What I’m reading: Traveling Mercies

It’s been a challenge to make time for reading in my already overpacked life, but it’s something that has fed and sustained me my whole life long. I can’t afford to abandon it. It’s just so hard since it’s the one thing I do that I can’t multitask. Even my knitting is done while listening to a podcast or watching TV.

But I’m going to do it. Thus: that goal over there in the sidebar. One book a week.

The first book I’ve finished this year I wanted to give special mention to, most books won’t get their own post, but I had to mention this one because I think it’s my current favorite. I’m so not the type to rank favorite movies or books or whatever, but for right now, this book has my heart.

Anne Lamott is my kind of lady, my kind of Christian, my kind of writer. Whenever I read a book of hers I want to write a whole book back in response. There’s something so relatable about her that her books seem more like a conversation than an expert spouting off from their enlightened sphere. And when she writes about Recovery or Faith, it’s the kind that resonates with me – not some holy untouched thing, but something worn and used and ragged. Her faith is a faith that isn’t about having the right answer to the big questions, but about just being sensitive. “I had no big theological thoughts but had discovered that if I said, Hello? to God, I could feel God say, Hello, back.”

I deal so much with people who are convinced that they are RIGHT, and want to discuss why they are RIGHT and how they are RIGHT, that reading something from someone who is content with the mystery of it all is like discovering a freshly made bed after a long hard travel. People of faith are supposed to not have answers for everything, that’s how faith works, and yet it’s more rare than you’d think to find someone who actually lives that way. “This is plenty of miracle for me to rest in now.”

Originally published at Reese Dixon What I’m reading: Traveling Mercies Reese Dixon - Motherhood and other creative adventures