Discerning Reader

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Offering Hope

Anne Lamott lights the way

if you’re a fan of Anne Lamott, you know exactly why to pick up her latest book, Almost Everything: Notes on Hope. Anne is predictable in the best kind of way, like an Egg McMuffin — warm and savory, delicious and filling (especially if joined by a crunchy hash brown). I finished Almost Everything while enjoying the perfect McDonald’s breakfast and found myself just this side of heaven.

If you’ve not read anything by her, here are three reasons you might want to try her latest.

First and most important, she offers comfort to the struggling soul — which, I think, is most of us. Anne knows that we get stuff wrong all the time, important stuff. We hurt the people closest to us and plenty of other people, too. We are selfish and limited. We don’t always have the best intentions. We lack empathy and imagination when it matters most. And also: We learn and grow. And others do too. We surprise each other.

We forgive and are forgiven. We seek and are found. God’s love moves in us and through us and in those around us in the most unexpected ways. Which offers, you know, hope. Anne is a Christian, but she doesn’t think you have to be to understand what she’s talking about.

Reason number two: Reading her books feels like you’re gossiping with your favorite aunt, the straighttalker. She tells you about her son and his drug problem. She tells you about the time she called her uncle a “scumbutt” over the phone and hung up on him. Reconciliation took a long time. She doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to finding peace of mind. “There is almost nothing outside you that will help in any kind of lasting way, unless you are waiting for an organ donor. You can’t buy, achieve, or date serenity. Peace of mind is an inside job, unrelated to fame, fortune, or whether your partner loves you. Horribly, what this means is that it is also an inside job for the few people you love most desperately in the world.”

Is there any harder yet truer truth?

Reason three: In the midst of all this hard-earned wisdom, Lamott will make you laugh. “[D]eath is not the enemy; snakes are,” she writes. “And cheese: it is addictive and irresistible. I have had three kinds so far today.”

“There’s no cure for being human,” says my friend Caroline. “When all is said and done, we’re all just walking each other home,” says Ram Dass. Anne Lamott, better than any writer I know, offers balm and helps light the way. Which is almost everything.