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Faith and God

 A nice surprise this week was to find Anne Lamott's "Grace (Eventually)" in a used bookstore in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Lamott wrote this in the Late Dubyah Years, and Dubyah hovers around in the background. Lamott worries about the war in Iraq, and various cuts to libraries, and John Bolton wielding power within the UN. On a smaller scale, Lamott worries about her son and his friends; their den sometimes smells like a "gathering of elks." Lamott worries about her difficult mother, who is "floating off on a sea of dementia, leaving us kids waving in confusion on the shore." And Lamott worries about one disastrous lesson plan. ("Sometimes, you reach the students, and sometimes, you could be Lady Gaga juggling flaming torches, and this wouldn't matter; you wouldn't grab a child's attention. You do what you can, and move on.")

Lamott has helped me through this week; even though I have minimal interest in faith and God, I'm entertained by Lamott's metaphors and by the rhythms of her sentences. Five stars.
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