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Evangelical Christians And I Can Sit Down And Talk One On One About How Much We Love Jesus, And Yet I'm Not Carried In Christian Bookstores.
-Anne Lamott
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Evangelical Christians And I

Anne Lamott
...
Evangelical Christians And I Can Sit Down And Talk One On One About How Much We Love Jesus, And Yet I'm Not Carried In Christian Bookstores.

Understanding the Quote: "evangelical christians and i can sit down and talk one on one..."

This quote by Anne Lamott reflects deeply on the theme of christian. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Christian, Jesus, Bookstores, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Anne Lamott interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott is celebrated for insightful thoughts on christian and jesus. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Christian
Jesus
Bookstores
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Bananas Are Great, As I Believe Them To Be The Only Known Cure For Existential Dread. Also, Mother Teresa Said That In India, A Woman Dying In The Street Will Share Her Banana With Anyone Who Needs It, Whereas In America, People Amass And Hoard As Many Bananas As They Can To Sell For An Exorbitant Profit. So Half Of Them Go Bad, Anyway.
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You Want To Protect Your Child From Pain, And What You Get Instead Is Life, And Grace; And Though Theologians Insist That Grace Is Freely Given, The Truth Is That Sometimes You Pay For It Through The Nose. And You Can't Pay Your Child's Way.
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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.
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I Also Learned That You Didn’t Come Onto This Earth As A Perfectionist Or Control Freak. You Weren’t Born A Person Of Cringe And Contraction. You Were Born As Energy, As Life, Made Of The Same Stuff As Stars, Blossoms, Breezes. You Learned Contraction To Survive, But That Was Then. You Have Paid Through The Nose-paid But Good. It Is Now Your Turn To Reap.
Stars
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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.
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Lighthouses Don’t Go Running All Over An Island Looking For Boats To Save; They Just Stand There Shining.
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Rationality Squeezes Out Much That Is Rich And Juicy And Fascinating.
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The Evidence Is In, And You Are The Verdict.
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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.
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He Told Me About His Monster. His Sounded Just Like Mine Without Quite So Much Mascara. When People Shine A Little Light On Their Monster, We Find Out How Similar Most Of Our Monsters Are.
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E-books Are Great For Instant Gratification - You See A Review Somewhere Of A Book That Interests You, And You Can Start Reading It Five Minutes Later.
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No Matter How People Mess With You Or Let You Down, Or How You Let Yourself Down, A Good Book Means That When You Get In Bed That Night, You Have A Good Hour. I Feel Like You Pay All Day For That Hour. That's What Books Mean To Me. I Can Open This Two-dimensional , Flat White Page With Squiggly Little Black Marks On Them, And Someone Has Created This World That You're Going To Enter Into.
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You Get Your Intuition Back When You Make Space For It, When You Stop The Chattering Of The Rational Mind. The Rational Mind Doesn't Nourish You. You Assume That It Gives You The Truth, Because The Rational Mind Is The Golden Calf That This Culture Worships, But This Is Not True. Rationality Squeezes Out Much That Is Rich And Juicy And Fascinating.
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It Turned Out This Man Worked For The Dalai Lama. And She Said Gently-that They Believe When A Lot Of Things Start Going Wrong All At Once, It Is To Protect Something Big And Lovely That Is Trying To Get Itself Born-and That This Something Needs For You To Be Distracted So That It Can Be Born As Perfectly As Possible.
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Being A Writer Is Part Of A Noble Tradition, As Is Being A Musician – The Last Egalitarian And Open Associations. No Matter What Happens In Terms Of Fame And Fortune, Dedication To Writing Is A Marching-step Forward From Where You Were Before, When You Didn’t Care About Reaching Out To The World, When You Weren’t Hoping To Contribute, When You Were Just Standing There Doing Some Job Into Which You Had Fallen.
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A Writer Paradoxically Seeks The Truth And Tells Lies Every Step Of The Way.
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I Believe That Discipline And Self-love Are The Total Secrets To Freedom.
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Love Falls To Earth, Rises From The Ground, Pools Around The Afflicted. Love Pulls People Back To Their Feet. Bodies And Souls Are Fed. Bones And Lives Heal. New Blades Of Grass Grow From Charred Soil. The Sun Rises.
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The Opposite Of Faith Is Not Doubt, It’s Certainty.
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I Became A Christian Before I Got Sober. So I Was A Drunk, Bulimic Christian.
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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.
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Summer Nearly Does Me In Every Year. It's Too Hot And The Light Is Unforgiving And The Days Go On Way Too Long.
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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.
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We All Have The Dark, Ignorant Shadow Inside Us. I Have Worked Endlessly To Reveal It And Heal It In Me, But Of Course There's Some Primitive Weird Stuff In Me. The Tea Party Is About Exhorting White Supremacy, Though, So I've Had A Tiny Bit Of Trouble Experiencing Sympathy.
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People Help You Or You Help Them And When We Offer Or Receive Help, We Take In Each Other. And Then We Are Saved.
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Alice Adams Wrote A Sweet Note To Me After My First Novel Came Out When I Was 26, And I Was So Blown Away That I Sent Her A Bunch Of Stamps By Return Mail. I Have No Idea What I Was Thinking. It Was A Star-struck Impulse.
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What’s The Difference Between You And God? God Never Thinks He’s You.
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The Solution Is Always Spiritual, And It Almost Never Has Anything To Do With The Problem ... Laughter Is Carbonated Holiness.
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The Miracle Is That We Are Here, That No Matter How Undone We’ve Been The Night Before, We Wake Up Every Morning And Are Still Here. It Is Phenomenal Just To Be.
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A Priest Friend Of Mine Has Cautioned Me Away From The Standard God Of Our Childhoods, Who Loves You And Guides You And Then, If You Are Bad, Roasts You: God As A High School Principal In A Gray Suit Who Never Remembered Your Name But Is Always Leafing Unhappily Through Your Files.
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Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived.
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Becoming A Writer Is About Becoming Conscious. 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. He Or She Will Recognize His Or Her Life And Truth In What You Say, In The Pictures You Have Painted, And This Decreases The Terrible Sense Of Isolation That We Have All Had Too Much Of.
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One Line Of Dialogue That Rings True Reveals Character In A Way That Pages Of Description Can't.
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It Was Not Facing What Life Dealt That Made You Crazy, But Rather Trying To Set Life Straight Where It Was Unstraightenable.
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We Are Going To Die, As Is Everyone We Adore - I Hate This! But The Question Is, How Do We Live As Women And Men In The Face Of This? Why Do We Let Ourselves Be So Distracted And Obsessed By Meaningless B.s. In Light Of Having One Short, Precious Life? When Are We Going To Wake Up And Be Fully Alive To Each Other And Nature And Magic And Wonder And Life With A Capital L? When Will We Stop Hitting The Snooze Button? And Then, How Alive Are We Willing To Be?
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Dancing Almost Always Turns Out To Be A Good Idea.
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I Love Memoirs. They Are Probably My Favorite Literary Form, Along With Biographies. The More Confessional, The Better. There Is So, So, So Little Truth In The Popular Culture, And I Am Starved And Grateful For Any I Can Find.
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I Said That 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. If You Had A Giant Panda In Your Back Yard, Anything Could Go Wrong — Someone Could Die, Or Stop Loving You, Or You Could Get Sick — And If You Could Look Outside And See This Adorable, Ridiculous, Boffo Panda, You'd Start To Laugh; You'd Be So Filled With Thankfulness And Amusement That Everything Would Be O.k. Again.
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I Don't Know Where To Start," One [writing Student] Will Wail. Start With Your Childhood, I Tell Them. Plug Your Nose And Jump In, And Write Down All Your Memories As Truthfully As You Can. Flannery O' Connor Said That Anyone Who Has Survived Childhood Has Enough Material To Write For The Rest Of His Or Her Life. Maybe Your Childhood Was Grim And Horrible, But Grim And Horrible Is Okay If It Is Well Done. Don't Worry About Doing It Well Yet, Though. Just Get It Down.
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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.
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You Are Desperate To Communicate, To Edify Or Entertain, To Preserve Moments Of Grace Or Joy Or Transcendence, To Make Real Or Imagined Events Come Alive. But You Cannot Will This To Happen. It Is A Matter Of Persistence And Faith And Hard Work. So You Might As Well Just Go Ahead And Get Started.
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Write As If Your Parents Are Dead.
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The Best Thing About Being An Artist, Instead Of A Madman Or Someone Who Writes Letters To The Editor, Is That You Get To Engage In Satisfying Work. Even If You Never Publish A Word, You Have Something Important To Pour Yourself Into.
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Artist
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Joy Is The Best Makeup. But A Little Lipstick Is A Close Runner-up.
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Littles
Having A Baby Is Like Suddenly Getting The World's Worst Roommate, Like Having Janis Joplin With A Bad Hangover And Pms Come To Stay With You.
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Remember That You Own What Happened To You. If Your Childhood Was Less Than Ideal, You May Have Been Raised Thinking That If You Told The Truth About What Really Went On In Your Family, A Long Bony White Finger Would Emerge From A Cloud And Point To You, While A Chilling Voice Thundered, "we *told* You Not To Tell." But That Was Then. Just Put Down On Paper Everything You Can Remember Now About Your Parents And Siblings And Relatives And Neighbors, And We Will Deal With Libel Later On.
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Thinking
Clouds
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.
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I Think Drugs Are Part Of The Magical Possibilities Of Youth And I Wouldn't Be Here If I Had Continued With It.
Thinking
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Youth
One Thing About Having A Baby Is That Each Step Of The Way You Simply Cannot Imagine Loving Him Any More Than You Already Do, Because You Are Bursting With Love, Loving As Much As You Are Humanly Capable Of- And Then You Do, You Love Him Even More.
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Way
Steps
I Accidentally Forgot To Graduate From College.
College
Graduates
Jealousy Always Has Been My Cross, The Weakness And Woundedness In Me That Has Most Often Caused Me To Feel Ugly And Unlovable, Like The Bad Seed. I’ve Had Many Years Of Recovery And Therapy, Years Filled With Intimate And Devoted Friendships, Yet I Still Struggle. I Know That When Someone Gets A Big Slice Of Pie, It Doesn’t Mean There’s Less For Me. In Fact, I Know That There Isn’t Even A Pie, That There’s Plenty To Go Around, Enough Food And Love And Air. But I Don’t Believe It For A Second. I Secretly Believe There’s A Pie. I Will Go To My Grave Brandishing My Fork.
Believe
Struggle
Recovery
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Looks
Salvation
When Hope Is Not Pinned Wriggling Onto A Shiny Image Or Expectation, It Sometimes Floats Forth And Opens Like One Of Those Fluted Japanese Blossoms, Flimsy And Spastic, Bright And Warm. This Almost Always Seems To Happen In Community.
Faith
Expectations
Community
I Do Believe That God Is With Us Even When We're At Our Craziest And That This Goodness Guides, Provides, And Protects.
Believe
Goodness
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You Will Lose Someone You Can’t Live Without,and Your Heart Will Be Badly Broken, And The Bad News Is That You Never Completely Get Over The Loss Of Your Beloved. But This Is Also The Good News. They Live Forever In Your Broken Heart That Doesn’t Seal Back Up. And You Come Through. It’s Like Having A Broken Leg That Never Heals Perfectly—that Still Hurts When The Weather Gets Cold, But You Learn To Dance With The Limp.
Hurt
Grief
Heart
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No One Tells You That Your Life Is Effectively Over When You Have A Child: That You're Never Going To Draw Another Complacent Breath Again... Or That Whatever Level Of Hypochondria And Rage You'd Learned To Repress And Live With Is Going To Seem Like The Good Old Days.
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I Just Try To Love And Serve Everyone, And Bring Everyone Water, And Lend An Ear; That's What Jesus Said To Do.
Jesus
Water
Trying
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.
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People
Way
Where Do We Even Start On The Daily Walk Of Restoration And Awakening? We Start Where We Are.
Restoration
Awakening
Walks
Some People Won't Go The Extra Mile, And Then On Their Birthday, When No One Makes A Fuss, They Feel Neglected And Bitter.
Birthday
People
Going The Extra Mile
You Get Your Confidence And Intuition Back By Trusting Yourself, By Being Militantly On Your Own Side. ... Don't Look At Your Feet To See If You Are Doing It Right. Just Dance.
Inspirational Life
Feet
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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.
Christian
Believe
Lazy
Sometimes I Think That Jesus Watches My Neurotic Struggles, And Shakes His Head And Grips His Forehead And Starts Tossing Back Mojitos.
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Struggle
Thinking
Here Are The Two Best Prayers I Know: 'help Me, Help Me, Help Me' And 'thank You, Thank You, Thank You.
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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.
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If You Fixate On The Big Picture, The Whole Shebang, The Overview, You Miss The Stitching.
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Certainty Is Missing The Point Entirely.
Missing
Certainty
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Beautiful
Fear
Lying
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Self
... One Of The Immutable Laws Of Being Human Is That The People Who Show Up Are The Right People. [p. 65]
Law
People
Being Human
The Giants Are Usually Described As Rag Tag, Kind Of A Great Garage Sale Team, And The Democrats Are Described As The Mommies To The Republican Daddies; And Everyone Hates The Mommies, But Wait, Wait - I Didn't Intend To Get Into The Pathos And Thrill Of Being A Democratic Giants Fan.
Hate
Team
Daddy
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.
Children
People
Needs
Her Purse Was A Weight, Ballast; It Tethered Her To The Earth As Her Mind Floated Away.
Mind
Weight
Earth
Bird By Bird, Buddy. Just Take It Bird By Bird.
Writing
Bird
Kitchen Table
I'm Very Successful, But There Are 50,000 General Interest Books Published Every Year. If You Don't Want To Read Mine, There Are Others.
Book
Successful
Years
The Truth Of My Experience Is That We Are All A Lot More Alike Than We Are Different.
Different
Expectations Are Resentment Waiting To Happen.
Expectations
Waiting
Resentment
I Knew That The World Was A Harsh Place, And My Family Was A Mess, And Even Though I Danced As Fast As I Could, I Did Not Feel Welcome, Did Not Feel The Great Shalom. This World Was Never A Good Match For Me. But My Belief Was That There Was A Loving Magical Energy In The World - Seen In Nature's Beauty And Awesomeness, My Best Girl And Women Friends, Art, Music.
Girl
Art
Energy
The Worst Part About Celebrating Another Birthday Is The Shock That You're Only As Well As You Are.
Birthday
Celebrate
Shock
Whenever The World Throws Rose Petals At You, Which Thrill And Seduce The Ego, Beware.
Rose
Ego
Thrill
My Family Tends To Be Pretty Alcoholic And Drug-addicted.
Drug
My Family
Alcoholics
Laughter Is The Key That Grace Has Arrived.
Laughter
Keys
Grace
The Very First Thing I Tell My New Students On The First Day Of A Workshop Is That Good Writing Is About Telling The Truth. We Are A Species That Needs And Wants To Understand Who We Are. Sheep Lice Do Not Seem To Share This Longing, Which Is One Reason They Write So Very Little. But We Do. We Have So Much We Want To Say And Figure Out.
Writing
Sheep
Needs
The Whistle Is Always Waiting To Be Blown, And In Some Ways, It Gets Me To Do Better Work.
Waiting
Way
Always Waiting
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.
Dog
Feelings
Contentment
Tidiness Makes Me Think Of Held Breath, Of Suspended Animation.
Thinking
Animation
Breaths
Being A Parent Is Absolutely Exhausting And Draining, Along With All The Joy And Love.
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Parent
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You Are Going To Have To Give And Give And Give, Or There's No Reason For You To Be Writing. You Have To Give From The Deepest Part Of Yourself, And You Are Going To Have To Go On Giving, And The Giving Is Going To Have To Be Its Own Reward. There Is No Cosmic Importance To Your Getting Something Published, But There Is In Learning To Be A Giver.
Writing
Giving
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It Was Simple Reality - Most Competitive Tennis Players In My Day Were Privileged, Spoiled, Entitled And White. Also, Many Of Them Were Beautiful, Fit, Tan And Of Good Stock - Great Big Hair And White Teeth And Long Legs. Then There Were The Rest Of Us.
Beautiful
Simple
Player
That's About 90 Percent Of My Theological Life - Radical Self-care. Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On First. I Watch The Self-talk That Goes Through My Mind, And If I Am Being Critical With Myself, I Shake Myself Out Of It.
Self
Oxygen
Mind
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.
Children
True Friend
Mean
You Own Everything That Happened To You. Tell Your Stories.
Stories
Happened
No Matter What Circumstances, It's Hard To Be A Parent And Maintain A Sense Of Self And Identity In The World.
Self
Parent
Identity
When We Search For Something Larger Than Our Own Selves To Hook Into, We Can Come Through Whatever Life Throws At Us.
Self
Hook
Drugs Took Me To Places; They Were Like Portals. It's Kind Of A Cliché, But They Were Like Portals To Altered States Of Consciousness Into Ways Of Imagining The World, Or Seeing A World Beyond This World, Or Seeing A World Beyond This World That I Might Not Have Gotten To Unless I Discovered Meditation And A Very Deep, Intense Spiritual Path Based On Contemplation And Meditation.
Spiritual
Meditation
Drug
So What Are We Supposed To Do Again, When We Hate Everything? You Stop Pretending Life Is Such Fun Or Makes Sense. It's Often Messy And Cruel And Dull, And We Do The Best We Can. It's Unfair, And Jerks Seem To Win. But You Fall In Love With A Few People. Like I Love You, Elizabeth. You're The Angel God Sent Me.
Falling In Love
Fun
Hate
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.
Spiritual
Wind
Giving
Hope Begins In The Dark, The Stubborn Hope That If You Just Show Up And Try To Do The Right Thing, The Dawn Will Come. You Wait And Watch And Work: You Don't Give Up.
Inspiring
Hope
Giving Up
It's Incredibly Touching When Someone Who Seems So Hopeless Finds A Few Inches Of Light To Stand In And Makes Everything Work As Well As Possible. All Of Us Lurch And Fall, Sit In The Dirt, Are Helped To Our Feet, Keep Moving, Feel Like Idiots, Lose Our Balance, Gain It, Help Others Get Back On Their Feet, And Keep Going.
Moving
Fall
Helping Others
This Is What Separates Artists From Ordinary People: The Belief, Deep In Our Hearts, That If We Build Our Castles Well Enough, Somehow The Ocean Won't Wash Them Away. I Think This Is A Wonderful Kind Of Person To Be.
Ocean
Heart
Artist
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 Embarrassed And Eventually Grateful As You Are To Be There.
Grateful
Light
Grace
...most Of The Time, All You Have Is The Moment, And The Imperfect Love Of The People Around You.
People
Imperfect
Moments
Feeding A Baby Is Like Filling A Hole With Putty - You Get It In And Then You Sort Of Shave Off All The Excess Around The Hole And Get It Back In, Like You're Spackling.
Baby
Excess
Like You
For Me And Most Of The Other Writers I Know, Writing Is Not Rapturous. In Fact, The Only Way I Can Get Anything Written At All Is To Write Really, Really Shitty First Drafts.
Writing
Way
Firsts
Perfectionism Is A Mean, Frozen Form Of Idealism, While Messes Are The Artist's True Friend.
True Friend
Mean
Artist
I Am Going To Notice The Lights Of The Earth, The Sun And The Moon And The Stars, The Lights Of Our Candles As We March, The Lights With Which Spring Teases Us, The Light That Is Already Present.
Stars
Spring
Moon
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.
School
Kids
Sunday
... Everyone Has Come To Understand That Unconditional Love Is A Reality, But With As Shelf Life Of About Eight To Ten Seconds. [p. 110]
Unconditional Love
Reality
Love Is
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.
Faith
Hardship
Wonderful
The Thing About Light Is That It Really Isn’t Yours; It’s What You Gather And Shine Back. And It Gets More Power From Reflectiveness; If You Sit Still And Take It In, It Fills Your Cup, And Then You Can Give It Off Yourself.
Light
Giving
Shining
You Should Not Bring More Items And Hurdles To The Obstacle Course.
Obstacles
Should
Hurdle
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.
Real
Lying
Moving
All Criticism Hurts Me. I'm So In The Wrong Business.
Hurt
Criticism
Hurt Me
I Don't Know Much, But I Understand How Entirely Doomed I Am Without God.
God
Doomed
Without God
The Stuff I Write About Is Pretty Universal, The Things My Closest Friends And I Talk About - Our Anxiety About Being Here On This Scary Planet, During These Scary Times, As Vulnerable As Kittens, Having Lost So Many People I Couldn't Live Without.
Writing
People
Anxiety
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.
Spiritual
Self
People
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.
Fighter
Shame
Sand
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.
Believe
Work Out
Movement
He Got Me A Cup Of Tea With Honey, Toast With Honey, Yogurt With Honey, Like I Was John The Baptist With The Flu.
Tea
Yogurt
Baptists
Some People May Have Thought That This Book Was Too Personal, Too Confessional. But What These People Think About Me Is None Of My Business.
Book
Thinking
People
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.
Children
Kids
Years
Raising A Child, Whether Or Not It Is Yours, Is Like Nautilus Of The Heart And Soul.
Children
Heart
Soul
If You Don't Believe In God, It May Help To Remember This Great Line Of Geneen Roth's: That Awareness Is Learning To Keep Yourself Company. And Then Learn To Be More Compassionate Company, As If You Were Somebody You Are Fond Of And Wish To Encourage. I Doubt That You Would Read A Close Friend's Early Efforts And, In His Or Her Presence, Roll Your Eyes And Snicker. I Doubt That You Would Pantomime Sticking Your Finger Down Your Throat. I Think You Might Say Something Along The Lines Of, 'good For You. We Can Work Out Some Of The Problems Later, But For Now, Full Steam Ahead!
Believe
Eye
Thinking
The Writer Is A Person Who Is Standing Apart, Like The Cheese In 'the Farmer In The Dell' Standing There Alone But Deciding To Take A Few Notes. You’re Outside, But You Can See Things Up Close Through Your Binoculars. Your Job Is To Present Clearly Your Viewpoint, Your Line Of Vision. Your Job Is To See People As They Really Are, And To Do This, You Have To Know Who You Are In The Most Compassionate Possible Sense. Then You Can Recognize Others.
Jobs
People
Vision
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.
Hair
Long
People
It's Better To Be Kind Than To Be Right.
Be Kind
Kind
Grief, As I Read Somewhere Once, Is A Lazy Susan. One Day It Is Heavy And Underwater, And The Next Day It Spins And Stops At Loud And Rageful, And The Next Day At Wounded Keening, And The Next Day Numbness, Silence.
Grief
Numbness
Next Day
You Know How I Always Say That Laughter Is Carbonated Holiness? Well, Robin Was The Ultimate Proof Of That, And Bubbles Are Spirit Made Visible.
Laughter
Robins
Holiness
Toddlers Can Make You Feel As If You Have Violated Some Archaic Law In Their Personal Koran And You Should Die, Infidel.
Law
Toddler
Should
At Some Point I Started Getting Published, And Experienced A Meager Knock-kneed Standing In The Literary World, And I Started To Get Almost Everything That Many Of You Graduates Are Hoping For--except For The Money. I Got A Lot Of Things That Society Had Promised Would Make Me Whole And Fulfilled--all The Things That The Culture Tells You, From Preschool On, Will Quiet The Throbbing Anxiety Inside You. I Got Some Stature, The Respect Of Other Writers, Even A Low-grade Fame. The Culture Says These Things Will Save You, As Long As You Also Manage To Keep Your Weight Down. But The Culture Lies.
Lying
Long
Anxiety
Don’t Underestimate This Gift Of Finding A Place In The Writing World: If You Really Work At Describing Creatively On Paper The Truth As You Understand It, As You Have Experienced It, With The People Or Material Who Are In You, Who Are Asking That You Help Them Get Written, You Will Come To A Secret Feeling Of Honor.
Writing
People
Feelings
You Can Tell If People Are Following Jesus, Because They Are Fedding The Poor, Sharing Their Wealth, And Trying To Get Everyone Medical Insurance.
Jesus
People
Medical Insurance
Everything Takes Me Forever. It's All Lurch, Flail. I Hope That Is Good News To You Writers.
Forever
News
Take Me
I Try To Write The Books I Would Love To Come Upon That Are Honest, Concerned With Real Lives, Human Hearts, Spiritual Transformation, Families, Secrets, Wonder, Craziness - And That Can Make Me Laugh.
Spiritual
Real
Book
The Earth Is Rocky And Full Of Roots; It's Clay, And It Seems Doomed And Polluted, But You Dig Little Holes For The Ugly Shriveled Bulbs, Throw In A Handful Of Poppy Seeds, And Cover It All Over, And You Know You'll Never See It Again - It's Death And Clay And Shrivel, And Your Hands Are Nicked From The Rocks, Your Nails Black With Soil.
Rocks
Hands
Roots
Do You Mind Even A Little That You Are Still Addicted To People-pleasing, And Are Still Putting Everyone Else’s Needs And Laundry And Career Ahead Of Your Creative, Spiritual Life? Giving All Your Life Force Away, To “help” And Impress. Well, Your Help Is Not Helpful, And Falls Short.
Spiritual
Fall
Careers
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.
Easter
Sisterhood
Brotherhood
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.
Father
Inspiration
Writing
There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention.
Attention
Pay Attention
Ecstasy
So How On Earth Can I Bring A Child Into The World, Knowing That Such Sorrow Lies Ahead, That It Is Such A Large Part Of What It Means To Be Human? I'm Not Sure. That's My Answer: I'm Not Sure.
Children
Lying
Mean
At Our Most Primitive We Are Storytellers And Dancers.
Dancer
Primitive
Storyteller
Anything You Say From Your Heart To God Is A Prayer.
Prayer
Heart
I Very Rarely Read The Responses To My Salon Pieces, Because (as You May Have Noticed) The Trolls Can Be So Evil. So Violent In Their Hostility To Me And My Work. Ok, Wait, Wait, Wait. That's A Lie. I Do Read The Responses--and Get Mesmerized, Like Cobra Hypnosis. But I Laugh (mostly) At The Trolls, And Think About What Tiny Little Weenies They Must Have. (they Seem To Be Mostly Men.) And Then All These Smart, Funny People Leap To My Defense, Which Is Medicine, And Fills Me With Love And Thankfulness.
Smart
Lying
Men
To Be Great, Art Has To Point Somewhere.
Art
Greatness
Great Art
For Me, Jesus Is My Cleft In The Rock. He Is My Safest Friend, My Safe Totally Loving Accepting Big Brother.
Jesus
Brother
Rocks
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.
Struggle
Car
Drug
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.
Stuff
Sometimes
Lifetime
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
Dancing
Laughing
Being Enough Was Going To Have To Be An Inside Job.
Jobs
Enough
Writing Is How I Communicate My Deepest Beliefs, And What I Hope Are Helpful Observations About Our Dual Citizenship, As Children Of God, As Regular Old Mixed-up, Worried, Flawed, Precious Human Beings.
Children
Writing
Belief
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.
Believe
Heart
Listening
If You Are A Writer, Or Want To Be A Writer, This Is How You Spend Your Days--listening, Observing, Storing Things Away, Making Your Isolation Pay Off. You Take Home All You've Taken In, All That You've Overheard, And You Turn It Into Gold. (or At Least You Try.)
Taken
Home
Listening
Radical Self-care Is What We've Been Longing For, Desperate For, Our Entire Lives-friendship With Our Own Hearts.
Heart
Compassion
Self
Teenagers Who Do Not Go To Church Are Adored By God, But They Don't Get To Meet Some Of The People Who Love God Back.
Inspirational
Teenager
People
Your Experiences Will Be Yours Alone. But Truth And Best Friendship Will Rarely If Ever Disappoint You.
Best Friendship
Disappoint
Ifs
If Our Lives Are Made Up Of A String Of A Thousand Moments, At Some Of Those Moments We Look A Lot More Spiritually Evolved Than At Others.
Looks
Moments
Made
I Love Readings And My Readers, But The Din Of Voices Of The Audience Gives Me Stage Fright, And The Din Of Voices Inside Whisper That I Am A Fraud, And That The Jig Is Up. Surely Someone Will Rise Up From The Audience And Say Out Loud That Not Only Am I Not Funny And Helpful, But I'm Annoying, And A Phony.
Funny
Reading
Voice
I Read The Same Amount Of Nonfiction And Fiction.
Fiction
Fiction And Nonfiction
Nonfiction
I Have Been Somebody Who Has Not Written A Great Deal About The Truth Of My Family's Life.
My Family
Deals
Has Beens
And Yet, I Do Believe There Is Ultimately Meaning In The Chaos, And Also In The Doldrums. What I Resist Is Not The Truth But When People Put A Pretty Bow On Scary Things Instead Of Saying, 'this Is A Nightmare. I Hate Everything. I’m Going To Go Hide In The Garage.'
Hate
Believe
People
Needless To Say, There Was No One Around Remotely Fitting The Description Of A Normal Person: I Was At A Writing Conference.
Writing
Normal
Fitting
Frequently, As So Many Poets And Psalmists And Songwriters Have Said, The Invisible Shift Happens Through The Broken Places.
Broken
Invisible
Poet
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