Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith
By: Anne Lamott
Riverhead Books; Reprint edition (March 28, 2006)
352 pages
Plan B is Lamott’s third memoir, a follow up to Traveling Mercies. Similar to her last book exploring the difficulties of being, Lamott wrestles with purpose, meaning, and raising an adolescent son. She seems to fight with her faith, and those pesky fruits of the spirit, as she constantly finds herself learning about living a life of grace. Take a look yourself, you might love the way Anne Lamott writes, too.
Two of my favorite quotes:
Father Tom loves the desert. A number of my friends do. They love the skies that pull you into infinity, like the ocean. They love the silence, and how, if you listen long enough, the pulse of the desert begins to sound like the noise your finger makes when you run it around the rim of a crystal glass. They love the scary beauty—snakes, lizards, scorpions, the kestrels and hawks. They love the mosaics of water-washed pebbles on the desert floor, small rocks that cast huge shadows, a shoot of vegetation here, a wildflower there. I like the desert for short periods of time, from inside a car, with the windows rolled up and the doors locked. I prefer beach resorts with room service.
There’s a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, “Why on our hearts, and not in them?” 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.”