Anne Lamott’s priest friend Tom, how to get through: "Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe," he said. "Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe." Salon April 25, 2003

I got a lot of things that society had promised would make me whole and fulfilled - all the things that the culture tells you from preschool on will quiet the throbbing anxiety inside you - stature, the respect of colleagues, maybe even a kind of low-grade fame.

I just can't get over how much babies cry. I really had no idea what I was getting into. To tell you the truth, I thought it would be more like getting a cat.

Small is how blessings, healing, progress and increase occur.

No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way.

Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?

In a library, you can find small miracles and truth, and you might find something that will make you laugh so hard that you will get shushed, in the friendliest way. I have found sanctuary in libraries my whole life, and there is sanctuary there now, from the war, from the storms of our families and our own minds. Libraries are like mountains or meadows or creeks: sacred space. So this afternoon, I'll walk to the library.