Some thoughts from Anne Lamott

These come from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.

"I try to listen for God’s voice inside me, but my sense of discernment tends to be ever so slightly muddled. When God wants to get my attention, She clears Her throat a number of times, trying to get me to look up, or inward–and then if I don’t pay attention, She rolls Her eyes, makes a low growling sound, and starts kicking me under the table with Her foot."

"One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness."

"I am going to pray for our president to believe that all people deserve to be fed, and to try to make that a reality. Bush believes in serving the poor, but only when they are the ‘deserving’ poor. What on earth does that mean? If I were more spiritually evolved, I would mail him a friendly card, because if you want to change the way you feel about people, you have to change the way you treat them. I know that Bush is family, and that I am supposed to love him, but I hate this–he is a dangerous member of the family, like a Klansman, or Osama bin Laden. Maybe I can’t exactly forgive him right now, in the sense of canceling my resentment and judgment. But maybe I can simply acknowledge what is true, spiritually–that he gets to come to the table and eat, too; that I would not let him starve."

"But I know two things now that I didn’t at thirty: That when we get to heaven, we will discover that the appearance of our butts and our skin was 127th on the list of what mattered on this earth. And I am not going to live forever. Knowing these things has set me free."

"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. Faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with, the sense, for example, to go for a walk."

And this is my favorite: "The next morning I got on my knees and prayed, ‘Please, please help me. Please let me feel You while I adjust to not getting what I was hoping for.’ And then I remembered Rule 1: When all else fails, follow instructions. And Rule 2: Don’t be an asshole."