Sounds very interesting. I like reading all different types of writers, but I don't like fiction. Her stuff sounds like it's along the lines of what I've been attempting to do, i.e. write all my stories down. Several are done, but I can come back to them months later and I think, "Oh, Lord, let me change that quick before anyone reads it!" And it really helps when you can read someones stories that are polished and natural at the same time.

> An SGA friend sent me copies of Anne
> Lamott's "Traveling Mercies: Some
> thoughts on faith" and "Plan B:
> Further thoughts on faith" to read
> while I'm laying around the house for the
> next six weeks.

> LaMott books are collections of narrative
> essays, one of my favorite literary forms,
> as the action does not drag on and on or go
> off onto tangents that tax my ability to
> concentrate for long periods of time. Like
> many narrative essayists, LaMott writes
> about every day--stories about her son, her
> family of origin, childhood friends, her
> church family. She tells stories about
> recovering from alcoholism & bulemia,
> experiencing the deaths of her father,
> mother, and closest friend, raising a child
> as a single, unwed mother, her conversion to
> left-wing, social gospel Christianity, her
> struggles as a writer and artist, and
> simple, sweet stories about children who
> overcome their terror of dogs and lessons
> learned while celebrating birthday parties.

> She writes wonderful, funny prose and witty
> one-liners like: "Some people think God
> is in the details, but I have come to think
> that God is in the bathroom." She
> writes that the two best prayers she knows
> are "Help me, help me, help me"
> and "thank you, thank you, thank
> you." This may not the most profound
> stuff in the world, but I like it because it
> expresses the ordinary, everyday human faith
> I value most, which is irreverent and
> quirky.

> LaMott is one of the San Francisco Bay area
> "literary" writers, and her
> politics are pretty much what you'd expect
> from that cultural milieu, except that she
> is a professing Christian, or as LaMott
> would say, "I'm just a bad Christian. A
> bad born-again Christian. And certainly,
> like the apostle Peter, I am capable of
> denying it, of presenting myself as a sort
> of leftist liberation-theology enthusiast
> and maybe sort of vaguely Jesusy bon vivant.
> But it's not true...I am a believer, a
> convert." (Knocking on Heaven's Door,
> p. 61)

> LaMott is one among few (if any) left-wing
> Christian writers who publish critical
> commentary on their right-wing evangelical
> bretheren with good-natured humor and
> insight. She tells of an encounter with such
> an evangelical on an airplane in the
> narrative essay "Knocking on Heaven's
> Door," where she relates that the man
> sitting next to her, who is reading a book
> about the Apocalypse,

> "...began telling me how he and his
> wife were homeschooling their children, and
> he described with enormous acrimony how the
> radical, free-for-all, feminist,
> touchy-feely philosophy of his country's
> school system, and I knew instanting that
> this description was an act of aggression
> against me--that he was telepathically on to
> me, could see that I was the enemy, that I
> will be on the same curling team in heaven
> as Tom Hayden and Vanessa Redgrave."
> (p. 62)

> I'm almost finished with Traveling Mercies
> and will be diving into "Plan B",
> where LaMott talks about politics and her
> view of the Bushites.