{"id":404,"date":"2007-03-23T13:36:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T13:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cathleenfalsani.wordpress.com\/2007\/03\/23\/404"},"modified":"2007-03-23T13:36:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-23T13:36:00","slug":"404","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thedudeabides\/2007\/03\/23\/404\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

GODSTUFF:<\/font><\/p>\n

THE BAD GIRL OF CHRISTIANITY RIDES AGAIN: ANNE LAMOTT<\/b><\/p>\n

Anne Lamott is the kind of Christian who makes a lot of other Christians nervous. <\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s because she\u2019s really<\/i> honest.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s honest about her sins, her foibles and her faith, and she makes no excuses for any of them.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s wide open about her less-than-perfect faith walk, about being a single mother, a recovering addict, a bleeding-heart liberal, neurotic, insecure and wickedly funny. Lamott<\/a> has chronicled her wacky and (sometimes) wild adventures in faith in books such as Traveling Mercies<\/i>, Plan B<\/i>, and most recently, the wonderful Grace (Eventually)<\/i>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the part that makes a lot of other people who call themselves Christians, too, nervous and, sometimes even angry, because Lamott should, they think, either keep her imperfections to herself or stop calling herself a Christian.<\/p>\n

Lamott\u2019s book Plan B<\/i><\/a> began with a darkly humorous chapter about how she was so upset with President Bush and so filled with hate for what he was doing to the country and the world that she wanted to kill herself, except that she was tired and her back hurt and she just didn\u2019t have the energy to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat scared a lot of people off,\u201d Lamott told me with a little chuckle a few days ago by phone from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area, adding that most Christian bookstores won\u2019t carry her books. (They should.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that was kind of scary for somebody who loves Jesus so much, who loves God and sort of tries to live in my funky, erratic way, being love, being God\u2019s love for other people, and really experiencing God\u2019s love in my own life \u2014 for somebody doing all of that to be so angry at the same time I think was kind of frightening,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

When Lamott was promoting Traveling Mercies<\/i><\/a> after its release in 1999, response among some conservative Christians was vitriolic at best.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was getting a lot of callers on call-in radio shows who were explaining to me, usually in their sweet Southern voices, that I was going to be rotting in hell for all of eternity because I was kind of cherry-picking from the Bible, and that they actually had the truth and the Bible right in front of them to prove that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that in a lot of churches I\u2019d be seen as somebody who is in mortal sin for about 20 different reasons, one of which is that I totally love gay people.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, Jesus doesn\u2019t have a word to say about sex. Not a word. \u2026 I know that Jesus doesn\u2019t have a position on who we love. Just that we should,\u201d she says. \u201cI think if we could just get the Golden Rule down Jesus would be thrilled. I feel like it would be Mardi Gras day in heaven if we could just, like, nail this one concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

See. It\u2019s from-the-hip stuff like that that gets her in trouble with other Christians who want to throw her out of their club for making them look bad.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s precisely because of stuff like that that some others of us who call ourselves Christians see Lamott as a hero, a giant of the faith who inspires us to go deeper with God.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago I even had a T-shirt made<\/a> that says, \u201cAnnie is my pastor\u201d<\/a> on the front, and \u201cJust Jesusy\u201d on the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cJesusy\u201d is one of the ways Lamott describes herself as a believer.<\/p>\n

In Grace (Eventually)<\/i><\/a>, Lamott, 52, talks vividly and unapologetically about helping a dear, terminally ill friend end his life in one chapter, and about her unwavering support for abortion rights \u2014 and the fact that she\u2019s had abortions herself \u2014 in another. She does not apologize.<\/p>\n

And that, if I had to make an educated guess, is going to get her into trouble. Again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fundamentalists get to say what their experience of truth is and I get to say what mine is,\u201d she tells me with not a hint of bitterness. \u201cAll I can do is really share my experience and strength and hope and my understanding of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

I love Lamott because she is \u201ca bad girl of Christianity,\u201d because she doesn\u2019t try to hide the cracks in her vessel or say the right things. I find her stories faith-affirming in large part because she understands that affecting a false piety isn\u2019t doing Jesus \u2014 or his motley band of imperfect followers \u2014 any favors.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are just starved for more of your humanity as a seeker,\u201d she told me before we hung up the phone. \u201cI thought I was supposed to be getting more esoteric or to be able to understand more and more complicated aspects of faith or grace. But people are just so hungry for just a little bit of your own truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you say the truth, something inside of them just comes alive,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople listen and they go, \u2018Oh my God, you know what? Me too!\u2019 And then you\u2019re home.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then you\u2019re home.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GODSTUFF: THE BAD GIRL OF CHRISTIANITY RIDES AGAIN: ANNE LAMOTT Anne Lamott is the kind of Christian who makes a lot of other Christians nervous. I think it\u2019s because she\u2019s really honest. She\u2019s honest about her sins, her foibles and her faith, and she makes no excuses for any of them. She\u2019s wide open about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2711],"class_list":["post-404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Dude Abides<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"GODSTUFF:THE BAD GIRL OF CHRISTIANITY RIDES AGAIN: ANNE LAMOTTAnne Lamott is the kind of Christian who makes a lot of other Christians nervous. 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