Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

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Book Review: When someone generally says they are a Christian, most people will automatically (right or wrong) envision a Right Wing supporter of President Bush. Well, Anne Lamott (author of the best seller “Traveling Mercies�) proves that not all Christians fall into this category. First off, you need to picture a 50 year old white woman with dreadlocks who is an ex-drug addict raising a 15 year old son on her own and is a self proclaimed Right Wing Christian. And, by the way, she really has problems with the Bush Administration. Ok, now you are beginning to get an insight into the author of the book “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith�.

When asked if I am a Liberal or Conservative I just shrug my shoulders and say “depends�. It depends on the issue. Sometimes I can be pretty conservative, and on other issues I might be extremely liberal. Sometimes I may be middle of the road. I guess I just don’t fit into a nice neat box. So there are many things I could relate to in Anne’s book, but then there are some things that she comes up with that I found a little extreme, even me.

But all-in-all, I feel like Anne Lamott provided a lot of insight into our daily life, especially for those of us in the second half of this (sometimes) wonderful and glorious life. Yet even those who still think their physical body is immortal can find nuggets of wisdom that might help them find their way the complex maze of what we call life.

Life is tough. For anyone who has had any experience in life knows that this is one of life’s truer statements. Anne Lamott has had a tough life and has taken her hard earned wisdom and put it down on paper. Again, her perspective takes on a highly liberal viewpoint on many issues, but even in this she speaks what many of us (both liberals and conservatives) have thought ourselves, just not put into words. For those that believe there is only way to look at a subject, they might not “get� Anne’s book. But for the majority who look at the many angles of an issue, regardless of whether they are Christian or not, this book holds a lot for them to think about. It is a book about faith in everyday life and faith that knows no bounds. Or for that matter, structure. That’s why those of you who have never felt comfortable in a traditional church will soak up this book.

To really understand where Anne comes from and how she interprets daily life, it is best to highlight some of her observations that I found of interest:

Anne tells the story of trying to start up a Sunday school at her church, though at the time she did not particularly like having more than two children around at any time and she has self proclaimed mediocre self-esteem. As she put it, “I grow anxious on my way to the dump with a car full of garbage, convinced that my garbage and I will be rejected, either because I am throwing out perfectly good stuff, or because it is so disgusting that the people who run the dump wouldn’t want it.�

So why start a Sunday school. She tells a Hasidic story [Anne leverages all people to get to her point] of a rabbi who when asked why God puts Scripture on their hearts rather than in their hearts. The rabbi answered “Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.�

The Iraqi war started during the writing of Anne’s book and greatly influenced much of the book’s content. In one chapter she relates of how the war made her feel the same as when her mother had Alzheimers and her entire family felt totally helpless. You didn’t know quite what to do as the old rules just no longer applied. She remembers a decal she saw that helped her through her mother’s debilitating disease and also through the beginning weeks of the Iraqi war. It had a picture of a gorilla on it and a caption that said “The law of the American jungle: Remain calm, share the bananas.� Her family tried to make one another laugh and stay calm, and shared their bananas. This is what she says we all need to do every day – share the bananas because we are all in this together and faith is about relying on each other and God.

Anne pulls on wisdom she has garnered from many different wise people (Christians, Buddhist, Hindus, whoever). There are a number of things that Anne says that really stuck with me. One was something she learned from reading the memoir by a Hindu writer; which she says is basically the same thing she was told by a close Priest friend of hers, “…when you pray, you are not starting the conversation from scratch, just remembering to plug back into a conversation that’s always in progress.� I now find my self sitting down and rather than beginning with a lot of re-introductions (after all, God probably knows me well enough from all my past failures), I just start right off like I had stepped out of the room to get a soda and was returning to an on-going conversation. Sometimes, I just sit and say “I’m back God�.

The book is really humorous, but I do caution – this is not your normal “Christian life insight� book, and if you consider yourself more on the conservative side and not really interested in getting into the mind of someone a bit different, you won’t enjoy this reading. One example I can give you is that Anne feels that there are times when only profanity is the proper response and she is not bashful about using it from time-to-time to express her feelings. Overall, though most Readers will probably not agree with all Anne’s observations, I believe that there is something for everyone in this book. Whether the parent of a teenager, an ex-hippy, recovering addict, single parent, or Sunday school teacher and devout Christian, you will recognize something in this book that you can relate with and will find yourself going “hmmm�.

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