This morning I am thankful for Anne Lamott and also her short book on prayer: Help, Thanks, Wow. I first read Anne Lamott ten years ago when we had to read her book about writing Bird by Bird for a class. Randomly afterward I realized I had a handful of friends who were really into her book Travelling Mercies, which is about her faith and was such a refreshing read. I'm thankful for a writer who can mentor me through a season of wanting to let go of my anxiety and frantic pace.
There are three sections, each dedicated to a word in the title, and she walks the reader through admitting we don't know what to do, the art of gratitude, and the way that wonder can change us and the way we see the world. I could subtitle this book "breathing deep through all the things," because she describes how these prayer rhythms anchor her as a person able to face life with courage. It reminded me what a gift centeredness can be.
So I just want to share two excerpts and throw them out into the universe in the hope that someone will connect with them as well, and feel just a little bit more full today:
Without revelation and reframing, life can seem like an endless desert of danger with scratchy sand in your shoes, and yet if we remember or are reminded to pay attention, we find so many sources of hidden water (page 53).
We're individuals in time and space who are gravely lost, and then miraculously, in art, found...In paintings, music, poetry, architecture, we feel the elusive energy that moves through us and the air and teh ground all the time, that usually disperses and turns chaotic in our busy-ness and distractedness and moodiness. Artists channel it, corral it, make it visible to the rest of us. The best works of art are semaphores of our experience, signaling what we didn't know was true but do now (page 82).
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