plan B
that was the title of the book i just read by anne lamott – one of her memoirs. here are some of my favorite bits…
“grace means you’re in a different universe from where you had been stuck, when you had absolutely no way to get there on your own”
“there’s a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, ‘why on our hearts, and not in them?’ the rabbi answered, ‘only God can put Scripture inside. but reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.’”
“he is an exact person, as we all are, even though I sense that there is only one of us, that we are mosaic chips of that One.”
“it’s good to do uncomfortable things. it’s weight training for life.”
“lately our pastor has been urging us to act more like Martin Luther King, Jr., which I feel gives an unfair advantage to the more decent and humane people.”
“why couldn’t Jesus command us to obsess about 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?”
“gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity. i prayed for the willingness to have very mild spiritual well-being. I didn’t need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; i just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.”
“i would recommend that you all take a long deep breath, and stop. just be where your butts are, and breathe. take some time.”
