Anne Lamott: This Is How We Will Come Through. This Is How We Shall Overcome.

What a blessed gift this is.

 Anne Lamott is a treasure. And she

reminds us how to hold ourselves and others

with compassion and love.

— Molly

Photo by Molly

This was written by Anne on November 4th...

At every single city I visited on my book tour, someone during the Q & A asked, “How do we keep hoping, when every single day—sometimes every few hours—something terrifying has happened.

I wish I had an easy answer, a nice Christian bumper sticker, a Zen koan or at least sedatives to distribute. But they would wear off and besides, some of us lost the right to any more sedatives when we kept ending up arrested or married. You know who you are.

In Genesis, God makes a covenant with Noah, and all the world’s people (marked by the symbol of a rainbow): God promises no more cataclysms on Her part, in exchange for the end of all human killing. No fine print. The deal is that if we break the covenant, chaos comes creeping back.

How well do you think this went? I’ll give you a minute.
Did we even make it through the first generation?
Needless to say, the chaos has gotten in.
I’m not going to name names.

“So now what?,” I asked my brilliant old friend Bill Rankin. He said during World War II, the Pope demanded peace or else. Stalin asked, “How many divisions does the Pope have?" Rankin said that what you have after the chaos returns is called history.

I hate that. History has been so awful, especially when organized religion or dictators are at the helm. History really does not work for me at all. I prefer movies.

But agreeing (bitterly) that we are in the midst of huge history, how do we not lose our minds, let alone keep hope and faith alive?

Well, the most obvious and immediate things are to stick together, and get thirsty people a glass of water, even our cranky self-obsessed selves. We practice radical self-care, which means we watch the mean self-talk, feed ourselves like we would feed a favorite auntie; we rest, read, etc. Eat dessert.

We remember to serve the poor and comfort the grieving. If we don’t, not even Jesus or Buddha or Bette Midler can help us.

But what else has always, throughout history, moved terrified people toward peace, and social justice? A few things. People pouring into the streets in protest of evil and insanity. The vote. (I am humming a little tune I just wrote, called Vote. So far, it goes Votevotevotevote, dum de dum, votevote.) Non-violent resistance and forgiveness.

Non-violent resistance changes the hearts of people who are hurting people. It stops wars. Mostly India was decolonized non-violently. Mostly the civil rights movement succeeded non-violently. Both were up against the greatest armed hate and ignorance.

Forgiveness is the most profound action of all: After the shootings at Mother Emanuel, the people spoke forgiveness. After all those girls were shot in the Amish classrooms, the people spoke forgiveness. They invited the wife of the shooter into the circle of mourning; her life had been smashed to pieces, too. They invited her to the memorial services.

Earth is forgiveness school. Horribly, this includes self-forgiveness, and that is going a tiny bit more slowly than I had hoped. Perhaps we will go deeply into this another time, but just for today: You are pre-approved. I promise. We tried to do the best we could. Some days went better than others. To quote Vonnegut, welcome to the monkey house.

We water that which is dry—ourselves, the homeless, our geraniums. We sneak in a little laughter—laughter is holiness wearing his or her favorite feather boa. And finally, we follow St. Wendell, who wrote, in Manifesto, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

That’s how we will come through. This is how we shall overcome.

— Anne Lamott