Reading this book has truly made me experience a wonderful feeling. It is not only funny and honest but also interspersed with some profanity. However, in the end, each and every essay within it is life-affirming and love-affirming.
She is so excellent that she even made me contemplate going to church at some point. This is no insignificant matter. I am a non-religious person, yet I am open-minded. But I usually get extremely bored during sermons, either feeling bored or alienated.
The last time I attempted to visit a Christian church - which was the first time since high school - the guest speaker spent a full 45 minutes informing us that we were God's chosen ones. Then she lamented the fact that she couldn't convert a Jewish man before he met a gruesome end by killing himself at his office. In her mind, the cause of his death was the absence of Jesus in his life.
True believers like this both frighten me and make me yawn, or simply irritate me to the core. They give Christians a bad reputation.
Anne Lamott, on the other hand, gives Christians a good name. She is not perfect. She doesn't pass judgment on people who are different from her. Instead, she struggles daily to stay close to God, maintain an open mind, and be kind to herself and others.
Reading her essays has inspired me to strive for a more mindful, generous, and helpful life, especially when it is inconvenient and challenging to do so.