anne lamott

Megan, one of my best friends from junior high, she was in my wedding and everything, sent me this today and I wanted to post it. They're some quotes from Anne Lamott's book "Plan B: Some Thoughts On Faith."

"Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You’re done. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person." (p 47)

And how about this, on holiness? “Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes—in not enough help, in brokenness, mess. . . .In holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and the disruptions.” (p 68)

On hope: “The reason I never give up hope is that everything is basically hopeless. Hopelessness underscores everything—the deep sadness and fear at the center of life, the holes in the heart of our families, the animal confusion within us. When you do give up hope, a lot can happen. When it’s not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it may float forth and open like those fluted Japanese blossoms, flimsy and static, bright and warm.” (237-238)

And later, on the hope buried in Good Friday’s bleakness: “Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.” (275)

On faith: “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.” (256-257)

turkish delight and peaceful resistance

You know what sucks, people who aren’t nice, that's what. My primal instinct is to retaliate somehow but as I get older and more philosophical I’ve been thinking about how retaliation isn’t good. So what do you do with the pain other people cause…there is no guide book for this. I want a formula, I want it in black and white, but it’s grey. Damn. I love what Ghandi and MLK and Christ had to say about passive resistance and peaceful disobedience where you stand your ground but don’t respond with aggression. I feel like there’s something magical about this tactic. It killed each of them in the end...dude. It reminds me of the Deep Magic in the Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe it is exactly the same thing. When I do the passive resistance/nonaggressive response thing I feel like something big is taking place, and I feel that I’m getting my ass kicked, but for the greater good. I feel like I’m living from a more honest place because I really believe that if you go around retaliating, everyone loses. I love CS Lewis for putting it into story when Aslan came back after being killed, and the stone table he had been killed on cracked in half, and he said “when a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in a traitor's stead, the Table will crack and Death itself will start working backwards."

That gives me chills..

(Also, I love Simone for sending me authentic Australian Turkish delight since she says a self-respecting Lewis fan should know what Edmund was talking about. Wait, if it were authentic, wouldn’t it be from Turkey and not Australia? Anyway, it beats the shitty Turkish delight from Pike Place Market all to hell. Sky rockets in flight! Turkish delight, turrr-urrr-rrrkish delight.)