Home > Work > Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
21 " We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you. "
― Anne Lamott , Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
22 " You celebrate what works and you take tender care of what doesn’t, with lotion, polish, and kindness. "
23 " 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 succes, or fame, or financial security - besides which, there ain't no such thing. "
24 " But you don't always get what you want;,you get what you get "
25 " When I asked Father Tom where we find God in this present darkness, he said that God is in creation, and to get outdoors as much as you can. "
26 " He lost the great big outward thing, the good- looking package, and the real parts endured. They shine through like crazy, the brillian mind and humor, the depth of generosity, the intense blue yes, those beautiful hands. "
27 " Our shadow is on the outside. And we can see in the dark: we can see you, we see you turn away, but one day we finally understand that you turn away not from our faces but from your own fears. From those things inside you that you think mark you as someone unlovable to your family, and society, and even to God. "
28 " One of the immutable laws of being human is that the people who show up are the right people. "
29 " But you are not your bank account, or your ambition. You're not the cold clay lump you leave behind when you die. You're not your collection of walking personality disorders. You are Spirit, you are love, and even though it is hard to believe sometimes, you are free. 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 - what will matter are memories of beauty, that people loved you, and that you loved them. "
30 " I've spent my whole life trying to get over having had Nikki for a mother, and I have to say that from day one after she died, I liked having a dead mother much more than having an impossible one. [p. 47] "
31 " I prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me--life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she could do. Unfortunately, the best she could do was terrible, thee the Minister of Silly Walks trying to raise an extremely sensitive young girl, and my heart remained hardened toward her. [p. 46] "
32 " I am positive of only a few things in life, and one is that if you want to have a decent middle and old age, you have to get exercise almost every day. "
33 " Her purse was a weight, ballast; it tethered her to the earth as her mind floated away. "
34 " One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness "
35 " In biblical times, they used to stone a few thirteen-year-olds with some regularity, which helped keep the others quiet and at home. The mothers were usually in the first row of stone throwers, and had to be restrained. "
36 " When you’re kind to people, and you pay attention, you make a field of comfort around them, and you get it back—the Golden Rule meets the Law of Karma meets Murphy’s Law. "
37 " One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness. "
38 " ... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66] "
39 " Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes- in not enough help, in brokenness, mess. High holy places, with ethereal sounds and stained glass, can massage my illusion of holiness, but in holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and the disruptions. "
40 " I kept my expectations low, which is one of the secrets of life. "