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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?

-Anne Lamott

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Why Couldn't Jesus Command

Anne Lamott

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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?

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What If We Never 'get Over' Certain Deaths, Or Our Childhoods? What If The Idea That We Should Have By Now, Or Will, Is A Great Palace Lie? What If We're Not Supposed To? What If It Takes A Life Time...?

There Is Nothing More Touching To Me Then A Family Picture Where Everyone Is Trying To Look His Or Her Best, But You Can See What A Mess They All Really Are.

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.)

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

Life And Change

All I Know Is That After 10 Years Of Being Sober, With Huge Support To Express My Pain And Anger And Shadow, 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. They Brought Me Home, To Me, To The Truth Of Me.

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.

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.

Peace Is Joy At Rest. Joy Is Peace On Its Feet. Quoting Her Pastor In Salon, April 25, 2003

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

When All Else Fails

I Accidentally Forgot To Graduate From College.

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.

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.

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

When We Did Art With The Kids, The Demons Would Lie Down.

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

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.

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 One Can Appropriate God, Goodness, The Bible Or Jesus. It Just Seems That Way.

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.

To Be Great, Art Has To Point Somewhere.

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.

What’s The Difference Between You And God? God Never Thinks He’s You.

I Feel Incredibly Successful. I Make A Living As A Writer And Am Able To Help Support A Big Family, My Church, My Bleeding-heart Causes.

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.

By Then I'd Figured Out The Gift Of Failure, Which Is That It Breaks Through All That Held Breath And Isometric Tension About Needing To Look Good: It's The Gift Of Feeling Floppier.

Right Foot, Left Foot, Right Foot, Breathe.

Can You Imagine The Hopelessness Of Trying To Live A Spiritual Life When You’re Secretly Looking Up At The Skies Not For Illumination Or Direction, But To Gauge, Miserably, The Odds Of Rain?

Prayer Is Talking To Something Or Anything With Which We Seek Union, Even If We Are Bitter Or Insane Or Broken. (in Fact, These Are Probably The Best Possible Conditions Under Which To Pray.) Prayer Is Taking A Chance That Against All Odds And Past History, We Are Loved And Chosen, And Do Not Have To Get It Together Before We Show Up.

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.

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.

The Worst Part About Celebrating Another Birthday Is The Shock That You're Only As Well As You Are.

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.

Getting Into A New Relationship Is Like Pouring Miracle-gro On Your Character Defects.

New Relationship

Again And Again I Tell God I Need Help, And God Says, 'well, Isn't That Fabulous? Because I Need Help Too. So You Go Get That Old Woman Over There Some Water, And I'll Figure Out What We're Going To Do About Your Stuff.

I've Always Understood That Meditation Had To Be Part Of - Or Was Part Of The Natural Path And So I've Always Sort Of Dabbled In It.

You Have To Make Mistakes To Find Out Who You Aren’t.

Making Mistakes

I've Heard People Say That God Is The Gift Of Desperation, And There's A Lot To Be Said For Having Really Reached A Bottom Where You've Run Out Of Any More Good Ideas Or Plans For Everybody Else's Behavior; Or How To Save And Fix And Rescue; Or Just Get Out Of A Huge Mess, Possibly Of Your Own Creation.

Looking Back On The God My Friend Believed In, He Seems A Little Erratic, Not Entirely Unlike Her Father - God As Borderline Personality.

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.

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.

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

I Do Not At All Understand The Mystery Of Grace - Only That It Meets Us Where We Are But Does Not Leave Us Where It Found Us.

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.

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.

Gorgeous, Amazing Things Come Into Our Lives When We Are Paying Attention: Mangoes, Grandnieces, Bach, Ponds. This Happens More Often When We Have As Little Expectation As Possible. If You Say, "well, That's Pretty Much What I Thought I'd See," You Are In Trouble. At That Point You Have To Ask Yourself Why You Are Even Here. [...] Astonishing Material And Revelation Appear In Our Lives All The Time. Let It Be. Unto Us, So Much Is Given. We Just Have To Be Open For Business.

Get To Know Your Characters As Well As You Can Let There Be Something At Stake, And Then Let The Chips Fall Where They May.

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.

We Want A Sense That An Important Character, Like A Narrator, Is Reliable. We Want To Believe That A Character Is Not Playing Ages Or Being Coy Or Being Manipulative, But Is Telling The Truth To The Best Of His Or Her Ability...we Do Not Wish To Be Crudely Manipulated...we Want To Be Massaged By A Masseur, Not Whapped By A Carpet Beater.

Astonishing Material And Revelation Appear In Our Lives All The Time. Let It Be. Unto Us, So Much Is Given. We Just Have To Be Open For Business.

I Have A Giant Ego And Terrible Self-esteem, So I Need To Hit The Re-set Button Fairly Regularly - To Get Into Presence, And Humility, And Being Right-sized.

I Honestly Think That In Order To Be A Writer You Have To Learn To Be Reverent. If Not, Why Are You Writing? Why Are You Here?

When Everything Starts Going Wrong All At Once, It Is To Protect Something Big And Lovely That Is Trying To Get Itself Born.

Writing Is About Hypnotizing Yourself Into Believing In Yourself, Getting Some Work Done, Then Unhypnotizing Yourself And Going Over The Material Coldly.

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

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.

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.

That Thing You Had To Force Yourself To Do-the Actual Act Of Writing-turns Out To Be The Best Part.

You Can Either Practice Being Right Or Practice Being Kind.

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.

Sometimes Heaven Is Just A New Pair Of Glasses.

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.

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

Sometimes It Feels Like God Has Reached Down And Touched Me, Blessed Me A Thousand Times Over, And Sometimes It All Feels Like A Mean Joke, Like God's Advisers Are Muammar Qaddafi And Phyllis Schlafly.

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

Plot Springs From Character... I've Always Sort Of Believed That These People Inside Me- These Characters- Know Who They Are And What They're About And What Happens, And They Need Me To Help Get It Down On Paper Because They Don't Type.

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.

A Good Marriage Is Where Both People Feel Like They're Getting The Better End Of The Deal.

So I Was Doing Well Academically, And I Was A Well-ranked Tennis Player And Was The Apple Of My Handsome Father's Eye-and Then I Would Bring Home A Report Card With A B-plus On It, And My Parents Would Look At The Report Card As If I'd Flunked. "uh, Honey?" One Of Them Would Ask, Looking Perplexed. "now, This Isn't A Criticism But, If You Could Get A B-plus In Philosophy, How Much Harder Would It Have Been To Get An A-minus?"

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.

What An Incredible Drug Fear Is.

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.

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.

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.

The Beauty Of Modesty ... A Virtue The World Doesn't Have Much Truck With: One Ordinary Flower In A Vase, As Opposed To A Bouquet.

I Was Reminded Of The Four Immutable Laws Of The Spirit: Whoever Is Present Are The Right People. Whenever It Begins Is The Right Time. Whatever Happens Is The Only Thing That Could Have Happened. And When It's Over, It's Over.

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.

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

But It Was The Singing That Pulled Me In And Split Me Wide Open.

And My Fear Of Failure Has Been Lifelong And Deep. If You Are What You Do- And I Think My Parents May Have Accidentally Given Me This Idea- And You Do Poorly, What Then? It’s Over; You’re Wiped Out. All Those Prophecies You Heard In The Dark Have Come True, And People Can See The Real You, See What A Schmendrick You Are, What A Fraud.

Nothing Can Be Delicious When You Are Holding Your Breath.

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.

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.

Publication Is Not All That It Is Cracked Up To Be. But Writing Is.

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.

I Believe That Discipline And Self-love Are The Total Secrets To Freedom.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mothering Has Been The Richest Experience Of My Life, But I Am Still Opposed To Mother's Day. It Perpetuates The Dangerous Idea That All Parents Are Somehow Superior To Non-parents.

Dangerous Ideas

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.

When What We See Catches Us Off Guard, And When We Write It As Realistically And Openly As Possible, It Offers Hope. You Look Around And Say, Wow, There's That Same Mockingbird; There's That Woman In The Red Hat Again. The Woman In The Red Hat Is About Hope Because She's In It Up To Her Neck, Too, Yet Every Day She Puts On That Crazy Red Hat And Walks To Town.

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

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.'

Without Using The Word, Everyone Started Forgiving Each Other Again. Just Like That, From The No Of All Nothingness: You Have A Big Tense Mess And Out Of It Comes Some Joy. It Must Be Magic.

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.

Pets Are The World To Me. I Think They Are The Most Obvious Manifestations Of Divine Love That We Are Going To See This Side Of Eternity.

You Want To Give Me Chocolate And Flowers? That Would Be Great. I Love Them Both. I Just Don't Want Them Out Of Guilt, And I Don't Want Them If You're Not Going To Give Them To All The People Who Helped Mother Our Children.

God Sent Jesus To Join The Human Experience, Which Means To Make A Lot Of Mistakes. Jesus Didn't Arrive Here Knowing How To Walk. He Had Fingers And Toes, Confusion, Sexual Feelings, Crazy Human Internal Processes. He Had The Same Prejudices As The Rest Of His Tribe: He Had To Learn That The Canaanite Woman Was A Person. He Had To Suffer The Hardships And Tedium And Setbacks Of Being A Regular Person. If He Hadn't The Incarnation Would Mean Nothing.

How Do You Begin? The Answer Is Simple: You Decide To.

Here Are The Two Best Prayers I Know: 'help Me, Help Me, Help Me' And 'thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

You Are Not Your Bank Account, Or Your Ambitiousness. You're Not The Cold Clay Lump With A Big Belly You Leave Behind When You Die. You're Not Your Collection Of Walking Personality Disorders. You Are Spirit, You Are Love.

The Real Payoff Is The Writing Itself, That A Day When You Have Gotten Your Work Done Is A Good Day, That Total Dedication Is The Point.

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.

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 Simply Keep Putting Down One Damn Word After The Other, As You Hear Them, As They Come To You. You Can Either Set Brick As A Laborer Or As An Artist.

My Idea Of Absolute Happiness Is To Be In Bed On A Rainy Day, With My Blankie, My Cat, And My Dog.

I Think That Is Why We Stay Close To Our Families, No Matter How Neurotic The Members, How Deeply Annoying Or Dull- Because When People Have Seen You At Your Worst, You Don’t Have To Put On The Mask As Much.

Sometimes, No Matter How Screwed Up Things Seem, I Feel Like We're All At A Wedding. But You Can't Just Come Out And Say, We're At A Wedding! Have Some Cake! You Need To Create A World Into Which We Can Enter, A World Where We Can See This.

The Worst Time In Any Writer's Life Is The Two Months Before Publication. All Writers Become Mental And Pathetic, Even Those Of Devout Faith, Who Have Some Psychological Healing To Lean Up Against, And Gorgeous Lives. All Writers Think That This Time, The Jig Is Up, And They Will Be Exposed As Frauds.

I Am An Aries. Although I Do Not Believe In Astrology, I Think This Is Exactly The Right Sign To Have Been Born Under.

We Are Not Here To See Through One Another, But To See One Another Through.

The Truth Is That Progress Is Usually Small And Sneaky.

I Am Learning Slowly To Bring My Crazy Pinball-machine Mind Back To This Place.

Expectations Are Resentment Waiting To Happen.

I Naturally Prefer The Company Of People Who Hold Grudges, As Long As They Are Not Held Against Me.

I Used To Tell My Writing Students That They Must Write The Books They Wished They Could Come Upon - Because Then The Books They Hungered And Thirsted For Would Exist.

The Road To Enlightenment Is Long And Difficult, And You Should Try Not To Forget Snacks And Magazines.

My Mind Is A Neighborhood I Try Not To Go Into Alone.

I Have A Very Dark Sense Of Humor. I Swear. I Have A Very Playful Relationship With Jesus.

Perfectionism Is A Mean, Frozen Form Of Idealism, While Messes Are The Artist's True Friend.

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

To Be Engrossed By Something Outside Ourselves Is A Powerful Antidote For The Rational Mind, The Mind That So Frequently Has Its Head Up Its Own Ass.

I Am Not Writing To Try And Convert People To Fundamental Christianity. I Am Just Trying To Share My Experience, Strength And Hope, That Someone Who Is As Messed Up And Neurotic And Scarred And Scared Can Be Fully Accepted By Our Dear Lord, No Questions Asked.

Write Straight Into The Emotional Center Of Things. Write Toward Vulnerability. Don't Worry About Appearing Sentimental. Worry About Being Unavailable; Worry About Being Absent Or Fraudulent.

Everyone Is Screwed Up, Broken, Clingy, And Scared, Even The People Who Seem To Have It More Or Less Together.

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.

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.

Almost All Good Writing Begins With Terrible First Efforts. You Need To Start Somewhere. Start By Getting Something—anything—down On Paper. What I’ve Learned To Do When I Sit Down To Work On A Shitty First Draft Is To Quiet The Voices In My Head.

They Always Threw Their Arms Around And Hugged Me While Crying Our Yiddish Endearments. Yet None Of Them Believed In God. They Believed In Social Justice, Good Works, Israel, And Bette Midler. I Was Nearly Thirty Before I Met A Religious Jew.

For Some Of Us, Good Books And Beautiful Writing Are Our Ultimate Solace, Even More Comforting Than Exquisite Food.

Think Of A Fine Painter Attempting To Capture An Inner Vision, Beginning With One Corner Of The Canvas, Painting What She Thinks Should Be There, Not Quite Pulling It Off, Covering It Over With White Paint, And Trying Again, Each Time Finding Out What Her Painting Isn't, Until She Finally Finds Out What It Is. And When You Finally Do Find Out What One Corner Of Your Vision Is; You're Off And Running.

The Depth Of The Feeling Continued To Surprise And Threaten Me, But Each Time It Hit Again And I Bore It...i Would Discover That It Hadn't Washed Me Away.

Expectations Are Resentments Under Construction.

I Write Everything As A Wake-up Call To Myself And Others, To Anyone Who May Have Gotten Tired Of Hitting The Snooze Button.

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

My Best Teachers Were Mess, Failure, Death, Mistakes, And The People I Hated, Including Myself.

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.

Most People's Intuitions Are Drowned Out By Folk Sayings. We Have A Moment Of Real Feeling Or Insight, And Then We Come Up With A Folk Saying That Captures The Insight In A Kind Of Wash. The Intuition May Be Real And Ripe, Fresh With Possibilities, But The Folk Saying Is Guaranteed To Be A Cliche, Stale And Self-contained.

Never Compare Your Insides To Everyone Else's Outsides.

Gratitude Begins In Our Hearts And Then Dovetails Into Behavior. It Almost Always Makes You Willing To Be Of Service, Which Is Where The Joy Resides. It Means That You Are Willing To Stop Being Such A Jerk. When You Are Aware Of All That Has Been Given To You, In Your Lifetime And The Past Few Days, It Is Hard Not To Be Humbled, And Pleased To Give Back.

Some People Won't Go The Extra Mile, And Then On Their Birthday, When No One Makes A Fuss, They Feel Neglected And Bitter.

Going The Extra Mile

Joy Is The Best Makeup. But A Little Lipstick Is A Close Runner-up.

When Faced With A Crisis, Do Three Things: Breathe, Pray And Be Kind.

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.

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.

Rationality Squeezes Out Much That Is Rich And Juicy And Fascinating.

Butterflies And Birds Are Like One Perfect Teaspoon Of Creation.

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.

I Wish There Were Shortcuts To Wisdom And Self-knowledge: Cuter Abysses Or Three-day Spa Wilderness Experiences. Sadly, It Doesn't Work That Way. I So Resent This.

I Don't Remember Who Said This, But There Really Are Places In The Heart You Don't Even Know Exist Until You Love A Child.

Funny Inspirational

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

Mostly What Happens In The Novels Never Happened In Real Life.

Laughter Is Carbonated Holiness.

I've Written Six Novels And Four Pieces Of Nonfiction, So I Don't Really Have A Genre These Days.

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.

Laughter Is The Key That Grace Has Arrived.

All Those Years I Fell For The Great Palace Lie That Grief Should Be Gotten Over As Quickly As Possible And As Privately. But, What I've Discovered Is That The Lifelong Fear Of Grief Keeps Us In A Barren, Isolated Place, And That 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.

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.

Seeing Yourself In Print Is Such An Amazing Concept: You Can Get So Much Attention Without Having To Actually Show Up Somewhere... You Don't Have To Dress Up, For Instance, And You Can't Hear Them Boo You Right Away.

Perfection Is Shallow, Unreal, And Fatally Uninteresting.

Needless To Say, There Was No One Around Remotely Fitting The Description Of A Normal Person: I Was At A Writing Conference.

I Do Not Know Much About God And Prayer, But I Have Come To Believe Over The Last Twenty-five Years, That There's Something To Be Said About Keeping Prayer Simple. Help, Thanks, Wow.

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

All Criticism Hurts Me. I'm So In The Wrong Business.

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.

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

Her Purse Was A Weight, Ballast; It Tethered Her To The Earth As Her Mind Floated Away.

Love Is So Much Bigger Than Our Ignorance.

Clutter And Mess Show Us That Life Is Being Lived.

My Father Was A Writer, So I Grew Up Writing And Reading And I Was Really Encouraged By Him.

...the Three Things I Cannot Change Are The Past, The Truth, And You.

'help' Is A Prayer That Is Always Answered.

Answered Prayers

Forgiveness Means It Finally Becomes Unimportant That You Hit Back.

Sometimes I Think God Loves The Ones Who Most Desperately Ache And Are Most Desperately Lost - His Or Her Wildest, Most Messed-up Children - The Way You'd Ache And Love A Screwed-up Rebel Daughter In Juvenile Hall.

Becoming A Writer Is About Becoming Conscious.

We're All Afraid Of The Same Stuff. Mostly We're Afraid That We're Secretly Not Okay, That We're Disgusting, Or Frauds, Or About To Be Diagnosed With Cancer. ... We Want To Teach You How To Quiet The Yammer ... How You Can Create Comfort, Inside And Outside, How You Can Get Warm, How You Can Feed Yourself. And Even Learn To Get Through Silence. ... There Is A Wilderness Inside You, And A Banquet. Both. [p. 253]

What If You Wake Up Some Day, And You're 65... And You Were Just So Strung Out On Perfectionism And People-pleasing That You Forgot To Have A Big Juicy Creative Life?

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

You Get Your Intuition Back When You Make Space For It, When You Stop The Chattering Of The Rational Mind.

There Are These People Who Keep Taking You In And Feeding You And Loving You And Making The World A Tiny Bit Safer Than It Feels. People Have Community And Family, But Existentially We Are Deeply Isolated.

We Were Raised To Believe In Books, Music, And Nature.

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.

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.

Don't Look At Your Feet To See If You Are Doing It Right. Just Dance.

I Used To Love To Untangle Chains When I Was A Child. I Had Thin, Busy Fingers, And I Never Gave Up. Perhaps There Was A Psychiatric Component To My Concentration But Like Much Of My Psychic Damage, This Worked To Everyone's Advantage.

A Writer Paradoxically Seeks The Truth And Tells Lies Every Step Of The Way. It's A Lie If You Make Something Up. But You Make It Up In The Name Of Truth, And Then You Give Your Heart To Expressing It Clearly.

Laughter Is A Bubbly, Effervescent Form Of Holiness

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.

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.

I Pray Not To Be Such A Whiny, Self-obsessed Baby, And Give Thanks That I Am Not Quite As Bad As I Used To Be (talk About Miracles). Then Something Comes Up, And I Overreact And Blame And Sulk, And It Feels Like I Haven't Made Any Progress At All. But It Turns Out I'm Less Of A Brat Than Before, And I Hit The Reset Button Much Sooner, Shake It Off, And Get My Sense If Humor Back.

Now She And I Sit Together In Her Room And Eat Chocolate, And I Tell Her That In A Very Long Time When We Both To Go Heaven, We Should Try To Get Chairs Next To Each Other, Close To The Dessert Table.

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

This Is Our Goal As Writers, I Think; To Help Others Have This Sense Of--please Forgive Me--wonder, Of Seeing Things Anew, Things That Can Catch Us Off Guard, That Break In On Our Small, Bordered Worlds.

Hope Begins In The Dark.

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

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

Many Mornings I Check Out The News As Soon As I Wake Up, Because If It Turns Out That The World Is Coming To An End That Day, I Am Going To Eat The Frosting Off An Entire Carrot Cake; Just For A Start. Then I Will Move Onto Vats Of Clam Dip, Pots Of Crime Brûlée, Nachos, M & M's Etc. Then I Will Max Out Both My Credit Cards.

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

It Is Unearned Love--the Love That Goes Before, That Greets Us On The Way. It's The Help 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 Embarrassed And Eventually Grateful As You Are To Be There.

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