I remember getting emails from a very progressive woman who used the above Anne Lamott quote as her email signature. It is a great quote, of course; despite it being the only thing I've read by Anne Lamott (save for a few fragments here and there) until a few minutes ago, I have to confess that Ms. Lamott gets something wonderfully right in just 25.5 words.
Sadly (and it is sad), Ms. Lamott gets just about everything wrong in her Sept. 16 Salon.com essay, "A Call to Arms." This writer laments Ms. Lamott's great lamentation not solely because of its loathsome invocation and confession of hate, but because it bewilders the soul, as Ms. Lamott is known as something of a "Christian." Hence, her remarks draw attention to the fact that her Christ must be a projection of her own self-image.
Here is Anne Lamott on Sarah Palin's ascension to the vice-presidency:
I had to leave church Sunday morning when it turned out that the sermon was not about bearing up under desperate circumstances, when you feel like you're going crazy because something is being perpetrated upon you and your country that is so obscene that it simply cannot be happening.
I sat outside a 7-Eleven and had a sacramental Dove chocolate bar. Jeez: Here we are again. A man and a woman whose values we loathe and despise -- lying, rageful and incompetent, so dangerous to children and old people, to innocent people in every part of the world -- are being worshiped, exalted by the media, in a position to take a swing at all that is loveliest about this earth and what's left of our precious freedoms.
When I got home from church, I drank a bunch of water to metabolize the Dove bar and called my Jesuit friend, who I know hates these people, too. I asked, "Don't you think God finds these smug egomaniacs morally repellent? Recoils from their smugness as from hot flame?"
And he said, "Absolutely. They are everything He or She hates in a Christian."
I have been in a better mood ever since, and have decided not to even say this woman's name anymore, because she fills me with such existential doubt, such a sense of impending doom and disbelief, that only the Germans could possibly have words for it. Nor am I going to say the word "lipstick" again until after the election, as it would only be used against me. Or "polar bear," because that one image makes me sadder than even horrible old I can stand.
I hate to criticize. And I love to kill wolves as much as the next person does. But this woman takes such pride in her ignorance, doesn't have a doubt in the world about her messianic calling, that it makes anyone of decency feel nauseated -- spiritually, emotionally and physically ill.
I say that with love. As we say in Texas. (Also, we say, "Bless her heart.")
We felt this grief and nausea during the run-up to the war in Iraq. We felt it after the 2004 election. And now we feel it again.
[…]she is absolutely, hands-down the most ludicrous person ever to be nominated. She's a "South Park" character. There was a mix-up. Mistakes were made.
Everything you need to know about how to bear up during these two months is already inside you.… Now, I am a reform Christian, so it is permissible for me to secretly believe that God hates this woman, too.
Ms. Lamott, I recognize, is a writer. This fact should surely be offered as her excuse; she is exploring ideas, playing with words, exorcising her demons. Her writing is a catharsis; it is her coping strategy. As such, she cannot be held accountable for her actual words, or what those words mean: nay, only intent matters, and her intent to is self-medicate, to heal, offering analgesics to others along the way. She's offering potions. She's a medicine woman, and writing is her wagon.
Her strange elixir, however, is hardly helpful largely because it is plainly un-Christlike. Not that I am putting myself forward as an exemplar of Christian behavior; I haven't presented myself as such in the past and have no intention of doing so now. I am too busy trying to love myself the right way to even start hating anyone else. My own worst enemy is inside these very words; I haven't any need to blame anyone else for my woes. Of course, I do poke fun at others, particularly those folks in the media who seem (to me) to think they've somehow arrived ahead of the rest of us. But I do not hate these folks, nor do I call anyone "friend" who does. But Ms. Lamott DOES hate Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin not only makes Ms. Lamott "spiritually, emotionally and physically ill," she is likely hated by God Himself, or so Ms. Lamott intimates from beneath her un-Christlike sarcasm.
I take that last part -- that God secretly hates Sarah Palin -- as a bit of Lamott vanity. But even a woman of letters should perhaps be circumspect when invoking the Lord's Name, let alone His Hatred, in vain. But if Ms. Lamott believes that when she and He hate the same person she is committing self-generated idolatry, worshiping her finely apotheosized self, she leaves us precious little to hold onto: She's created God in her image and she either doesn't know it or she doesn't care.
Hence, she gives fearful import to that noble warning: what a dreadful thing it is to fall into the hands of thy God. I, at least, think being judged and damned by oneself is indeed a great thing to fear. All by myself, I have enough to fear. Is there not woe enough in the world without having to worry whether Anne Lamott and her God hate me, too?
©2008. All Rights Reserved.
HT: James Taranto
