Anne Lamott gets right to the point: If you’re having a bad day, friends “will ruin everything for you. They bust you by being grateful for the day while you are obsessed with how thin your lashes have become or how wide your bottom. They will shame you by being happy even though they have Lou Gehrig’s Disease and shake you loose from your self-pity.”
Lamott’s hike in the Muir Woods with her friend Barbara, who is afflicted with the disease, is one of the stories she tells in “Small Victories.” The book is a series of essays about triumphs and awakenings in her life, everything from falling off a ski lift to going on to find a boyfriend (which didn’t work out, but she got a good story out of it).
Lamott is the best-selling author of quirky books about faith. Once an alcoholic and a drug addict, Lamott was unmarried, pregnant and about to get an abortion when she wandered into a church in California and found God. But she is not your average self-righteous, preachy born-again. Lamott is funny, witty and irreverent. She is also liberal and non-judgmental, which does not make her a favorite among conservative Christians. It does make her a favorite, however, among those who thinks God has a sense of humor.
Lamott’s brand of faith is for those who are struggling with religion and haven’t a clue what God wants them to do and be. She believes that “God answers prayers eventually — of course, it is the ‘eventually’ that throws one into despair,” she writes.
Forgiveness is a theme of many of her essays. Forgiveness, she writes, “is the hardest work we do.” She has tips: When you begin learning forgiveness, it is not necessary to start with the Gestapo. And forgiving “doesn’t necessarily mean you want to go on vacation together.” But it’s important, not just to the person you forgive but to you. “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison then waiting for the rat to die,” she writes.
“Small Victories” is Lamott’s seventh book on faith. She hit the best-seller list with her hilarious “Operating Instructions,” the story of her pregnancy and the first year of her son’s life. He’s now in his 20s. Then she went on to write “Bird by Bird,” every writer’s favorite book on writing.
Her novels are less successful. But her books on faith are on the best-seller lists, and with good reason. Her basic message is love and forgiveness. “Jesus said, and this is not a direct quote, ‘The point is not to hate and kill each other today, and if you can, to help the forgotten and powerless.'”
Not a bad message for any faith.
