Writing about Faith

A short post today, as I am currently in Minneapolis to attend a day-long seminar on Faith and Writing featuring Anne Lamott. If you have never read her, she is great, great, great! Yes, she's gritty; yes, she hops onto the political soapbox from time to time; yes she swears occasionally, but she also has insightful, inspiring, laugh-out-loud observations about faith in the everyday. Her writing has truly been an inspiration to me, and I am excited beyond belief to attend this conference today with my sister-in-law Vanessa, who has graciously sacrificed her day to go with me (because, quite frankly, I tend to turn into a quaking wallflower at these types of events).

So, without further ado...I will leave you with a few words from Anne Lamott about why she brings her young son Sam to church. This is from Traveling Mercies:

I make him because I can. I outweigh him by nearly seventy-five pounds.

But this is only part of it. The main reason is that I want to give him what I found in the world, which is to say a path and a little light to see by. Most of the people I know who have what I want -- which is to say, purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy -- are people with a deep sense of spirituality. They are people in community, who pray, or practice their faith; they are Buddhists, Jews, Christians -- people banding together to work on themselves and for human rights. They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle; they are part of something beautiful. I saw something once from the Jewish Theological Seminary that said, 'A human life is like a single letter of the alphabet. It can be meaningless. Or it can be part of a great meaning.' Our funky little church is filled with people who are working for peace and freedom, who are out there on the streets and inside praying, and they are home writing letters, and they are at the shelters with giant platters of food.

 Amen!