Life According to Anne Lamott

I discovered Anne Lamott's writing about ten years ago when I was doing my best (without much success) to teach a creative writing course. After searching in vain for a textbook suitable for the class, I stumbled upon Bird by Bird, in which Lamott shares her experiences as a writer. It was too late to order the book for the class, so I began many class periods by reading aloud her witty and practical observations on the writing life. I'm not sure how much the class members got out of it, but reading Lamott was lifegiving for me. She was such an encouraging and honest guide that at times she almost made me believe I could be a writer (and even that I might be able to teach creative writing). The first, I like to think, has turned out to be the case to some extent, the second, not so much.


From there I moved on to Traveling Mercies, the autobiographical work where she recounts her childhood, her addiction, her failed attempts at being a writer, her faith journey including finding a church community that nourished her, and her eventual writing success.  Of the many things I appreciate about Lamott, one of the greatest is her vulnerability and honesty about her own life. She's willing to put herself out there as she is, with all her fears and anxieties and screw ups. She admits that life is hard, that she doesn't have all the answers, that she needs the help of friends and fellow followers, and, most of all, God's help just to make it through most days.


Recently, on Twitter, Lamott referred to a commencement speech she gave at Berkley in 2002. Having just sat through something like my fortieth commencement ceremony, I was interested to see what kind of advice Lamott might give to an undergraduate audience. In her Twitter post, Lamott said that the speech contained pretty much "all she knows." I think it's her honest and forthright approach to life and faith that make her an excellent guide for all of us, but I especially commend her thoughts to the students I teach at George Fox University. You could pick many worse voices to listen to as you leave the safe confines of GFU and begin a new phase in your life. Herewith are a few excerpts from Lamott's graduation speech followed by some of my reflections. Enjoy!

So from the wise old pinnacle of my 49 years, I want to tell you that what you’re looking for is already inside you. You’ve heard this before, but the holy thing inside you really is that which causes you to seek it. You can’t buy it, lease it, rent it, date it or apply for it. The best job in the world can’t give it to you. Neither can success, or fame, or financial security — besides which, there ain’t no such thing. J.D. Rockefeller was asked, “How much money is enough?” and he said, “Just a little bit more.”

I'm a bit older than 49, and I'm still trying to learn this one. This seems a great antidote to all the competing voices you tend to hear when you are graduating telling to look outside yourself or to something you can do or accomplish for contentment. Anne's right. It won't work. As a bumper sticker I saw recently put it, "Begin within."

I do know you are not what you look like, or how much you weigh, or how you did in school, and whether you get to start a job next Monday or not. Spirit isn’t what you do, it’s … well, again, I don’t actually know. They probably taught this junior year at Goucher. But I know that you feel it best when you’re not doing much — when you’re in nature, when you’re very quiet, or, paradoxically, listening to music. 

I know you can feel it and hear it in the music you love, in the bass line, in the harmonies, in the silence between notes; in Chopin and Eminem, Emmylou Harris, Bach, whoever. You can close your eyes and feel the divine spark, concentrated in you, like a little Dr. Seuss firefly. It flickers with aliveness and relief, like an American in a foreign country who suddenly hears someone speaking in English. In the Christian tradition, they say that the soul rejoices in hearing what it already knows. And so you pay attention when that Dr. Seuss creature inside you sits up and says, “Yo!”

Because music has been such an influence on me throughout my life, I resonate with the idea that we can identify and feel our spirit when we listen to the music we love best. And it doesn't hurt that she mentions Emmylou Harris, who is one of my favorites and whose music will be in evidence at my memorial service someday if my surviving family members carry out my wishes. 

We can see spirit made visible in people being kind to each other, especially when it’s a really busy person, taking care of a needy annoying person. Or even if it’s terribly important you, stopping to take care of pitiful, pathetic you. In fact, that’s often when we see spirit most brightly. 

These lines make me think of stories about Jesus, who seemed to be often interrupted by needy and, I'm sure, sometimes annoying people, yet who accepted those interruptions with grace and responded with love. And he also took time to care for himself, retreating for a time to regain his focus.

You’re here to love, and be loved, freely. If you find out next week that you are terminally ill — and we’re all terminally ill on this bus — all that will matter is memories of beauty, that people loved you, and you loved them, and that you tried to help the poor and innocent.

These lines remind me of an Emmylou Harris song that goes, in part, "When you're gone, long gone/ The only thing that will have mattered/ Is the love that you shared and the way that you cared/ When you're gone, long gone."

So how do we feed and nourish our spirit, and the spirit of others?

First, find a path, and a little light to see by. Every single spiritual tradition says the same three things: 1) Live in the now, as often as you can, a breath here, a moment there. 2) You reap exactly what you sow. 3) You must take care of the poor, or you are so doomed that we can’t help you. 

You don’t have to go overseas. There are people right here who are poor in spirit; worried, depressed, dancing as fast as they can, whose kids are sick, or whose retirement savings are gone. There is great loneliness among us, life-threatening loneliness. People have given up on peace, on equality. They’ve even given up on the Democratic Party, which I haven’t, not by a long shot. You do what you can, what good people have always done: You bring thirsty people water; you share your food, you try to help the homeless find shelter, you stand up for the underdog. 

I particularly appreciate the wide view of spirituality Lamott presents here. I sometimes fear that our Christian university students only hear spirituality addressed from one perspective when there are, in fact, innumerable traditions from which we can learn. And, as Lamott reminds us, what we often find in studying those traditions is a surprising unity about some of the stuff in life that matters most.

Anything that can help you get your sense of humor back feeds the spirit, too. In the Bill Murray army movie “Stripes,” a very tense recruit announces during his platoon’s introductions, “My name is Francis. No one calls me Francis. Anyone calls me Francis, I’ll kill them. And I don’t like to be touched — anyone tries to touch me, I’ll kill them.” And the sergeant responds, “Oh, lighten up, Francis.” So you may need to upgrade your friends. You need to find people who laugh gently at themselves, who remind you gently to lighten up. 

Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down.

It wouldn't be Anne Lamott without humor, and she delivers here. Any commencement address that quotes from a classic movie like "Stripes" is alright in my book!

If you're a university student or a recent graduate reading this, I hope you'll take Lamott's words to heart. And I might add one more piece of Lamott wisdom. It occurs in her writing book Bird by Bird when she suggests that one of the most important lessons to learn as a writer is the lesson of "shitty first drafts." (I think I may have edited this statement in my creative writing class; the college I taught at then was pretty conservative.) In a great chapter, Lamott tells her own harrowing tale of having to scrap a novel that she had worked on for months and start, virtually, from scratch. What I want to suggest, however, is that this truth applies not only to writing but also to life. How many of us can look back on our past life events and identify some things that didn't work out so well the first time around. Perhaps it was a really bad first job or a terrible relationship or a depressing place to live. We're going to make bad choices and we will suffer for them, but we don't have to live there. We can always start over or try to revise those first attempts into a satisfying and compelling narrative. 

Here's how Lamott closed her address. Blessings to you.

So bless you. You’ve done an amazing thing. And you are loved; you are capable of lives of great joy and meaning. It’s what you are made of. And it’s what you’re for. So take care of yourselves; take care of each other. Thank you.