Plot Summary
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Anne Lamott
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1999
Plot Summary
In Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (1999), beloved American author Anne Lamott reflects on her spiritual journey and the often-small moments of grace that have taught her valuable lessons about life, love, loss, and faith. This collection of essays features Lamott's signature style of fearless spiritual exploration, unabashed honesty, expert storytelling, and wildly irreverent humor. The pieces that comprise this volume capture both the beauty and the pain of the well-examined life—and all the riches that spring from it.
Traveling Mercies opens with an overture in which Lamott discusses her initial steps toward the faithful life. This is not a natural progression or an easy transition for her. She comes from a dysfunctional home, raised by nonbelievers who place more value on intellect, literature, nature, and fancy cocktail parties than on questions of faith or morality. Yet, from an early age, Lamott rebels in her own singular ways. She prays. She finds refuge with her Catholic friends and relishes going to church with them. She smokes pot and feels a sacred connection with something bigger than herself.
Then, Lamott undergoes a sort of religious conversion. Hungover for the umpteenth time and feeling lost and unmoored in the world (she even lives on a houseboat), she wanders into a mostly African American church. There she finds a profound and abiding feeling of home and belonging, and all the spiritual experiences, mystical encounters, and seemingly random events of her life begin to take on a new shape and deeper meaning. Moreover, her own view of the world changes dramatically. Instead of seeing life through the lens of intellectual cynicism and cold examination, she dives in heart-first. She feels her way through this life, and, in the process, discovers the miracles in the here and now.
In the opening essay, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," Lamott relates the story of a scary plane ride she once had to take. As she plumbs her fear and trepidation with her hallmark courage and wit, she makes connections between the sense of community she finds onboard the plane and something she once saw unfold in her church. A man named Kenny, dying of AIDS, is no longer able to stand up, but he is singing along with the rest of the congregation, his whole heart in the music, though his body is thin, frail, and wasting. Meanwhile, Ranola, a large woman in the choir who never had much time for Kenny, is giving him side-eye and, Lamott assumes, passing judgment on Kenny's lifestyle. Then, as they sing "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," Ranola does something unexpected. She goes to Kenny, and she scoops him up into her arms, holding him to her chest, and they weep and sing together. Sometimes, Lamott suggests, the miracle is not the walking on water or turning the water into wine. It's the plane leveling back out again. It's the compassion and music bringing two people together in an inner-city church. It's our willingness to hold our fellow human being.
This essay sets the tone for the pieces that follow. Lamott revels in the glories of the mundane and the coincidences that seemingly point to a larger truth. She delves into major life events and relationships that have shaped and continue to shape her: the birth of her son, Sam; the death of her best friend, Pammy; rocky love affairs and enduring spiritual friendships; her hard mother and her unreachable father; and the social and political movements that fuel her. In all of these, she finds some aspect of God. This, Lamott says, is all a matter of perspective. "Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life when you’re secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction, but to gauge, miserably, the odds of rain?" she asks.
Nevertheless, the answers Lamott arrives at are not easily reached or simplistic. "Life does not seem to present itself to me for my convenience," she writes, "to box itself up nicely so I can write about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere." They take soul-searching, introspection, study, and a comprehensive understanding of religion, ritual, and psychology. Traveling Mercies is not a book of platitudes or easy answers. It is a rigorous moral inventory that exposes as much as it soothes, that challenges as much as it uplifts, that draws as many tears as it does laughs.
These essays are many things, but each one is its own small testament to the power of surrender. Lamott's surrender to her own powerlessness leads her to sobriety and to the church. Her surrender to reality—to things just as they are—helps her understand this life, its gross unfairness, its transient beauties, and enduring joys. Her surrender in relationships helps her see the interconnectedness of all life and the inherent lovability of all humanity. Perhaps most of all, her surrender is what introduces her—and her readers—to the concept of grace. "I do not at all understand the mystery of grace," she admits, "only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."
Traveling Mercies opens with an overture in which Lamott discusses her initial steps toward the faithful life. This is not a natural progression or an easy transition for her. She comes from a dysfunctional home, raised by nonbelievers who place more value on intellect, literature, nature, and fancy cocktail parties than on questions of faith or morality. Yet, from an early age, Lamott rebels in her own singular ways. She prays. She finds refuge with her Catholic friends and relishes going to church with them. She smokes pot and feels a sacred connection with something bigger than herself.
Then, Lamott undergoes a sort of religious conversion. Hungover for the umpteenth time and feeling lost and unmoored in the world (she even lives on a houseboat), she wanders into a mostly African American church. There she finds a profound and abiding feeling of home and belonging, and all the spiritual experiences, mystical encounters, and seemingly random events of her life begin to take on a new shape and deeper meaning. Moreover, her own view of the world changes dramatically. Instead of seeing life through the lens of intellectual cynicism and cold examination, she dives in heart-first. She feels her way through this life, and, in the process, discovers the miracles in the here and now.
In the opening essay, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," Lamott relates the story of a scary plane ride she once had to take. As she plumbs her fear and trepidation with her hallmark courage and wit, she makes connections between the sense of community she finds onboard the plane and something she once saw unfold in her church. A man named Kenny, dying of AIDS, is no longer able to stand up, but he is singing along with the rest of the congregation, his whole heart in the music, though his body is thin, frail, and wasting. Meanwhile, Ranola, a large woman in the choir who never had much time for Kenny, is giving him side-eye and, Lamott assumes, passing judgment on Kenny's lifestyle. Then, as they sing "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," Ranola does something unexpected. She goes to Kenny, and she scoops him up into her arms, holding him to her chest, and they weep and sing together. Sometimes, Lamott suggests, the miracle is not the walking on water or turning the water into wine. It's the plane leveling back out again. It's the compassion and music bringing two people together in an inner-city church. It's our willingness to hold our fellow human being.
This essay sets the tone for the pieces that follow. Lamott revels in the glories of the mundane and the coincidences that seemingly point to a larger truth. She delves into major life events and relationships that have shaped and continue to shape her: the birth of her son, Sam; the death of her best friend, Pammy; rocky love affairs and enduring spiritual friendships; her hard mother and her unreachable father; and the social and political movements that fuel her. In all of these, she finds some aspect of God. This, Lamott says, is all a matter of perspective. "Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life when you’re secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction, but to gauge, miserably, the odds of rain?" she asks.
Nevertheless, the answers Lamott arrives at are not easily reached or simplistic. "Life does not seem to present itself to me for my convenience," she writes, "to box itself up nicely so I can write about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere." They take soul-searching, introspection, study, and a comprehensive understanding of religion, ritual, and psychology. Traveling Mercies is not a book of platitudes or easy answers. It is a rigorous moral inventory that exposes as much as it soothes, that challenges as much as it uplifts, that draws as many tears as it does laughs.
These essays are many things, but each one is its own small testament to the power of surrender. Lamott's surrender to her own powerlessness leads her to sobriety and to the church. Her surrender to reality—to things just as they are—helps her understand this life, its gross unfairness, its transient beauties, and enduring joys. Her surrender in relationships helps her see the interconnectedness of all life and the inherent lovability of all humanity. Perhaps most of all, her surrender is what introduces her—and her readers—to the concept of grace. "I do not at all understand the mystery of grace," she admits, "only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."
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