Anne Lamott: Love Is Why We Have Hope

This is another post from three years ago that is worth sharing again. I had just experienced the incredible pleasure and joy of seeing Anne Lamott speak at Powell's Books in Portland. Such a gift. This is excerpted from her latest book. This is also for Thanksgiving. What could be more important to give thanks for than Love?

With love & blessings,

Molly

 

With Anne Lamott, Powell's Books, November 2018

I am stockpiling antibiotics for the apocalypse, even as I await the blossoming of paperwhites on the windowsill in the kitchen. The news of late has captured the fever dream of modern life: everything exploding, burning, being shot, or crashing to ground all around us, while growing older has provided me with a measure of perspective and equilibrium, and a lovely, long-term romance. Towns and cities, ice fields, democracy, people — all disappear, while we rejoice and thrive in the spring and the sweetness of old friendships. Families are tricky. There is so much going on that flattens us, that is huge, scary, or simply appalling. We're doomed, stunned, exhausted, and overcaffeinated. 

And yet, outside my window, yellow roses bloom, and little kids horse around, making a joyous racket.

In general, it doesn't feel like the light is making a lot of progress. It feels like death by annoyance. At the same time, the truth is that we are beloved, even in our current condition, by someone; we have loved and been loved. We have also known the abyss of love lost to death or rejection, and that it somehow leads to new life. We have been redeemed and saved by love, even as a few times we have been nearly destroyed, and worse, seen our children nearly destroyed. We are who we love, we are one, and we are autonomous.

Love has bridged the high-rises of despair we were about to fall between. Love has been a penlight in the blackest, bleakest nights. Love has been a wild animal, a poultice, a dinghy, a coat. Love is why we have hope.

— Anne Lamott

Excerpted from Almost Everything: 

Notes on Hope*

(*A title Anne says she changed from

We're Doomed. Ha!)