If you aren't familiar with the wise American treasure Anne Lamott, I highly recommend her books. She is one of this generation's most honest, laugh-out-loud funny, gracious, truth-telling writers. She writes about faith, daily life, her family including her son, grandson and farting dog and she does so in a way that is so touchingly real and true. She will disarm you and charm you and have you laughing all within a few paragraphs.
Have faith? Lost faith? Been beaten up by faith? "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith" is a collection of inspiring essays that will touch your soul as Anne discusses her faith and battling her demons, including those of food, alcohol and relationships.
Surprised by a pregnancy? Ever raise a baby boy? "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year" will remind you of that unexpected first year, acknowledging the confusion and rage with the happiness and surprises.
Ever wanted to call yourself a writer? "Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" will help you see the opportunities that are there to find your voice and that small scripts are glorious triumphs for your creative spirit and your own voice.
But what Anne Lamott did last night is what this community should be celebrating. Join me below the orange fleur de Kos.
I was home last night in Texas waiting on the carpet cleaning guy John to come over and zap away my border collie Corky's middle-of-the-night, business-end Jackson Pollack painting on the new carpet in the dining room. I'm trying to sell the house, and Corky is clearly trying to sabotage that, but I swear he doesn't realize it and so Mom (me) has to plunk down over $100 to get someone with the super-duper, hoses coming out of the back of the truck with its own generator, to come over. It's coming out of his allowance, I assure you.
So, while we're waiting, I have on the PBS News Hour which televised the RNC from the end of the News Hour (7pm Central) through the rest of the evening to 10pm or so. I'm on the sofa with my iPhone in case the carpet guy calls. Scrolling Facebook, I see that Anne Lamott has a new post in my News Feed. I have subscribed to her for only a few months, but boy am I happy I finally did. Her posts are so well-written, funny, and she talks about real and serious and sometimes not-so-serious things and I just love and admire her so much for being so open and sharing her thoughts with others. She seems to tap into a feeling that many people share as we go about living the most ordinary moments of our lives. Her joys and struggles match our own.
At about 7pm, this status update from her appears in my News Feed:
Hi all of you, except for the gun nuts and Personhood people, who can save yourself a lot of grief by not reading this.
THIS IS ANNIE'S FUNDRAISING PAGE FOR OBAMA. There's not all that much we can do tonight, which will begin soon with Jeb Bush defending his big brother George...but we can raise some money.ight of the Republican convention. I've started this fund off with $250--that is a LOT of get-out-the-vote help, and the GOTV is what will determine whether Obama gets 4 more years, or American gets Romney/Ryan.
I've set a crazy goal of $10,000 for this fund-- but I've always heard that people who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those of us who are doing it. Will you donate today? Keep the faith!
Annie's Fundraising Page
I thought, "Cool. That's a nice thing to do. Hm, Jeb Bush is on. Blah blah blah. I hope people give to Anne Lamott's page..."
Well, the impact was immediate. Within about 10 minutes, she was up to $500. Within one hour, she met her goal of $10,000 for President Obama. By the time I went to bed four hours later, she was at nearly $20,000. Currently, she is at $28,564, nearly three times her goal.
"A crazy goal" of $10,000. Not so crazy after all! Most of the people who commented gave some money, a small handful mentioned that they were on board with Obama, but were giving already either monthly or some other way, and a small percentage were either Obama supporters who didn't understand Anne's humor and chastised her for starting out by name-calling (gun nuts and Personhood people) or people who said, nope, I'm for Romney/not for Obama but I'll keep reading you. A few others said good-bye and apparently "unliked" Anne's page. A few brought up that they liked their guns, but still liked Obama, and wondered if they and Anne can still like each other (I think so).
To put the "Personhood people" comment in context, and to give you a sample of Anne's writing style, here is that status update: (from her Facebook page)
I love this so much, because I just HAVE to say one thing about Paul Ryan: I am still ecstatic that he is Romney's choice. It's not the deep amazed joy I felt when the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare. It's more like a little social crack cocaine, and great relief. Paul Ryan's selection has given me new life; too good to be true. Let's put his tense little thoughts on the budget aside: He and Romney support PERSONHOOD. I am going to say that again. Ryan and Romney support PERSONHOOD, legal rights for fetilized eggs. Oh my god, this is fabulous. Personhood amendments make birth control pills illegal, because they cause death to our invisible fertilized friends, who are apparently as fully alive as the little Whos of Whoville. Now, ALL elections for me are largely about a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion. And no one here, including me, is going to change anyone's position on this--and we will miss you if you have to Un-Face me or whatever it is called when you stomp off. But only VERY crazy far-right people support Personhood. i don't even think Dick Cheney or Henry Kissinger support Personhood. But Ryan and Romney do. No abortion, even in the case of rape or incest, even if a woman's doctor KNOWS that a woman needs the procedure.
Here is what she says about guns, again from her Facebook page.
There's nothing much anyone can do, legislatively, especially not in an election year. It's like that famous Shel Siverstein cartoon of the two prisoners chained to the wall of the prison, and one of them saying to the other, "Okay, here's my plan..."
Mass shootings will continue to be a common part of the landscape in America, at movie thetares and malls.
Where on earth do we go from here?
All I can think to do is what we've always done. We work towards peace and non-violence. We register voters. We create art and music in the face of madness. We light candles. The praying people pray: Lord have mercy. The meditating people meditate. We create Love and beauty as radical acts We take care of the poor, and teach people to read and write. And as Molly Ivins would urge us to do if she were still here, we bang our pans. We rise up, peacefully, take to the streets and we bang our pans and we make a ruckus, and we stop this war, too.
She also has a new book coming out. I promise I am not her agent, but I would love for you to buy her books.
Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers will be released on November 13 from Riverhead Books.
I don't know how else to end this diary except to say, if you've got some extra dough here at the end/beginning of the month and can shoot it to Anne's Obama for America page, please do. If you're on Facebook consider "liking" Anne Lamott's page, and if you like to read, please consider one of her titles. I'm also reminded of pithy sayings like "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step" and other fortune-cookie like statements that somehow kind of point to how a spontaneous decision to see if some dollars can be coughed up for our imperfect but still courageous black prince of a president during the hate fest that the Other Folks are putting on can actually happen. Clint Eastwood, bless his heart, may also have helped here more than he knows. Sigh. So be it. Boy, did it happen, and gloriously. It was such fun to have this total to keep watching all night as the carpet guy cleaned up Corky's poo and in spite of the hateful, pandering, wicked lying that was spewing from the teevee coverage of that overlit, ugly stage in Tampa (with an exception for the Romney grandchildren after the balloon drop, because they looked so much like they were having fun and it was so pure and innocent and they don't know yet that they are going to be required to be heartless Masters of the Universe, too, some day).
Forward. Thank you and blessings, Anne Lamott!