Read The Bible As The Literal Word Of God.

I Sat Down In The Sand, Breathless With Shame And Failure. God, I Thought, Some Defender Of The Weak. Some Freedom Fighter: Joan Of Arc In Sunscreen.

If You're Lucky You Find Your Way Into A Spiritual Community And You Start To Find The Great Teachers Of All The Ages Who Said The Same Thing. There's Only Love, You're Made Of Love.

There Is Something So Tender About This To Me, About Being Willing To Have Your Makeup Wash Off, Your Eyes Tear Up, Your Nose Start To Run. Its Tender Partly Because It Harkens Back To Infancy, To Your Mother Washing Your Face With Love And Lots Or Water, Tending To You, Making You Clean All Over Again.

I Used To Think That Paired Opposites Were A Given, That Love Was The Opposite Of Hate, Right The Opposite Of Wrong. But Now I Think We Sometimes Buy Into These Concepts Because It Is So Much Easier To Embrace Absolutes Than To Suffer Reality. I Don't Think Anything Is The Opposite Of Love. Reality Is Unforgivingly Complex.

Your Inside Person Doesn’t Age. Your Inside Person Is Soul, Is Heart, In The Eternal Now, The Ageless, The Old, The Young, All The Ages You’ve Ever Been.

No" Is A Complete Sentence.

Only Grieving Can Heal Grief; The Passage Of Time Will Lessen The Acuteness, But Time Alone, Without The Direct Experience Of Grief, Will Not Heal It.

Having A Baby Is Like Suddenly Getting The World's Worst Roommate.

I Like The Desert For Short Periods Of Time, From Inside A Car, With The Windows Rolled Up, And The Doors Locked. I Prefer Beach Resorts With Room Service.

Most Marriages Are A Mess, And The Children Get Caught Between Two Bitter, Antagonistic Parents. My Parents Stayed Married For 27 Unhappy Years, Till Their Kids Were Grown, And This Was A Catastrophe For Us.

Tell The Truth As You Understand It. If You're A Writer, You Have A Moral Obligation To Do This. And It Is A Revolutionary Act - Truth Is Always Subversive.

When Hope Is Not Pinned Wriggling Onto A Shiny Image Or Expectation, It Sometimes Floats Forth And Opens.

Rest And Laughter Are The Most Spiritual And Subversive Acts Of All. Laugh, Rest, Slow Down.

The Opposite Of Faith Is Not Doubt, It’s Certainty.

Doubt And Certainty

All I Ever Wanted Since I Arrived Here On Earth Are The Same Things I Needed As A Baby, To Go From Cold To Warm, Lonely To Held, The Vessel To The Giver, Empty To Full.

I Am A Terrible And Lazy Christian. I Do Not Believe That The Bible Is The Literal Word Of God. I Just Skip About A Third Of It.

I Thought Such Awful Thoughts That I Cannot Even Say Them Out Loud Because They Would Make Jesus Want To Drink Gin Straight Out Of The Cat Dish.

Thirty Years Ago My Older Brother, Who Was Ten Years Old At The Time, Was Trying To Get A Report Written On Birds That He'd Had Three Months To Write, Which Was Due The Next Day. We Were Out At Our Family Cabin In Bolinas, And He Was At The Kitchen Table Close To Tears, Surrounded By Binder Paper And Pencils And Unopened Books About Birds, Immobilized By The Hugeness Of The Task Ahead. Then My Father Sat Down Beside Him Put His Arm Around My Brother's Shoulder, And Said, "bird By Bird, Buddy. Just Take It Bird By Bird.

Forgiveness Is Giving Up All Hope Of Having Had A Better Past.

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention.

I Spend Most Of My Time Alone, Because I So Value And Thrive In The Quiet. Heaven.

Presents Can Make Up For Some Of The Disappointments That Life Doles Out, Such As It Makes Almost No Sense And Is Coming To An End More Quickly Than Ever.

Coming To An End

I Think Drugs Are Part Of The Magical Possibilities Of Youth And I Wouldn't Be Here If I Had Continued With It.

Radical Self-care Is Quantum, And Radiates Out Into The Atmosphere, Like A Little Fresh Air.

Close Friendships Are One Of Life's Miracles - That A Few People Get To Know You Deeply, All Your Messy Or Shadowy Stuff Along With The Beauty And Sweetness, And They Still Love You. Not Only Still Love You, But Love You More And More Deeply. I Would Do Anything For My Closest Friends, And They Would Do Almost Anything For Me, And That Is About As Spiritual A Truth As You Can Get.

A Big Heart Is Both A Clunky And A Delicate Thing; It Doesn't Protect Itself And It Doesn't Hide. It Stands Out, Like A Baby's Fontanel, Where You Can See The Soul Pulse Through.

...it Really Is Easier To Experience Spiritual Connection When Your Life Is In The Process Of Coming Apart.

My Father Really Taught Me That You Really Develop The Habit Of Writing And You Sit Down At The Same Time Every Day, You Don't Wait For Inspiration.

If Your Wife Locks You Out Of The House, You Don't Have A Problem With Your Door.

This Is A Very Violent Place To Live, The Earth, And We're A Very Violent Species. Cain Is Still Killing Abel. We See That Every Day.

Quiet, Deep Breath After Any Prayer Is Another Form Of Amen.

As A Christian And A Feminist, The Most Important Message I Can Carry And Fight For Is The Sacredness Of Each Human Life, And Reproductive Rights For All Women Are A Crucial Part Of That. It Is A Moral Necessity That We Not Be Forced To Bring Children Into The World For Whom We Cannot Be Responsible And Adoring And Present. We Must Not Inflict Life On Children Who Will Be Resented; We Must Not Inflict Unwanted Children On Society.

It's Funny: I Always Imagined When I Was A Kid That Adults Had Some Kind Of Inner Toolbox Full Of Shiny Tools: The Saw Of Discernment, The Hammer Of Wisdom, The Sandpaper Of Patience. But Then When I Grew Up I Found That Life Handed You These Rusty Bent Old Tools - Friendships, Prayer, Conscience, Honesty - And Said 'do The Best You Can With These, They Will Have To Do'. And Mostly, Against All Odds, They Do.

Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived...tidiness Makes Me Think Of Held Breath, Of Suspended Animation... Perfectionism Is A Mean, Frozen Form Of Idealism, While Messes Are The Artist's True Friend. What People Somehow Forgot To Mention When We Were Children Was That We Need To Make Messes In Order To Find Out Who We Are And Why We Are Here.

Sam Said To Me The Other Day, "i Love You Like 20 Tyrannosauruses On 20 Mountaintops," And This Is The Exact Same Way In Which I Love Him.

...since You Can't Heal Your Own Sick Mind With Your Own Sick Mind, I Needed To Consult Somebody Else's Sick Mind.

Life Does Not Seem To Present Itself To Me For My Convenience, To Box Itself Up Nicely So I Can Write About It With Wisdom And A Point To Make Before Putting It On A Shelf Somewhere.

The Society To Which We Belong Seems To Be Dying Or Is Already Dead. I Don't Mean To Sound Dramatic, But Clearly The Dark Side Is Rising. Things Could Not Have Been More Odd And Frightening In The Middle Ages. But The Tradition Of Artists Will Continue No Matter What Form The Society Takes. And This Is Another Reason To Write: People Need Us, To Mirror For Them And For Each Other Without Distortion-not To Look Around And Say, 'look At Yourselves, You Idiots!,' But To Say, 'this Is Who We Are.

I Don't Think Anything Is The Opposite Of Love.

I Wish Grace And Healing Were More Abracadabra Kind Of Things. Also, That Delicate Silver Bells Would Ring To Announce Grace's Arrival. But No, It's Clog And Slog And Scootch, On The Floor, In The Silence, In The Dark.

Pastor Veronica Told The Story Of A Sparrow Lying In The Street With Its Legs Straight Up In The Air, Straining. A Warhorse Walks Up To It, And Says, 'what On Earth Are You Doing?' The Sparrow Replies, 'i Heard The Sky Was Falling, And I Wanted To Help.'the Warhorse Sneers-- 'do You Really Think You're Going To Hold Back The Sky, With Those Scrawny Little Legs?' And The Sparrow Says, 'one Does What One Can.'

Once An Old Woman At My Church Said The Secret Is That God Loves Us Exactly The Way We Are And That He Loves Us Too Much To Let Us Stay Like This, And I'm Just Trying To Trust That.

Anything You Say From Your Heart To God Is A Prayer. But "why" Is Rarely A Useful Question. When Job Keeps Asking God Why He Has Had Such Loss And Suffering, God Says, "you Wouldn't Understand." I Always Want To Know Why, And I Almost Never Have A Good Answer.

I Don’t Know Why Life Isn’t Constructed To Be Seamless And Safe, Why We Make Such Glaring Mistakes, Things Fall So Short Of Our Expectations, And Our Hearts Get Broken And Out Kids Do Scary Things And Our Parents Get Old And Don’t Always Remember To Put Pants On Before They 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 Packaging.

I Was Raised By My Parents To Believe That You Had A Moral Obligation To Try And Save The World. You Sent Money To The Red Cross, You Registered People To Vote, You Marched In Rallies, Stood In Vigils, Picked Up Litter.

I Just Try To Love And Serve Everyone, And Bring Everyone Water, And Lend An Ear; That's What Jesus Said To Do.

All Freedom Comes From Discipline.

If The Present Is Really All We Have, Then The Present Lasts Forever.

You Are Going To Love Some Of Your Characters Because They Are You Or Some Facet Of You, And You Are Going To Hate Some Of Your Characters For The Same Reason.

I'm Here To Be Me, Which Is Taking A Great Deal Longer Than I Had Hoped.

I Would Seriously Rather Be In A Long Line At The Dmv Than Eat With People I Don't Know.

The Women's Movement Burst Forth When I Was Fifteen. That Was When I Began To Believe That Life Might Semi-work Out After All. The Cavalry Had Arrived. Women Were Starting To Say That You Got To Tell The Truth Now, That You Had To Tell The Truth If You Were Going To Heal And Have An Authentic Life.

I Believe In Listening To The - What Calls You From Your Heart And Your Spirit And If You Do It Badly, Like Learning To Dance, You Do It Badly Or You're Going To Kick Yourself When You Grow Old And You Meant To Do It.

Certainty Is Missing The Point Entirely.

I See That Children Fill The Existential Hollowness Many People Feel; That When We Have Children, We Know They Will Need Us, And Maybe Love Us, But We Don't Have A Clue How Hard It Is Going To Be.

The Movement Of Grace Toward Gratitude Brings Us From The Package Of Self-obsessed Madness To A Spiritual Awakening.

Living On Earth Has Always Been A Dangerous Way To Spend Your Time.

You Should Not Bring More Items And Hurdles To The Obstacle Course.

Sometimes Grace Is A Ribbon Of Mountain Air That Gets In Through The Cracks.

...most Of The Time, All You Have Is The Moment, And The Imperfect Love Of The People Around You.

... One Of The Immutable Laws Of Being Human Is That The People Who Show Up Are The Right People. [p. 65]

I Cry Intermittently, Like A Summer Rain. I Don't Feel Racked By The Crying; In Fact, It Hydrates Me. Then Rage Wells Up In Me, And I Want To Take A Crowbar To All The Cars In The Neighborhood.

I Suspect That He Was A Child Who Thought Differently Than His Peers, Who May Have Had Serious Conversations With Grown-ups, Who As A Young Person, Like Me, Accepted Being Alone Quite A Lot. I Think That This Sort Of Person Often Becomes Either A Writer Or A Career Criminal.

Forgiveness Means It Finally Becomes Unimportant That You Hit Back.

The Whistle Is Always Waiting To Be Blown, And In Some Ways, It Gets Me To Do Better Work.

Here Are The Two Best Prayers I Know: 'help Me, Help Me, Help Me,' And 'thank You, Thank You, Thank You.' A Woman I Know Says, For Her Morning Prayer, 'whatever,' And Then For The Evening, 'oh, Well,' But Has Conceded That These Prayers Are More Palatable For People Without Children.

I Went To Church With My Grandparents Sometimes And I Loved It.

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention. You Can Get Into A Kind Of Wordsworthian Openness To The World, Where You See In Everything The Essence Of Holiness.

I Devoured Books Like A Person Taking Vitamins, Afraid That Otherwise I Would Remain This Gelatinous Narcissist, With No Possibility Of Ever Becoming Thoughtful, Of Ever Being Taken Seriously.

When You're Conscious And Writing From A Place Of Insight And Simplicity And Real Caring About The Truth, You Have The Ability To Throw The Lights On For Your Reader.

And That Almost Everyone Was Struggling To Wake Up, To Be Loved, And Not Feel So Afraid All The Time. That's What The Cars, Degrees, Booze, And Drugs Were About.

You Keep Working On Your Piece Over And Over, Trying To Get The Sections And Paragraphs And Sentences And The Whole Just Right, But There's A Point At Which You Can Tell You've Begun Hurting The Work With Your Perfectionism. Then You Have To Release The Work To New Eyes.

Mattie Sat At The Table, Obsessing, Orbiting Around Herself. She Was Sick Of Her Worried, Hostile Mind. It Would Have Killed Her Long Before, She Felt, If It Hadn't Needed The Transportation.

I Didn't Need To Understand The Hypostatic Unity Of The Trinity; I Just Needed To Turn My Life Over To Whoever Came Up With Redwood Trees.

Let’s Think Of Reverence As Awe, As Presence In And Openness To The World…try Walking Around With A Child Who’s Going, ‘wow, Wow! Look At That Dirty Dog! Look At That Burned-down House! Look At That Red Sky!’ And The Child Points, And You Look, And You See, And You Start Going, ‘wow! Look At That Huge Crazy Hedge! Look At That Teeny Little Baby! Look At The Scary Dark Cloud!’ I Think This Is How We Are Supposed To Be In The World – Present And In Awe.

Raising A Child, Whether Or Not It Is Yours, Is Like Nautilus Of The Heart And Soul.

I've Seen Prayers Answered. But Often, In My Experiences, If You Get What You Pray For, You've Really Shortchanged Yourself.

Rule 1: When All Else Fails, Follow Instructions. And Rule 2: Don't Be An Asshole.

When All Else Fails

I Still Encourage Anyone Who Feels At All Compelled To Write To Do So. I Just Try To Warn People Who Hope To Get Published That Publication Is Not All It Is Cracked Up To Be. But Writing Is.

I Thought The Secret Of Life Was Obvious: Be Here Now, Love As If Your Whole Life Depended On It, Find Your Life's Work, And Try To Get Hold Of A Giant Panda.

I Don't Have Any Romantic Views Of Parenting. Every Step Of The Way It's Really Hard. It's A Dangerous World, Physically And Psychologically.

Dangerous World

It Helps To Resign As The Controller Of Your Fate. All That Energy We Expend To Keep Things Running Right Is Not What's Keeping Things Running Right. We're Bugs Struggling In The River, Brightly Visible To The Trout Below. With That Fact In Mind, People Like Me Make Up All These Rules To Give Us The Illusion That We Are In Charge. I Need To Say To Myself, They're Not Needed, Hon. Just Take In The Buggy Pleasures. Be Kind To The Others, Grab The Fleck Of Riverweed, Notice How Beautifully Your Bug Legs Scull.

And As It Turns Out, If One Person Is Praying For You, Buckle Up. Things Can Happen.

Lies Cannot Nourish Or Protect You. Only Freedom From Fear, Freedom From Lies, Can Make Us Beautiful, And Keep Us Safe.

I've Known For Years That Resentments Don't Hurt The Person We Resent, But They Do Hurt Us.

If God Was Giving Me A Ham, I'd Be Crazy Not To Receive It. Maybe It Was The Ham Of God, Who Takes Away The Sins Of The World.

When God Is Going To Do Something Wonderful, He Or She Always Starts With A Hardship; When God Is Going To Do Something Amazing, He Or She Starts With An Impossibility.

But Easy's Like, Who Cares? Easy's Like, How Much Is Easy Going To Get You?

If You Asked Me, Parents Were Supposed To Affect The Life Of Their Child In Such A Way That The Child Grows Up To Be Responsible, Able To Participate In Life And In Community.

Writing Has So Much To Give, So Much To Teach, So Many Surprises.

Grace Is Having A Commitment To- Or At Least An Acceptance Of- Being Ineffective And Foolish. That Our Bottled Charm Is The Main Roadblock To Drinking That Clear Cool Glass Of Love.

Intelligence, Goodness, Humanity, Excitement, Serenity. Over Time, These Are The Things That Change The Musculature Of Your Face, As Do Laughter, And Animation, And Especially Whatever Peace You Can Broker With The Person Inside. It's Furrow, Pinch, And Judgement That Make Us Look Older - Our Mothers Were Right. They Said That If You Made Certain Faces, They Would Stick, And They Do. But Our Mothers Forgot That Faces Of Kindness And Integrity Stick As Well.

Oh, My God. What If You Wake Up Some Day, And You're 65 Or 75, And You Never Got Your Novel Or Memoir Written; Or You Didn't Go Swimming In Warm Pools Or Oceans Because Your Thighs Were Jiggly Or You Had A Nice Big Comfortable Tummy; Or You Were Just So Strung Out On Perfectionism And People-pleasing That You Forgot To Have A Big Juicy Creative Life, Of Imagination And Radical Silliness And Staring Off Into Space Like When You Were A Kid? It's Going To Break Your Heart. Don't Let This Happen.

What People Somehow Forgot To Mention When We Were Children Was That We Need To Make Messes In Order To Find Out Who We Are And Why We Are Here.

I Don't Want Something Special. I Want Something Beautifully Plain.

I Have Been Somebody Who Has Not Written A Great Deal About The Truth Of My Family's Life.

The Difference Between A Writer Who Toughs It Out And One Who Doesn't Is That You Push Through The Parts Where You Know That You've Just Written Seven Pages When All You're Looking For Is One Paragraph.

Now, If You Ask Me, What’s Going On Is That We’re All Up To Here In It, And Probably The Most Important Thing Is That We Not Yell At One Another.

When You Make Friends With Fear, It Can’t Rule You.

Sometimes It Takes Failure To Figure Out Who You Aren't.

It Is In Many People's Best Interest For You Not To Find Yourself, But It Only Matters That It Is In Yours, And The Whole World's, To Proceed.

Finding Yourself

I'm Not Going To Change The Way People Think About Me, But I Can Say You Know What? I'm Not Going To Carry That In My Backpack.

Everything Was Coming Together By Coming Apart . . . It Is The Most Difficult Zen Practice To Leave People To Their Destiny, Even Though It's Painful - Just Loving Them, And Breathing With Them, And Distracting Them In A Sweet Way, And Laughing With Them . . . If Something Was Not My Problem, I Probably Did Not Have The Solution.

My Father Was A Writer, So I Grew Up Writing And Reading And I Was Really Encouraged By Him. I Had Some Sort Of Gift And When It Came Time To Try To Find A Publisher I Had A Little Bit Of An "in" Because I Had His Agent I Could Turn To, To At Least Read My Initial Offerings When I Was About 20. But The Only Problem Was That They Were Just Awful, They Were Just Terrible Stories And My Agent, Who Ended Up Being My Agent, Was Very, Very Sweet About It, But It Took About Four Years Until I Actually Had Something Worth Trying To Sell.

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.

Life With Most Teenagers Was Like Having A Low-grade Bladder Infection. It Hurts, But You Had To Tough It Out.

What Fills Us Is Real, Sweet, Dopey, Funny Life.

We Write To Expose The Unexposed. If There Is One Door In The Castle You Have Been Told Not To Go Through, You Must. The Writer's Job Is To Turn The Unspeakable Into Words - Not Just Into Any Words, But If We Can, Into Rhythm And Blues.

Trying To Reason With An Addict Was Like Trying To Blow Out A Lightbulb.

We're Like Magic 8-balls. After You Ask Your Question And Shake The 8-ball, You Read The Answer In The Little Window. If You Ever Broke Open A Magic 8-ball With A Hammer, You Discovered That It Contained A Many-sided Plastic Object, With An Answer On Every Facet, Floating In A Cylinder Of Murky Blue Fluid. The Many-sided Core Held The Answer To Your Question. My Theory Is That, As With Our Children, As With Every Surface Of That Geodesic Dome Inside The 8-ball, Every Age We've Ever Been Is Who We Are.

I Do Not Understand How Deeply People Seem To Like My Work - But I Love That People Feel I Have Helped Them Through Hardships, And Also Have Shared My Experience Of Living A More Spiritual And Present Life. It's So Great To Be Able To Make People Laugh, Because This Is So Often How We Get Our Selves Back.

My Theology Is Based On What I Tell My Sunday-school Kids - That They Are Loved And Chosen, As Is, Now, Today. That The Moment Is Holy, Sacred, And All There Is - And That We Are Only As Sick As Our Secrets. So Tell It.

Sometimes This Human Stuff Is Slimy And Pathetic...but Better To Feel It And Talk About It And Walk Through It Than To Spend A Lifetime Being Silently Poisoned.

The Last Song Was So Deep And Raw And Pure That I Could Not Escape. It Was As If The People Were Singing In Between The Notes, Weeping And Joyful At The Same Time, And I Felt Like Their Voices Or Something Was Rocking Me In Its Bosom, Holding Me Like A Scared Kid, And I Opened Up To That Feeling-and It Washed Over Me.

I Guess He'll Have To Figure Out Someday That He Is Supposed To Have This Dark Side, That It Is Part Of What It Means To Be Human, To Have The Darkness Just As Much As The Light- That In Fact The Dark Parts Make The Light Visible; Without Them, The Light Would Disappear. But I Guess He Has To Figure Other Stuff Out First, Like How To Keep His Neck From Flopping All Over The Place And How To Sit Up.

Talking To The Parents Of Older Kids Was Helpful For Me, Since Parents Of Kids The Same Age As Yours Won't Admit How Horrible Their Children Are.

My Writer Friends, And They Are Legion, Do Not Go Around Beaming With Quiet Feelings Of Contentment. Most Of Them Go Around With Haunted, Abused, Surprised Looks On Their Faces, Like Lab Dogs On Whom Very Personal Deodorant Sprays Have Been Tested.

I Write Because Writing Is The Gift God Has Given Me To Help People In The World.

You Can Change The World With A Hot Bath, If You Sink Into It From A Place Of Knowing That You Are Worth Profound Care, Even When You're Dirty And Rattled.

I Loved Every Second Of Catholic Church. I Loved The Sickly Sweet Rotting-pomegranate Smells Of The Incense. I Loved The Overwrought Altar, The Birdbath Of Holy Water, The Votive Candles; I Loved That There Was A Poor Box, The Stations Of The Cross Rendered In Stained Glass On The Windows.

I Think Joy And Sweetness And Affection Are A Spiritual Path. We're Here To Know God, To Love And Serve God, And To Be Blown Away By The Beauty And Miracle Of Nature. You Just Have To Get Rid Of So Much Baggage To Be Light Enough To Dance, To Sing, To Play. You Don't Have Time To Carry Grudges; You Don't Have Time To Cling To The Need To Be Right.

I Am A Terrible And Lazy Christian. I Do Not Believe That The Bible Is The Literal Word Of God. I Just Skip About A Third Of It. I Love The Parts I Love So Much, But I Find A Lot Of It Just Appalling. When A Right-wing Person Quotes A Passage In Order To Attack And Stigmatize Another Person--or Group Of People--i Just Roll My Eyes.

You Can Safely Assume That You've Created God In Your Own Image When It Turns Out That God Hates All The Same People You Do.

I Know Some Very Great Writers, Writers You Love Who Write Beautifully And Have Made A Great Deal Of Money, And Not One Of Them Sits Down Routinely Feeling Wildly Enthusiastic And Confident. Not One Of Them Writes Elegant First Drafts. All Right, One Of Them Does, But We Do Not Like Her Very Much. We Do Not Think That She Has A Rich Inner Life Or That God Likes Her Or Can Even Stand Her. (although When I Mentioned This To My Priest Friend Tom, He Said That You Can Safely Assume You’ve Created God In Your Own Image When It Turns Out That God Hates All The Same People You Do.)

I Go To Church Every Sunday, Which Is Like Going To The Gas Station Once A Week And Really, Really Filling Up.

It Is Hard To Remember That You Are A Cherished Spiritual Being When You're Burping Up Apple Fritters And Cheetos.

Love Is So Much Bigger Than Our Ignorance.

When We Agree To Being Part Of Something Bigger Than Our Own Wired, Fixated Minds, We Are Saved.

My Mother Was A Not-too-devoted Atheist. She Went To Episcopal Church On Christmas Eve Every Year, And That Was Mostly It.

I Did Not Raise My Son, Sam, To Celebrate Mother's Day. I Didn't Want Him To Feel Some Obligation To Buy Me Pricey Lunches Or Flowers, Some Annual Display Of Gratitude That You Have To Grit Your Teeth And Endure.

Everyone Is Screwed Up, Broken, Clingy, And Scared, Even The People Who Seem To Have It More Or Less Together. They Are Much More Like You Than You Would Believe. So Try Not To Compare Your Insides To Their Outsides.

If I Have A Huge Audience, I'd Like A Bigger Audience; Maybe Slightly A Slightly More Illustrious Audience.

But Grace Can Be The Experience Of A Second Wind, When Even Though What You Want Is Clarity And Resolution, What You Get Is Stamina And Poignancy And The Strength To Hang On.

Your Problem Is How You Are Going To Spend This One Odd And Precious Life You Have Been Issued. Whether You're Going To Spend It Trying To Look Good And Creating The Illusion That You Have Power Over People And Circumstances, Or Whether You Are Going To Taste It, Enjoy It And Find Out The Truth About Who You Are.

I Realized I Was Going To Get Through This Disappointing Service, And Anyway, You Have To Be Somewhere: Better Here, Where I Have Heard Truth Spoken So Often, Than, Say, At The Dmv, Or Home Alone, Orbiting My Own Mind. And It's Good To Be Out Where Others Can See You, So You Can't Be Your Ghastly Spoiled Self. It Forces You To Act Slightly More Elegantly, And This Improves Your Thoughts, And Thereby The World.

You Were Loved Because God Loves, Period. God Loved You, And Everyone, Not Because You Believed In Certain Things, But Because You Were A Mess, And Lonely, And His Or Her Child. God Loved You No Matter How Crazy You Felt On The Inside, No Matter What A Fake You Were; Always, Even In Your Current Condition, Even Before Coffee. God Loves You Crazily, Like I Love You...like A Slightly Overweight Auntie, Who Sees Only Your Marvelousness And Need.

I Do Believe That God Is With Us Even When We're At Our Craziest And That This Goodness Guides, Provides, And Protects.

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