I say them both equally. I also say a third prayer … I go, “Whoa!” — in the most California way possible. Sometimes I say it when I step outside or when I look up […] About half the time in my stories, there’s a breakthrough where the plates of the Earth shift inside my tight, frightened heart. Often I say, “Help me, help me,” and I know that within the same minute, that I’m being heard and that help is being assembled, and the most unlikely caseworker on Earth is about to arrive with some sort of spiritual question or offering. But when I step outside and I look up, I am blown away. It’s hard to be this smallest package on Earth, this tightly-wrapped, spoiled alcoholic woman, you know, and so to step back into some sense of community or the beauty of nature is when I say my third prayer. Sometimes I say, “Wow.” I think I used to say, “Wowww!” — or “God!” When Sam was little, he said, “I think the reason they call God ‘God’ is because when you see something really, really beautiful, you go, ‘God!’” And I said, “OK, it works for me.”
Over the years, you have written a lot about the joys and struggles of being a single mom, and I wonder: What are you teaching Sam about God and faith?
[…] And, when something really quirky or coincidental or wonderful happens, he will call or text message and say: “Oh my God, God is so showing off right now!”
Anne Lamott on Jesus, grace and forgiving President Bush
(I lowve this woman, and her writing. -Y)
3 months ago