You can tell if people are following Jesus, because they are fedding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance.

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 sat down in the sand, breathless with shame and failure. God, I thought, some defender of the weak. Some freedom fighter: Joan of Arc in sunscreen.

We were raised to believe in books, music, and nature.

It is unearned love--the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.

But you don't always get what you want;,you get what you get

When everything starts going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born.