Paul and I are on day one of our road trip across the western U.S. We are camping our way to California and back…we could possibly be insane, we’ll report back on that about a week from now.
Our car is loaded down with camping gear, clothes for all weather, plenty of yummy snacks from the beloved Trader Joe’s, and a pile of books on cd. We’re hoping to get in a book a day, and considering we’re almost through number one, I think we’ll make it.
Today’s book is Anne Lamott’s Grace (Eventually). I got to pick first, and I am a big fan of Lamott. And it goes much further than her frequent jabs at Bush (not that I mind).
This is why I like Anne Lamott – she’s honest. No shiny, happy Jesus people here. Her expressions of joy are genuine, but so are her feelings of anger, frustration, passion, confusion and pain. She talks about the complication, both beautiful and ugly, that is life. I love how she is always able to come back to Jesus in those polarities. And, she makes me laugh.
I’ve always been enamored with grace. Perhaps it is because I need so much of it, perhaps it is because it is so comfortingly Lutheran, perhaps it is because grace is a great gift from God that we are so tangibly able to bring into the world we know today. Whatever the reason, the old U2 lyric rings true, “grace makes beauty out of ugly things.”
Lamott scored extra points with this book for her chapter, “Dance Class.” She describes her experience helping out with a dance class for developmentally disabled adults. Her story encapsulated the dance therapy experience, and at the end when one of the students said, “I liked those old ladies who came today, they were helpers, and they were dancers” I cried my way across the Minnesota interstate. I hope someday I can say I was a helper and a dancer, and most of all that I managed to do it with grace.
* p.s. we are now actually on day three of the road trip journey and had internet for the first time so I was able to post this! *
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